Long Game 41: INSTABILITY

[DrakeMarshall]

9 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

My vote will go on Drought.

For what it's worth, I pretty much agree that either yourself or Drought is an eliminator. If you are innocent, Drought would be my next choice (provided our resident unstable mistborn doesn't do the job for us). That said, I reached my decision between the two of you already.

11 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

It seems to me that I'm the only player that was aware of the elim win condition.

Well, I bet Ornstein knew it too...

 

Also, if this lynch happens to be successful, we will need to make catching the unstable mistborn our priority. I'd even recommend Lurcher 2 protect suspected eliminators at that point.

[Steeldancer]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Well, I can't say much more than I did D1; my honest opinion is that lynching an inactive is an easy out from a lynch. I would have joined literally any bandwagon to lynch someone besides Asterion or any other inactive.

@ShaneysRus, @Steeldancer: Could you two please elaborate? What about my posts was "a little bit off?" Where did this "sneaky feeling" come from?

It seems to me that I'm the only player that was aware of the elim win condition. If I hadn't spoken up, the elims could have easily lynched Joe and won. Especially if Straw is village, since his vote would have made their job that much easier.

@Droughtbringer My vote will go on Drought. Mostly because of the following post:

What about this post does remotely anything to generate discussion? I was already active, had a vote placed, and publicly stated my intentions about possibly moving my vote to Steeldancer (to prevent a last minute bandwagon by the elims, since Steeldancer was my #1 suspect that also already had a vote on himself). There was no threat of me getting lynched last cycle, so I didn't even feel compelled to respond to this post back then. This post is faking an active role in discussion while not actually contributing anything useful, save for its content as being suspicious. And while I personally consider it largely NAI, Drought also was against lynching Ornstein both before and after the two wagons got going.

It's one of those hunches, you know? You get that feeling that their posts are just a bit... off. For me, that's not enough to vote. But in conjunction with your sudden hopping on the Asterion lynch is what is why I am really suspicious of you. 

[Droughtbringer]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

What about this post does remotely anything to generate discussion? I was already active, had a vote placed, and publicly stated my intentions about possibly moving my vote to Steeldancer (to prevent a last minute bandwagon by the elims, since Steeldancer was my #1 suspect that also already had a vote on himself). There was no threat of me getting lynched last cycle, so I didn't even feel compelled to respond to this post back then. This post is faking an active role in discussion while not actually contributing anything useful, save for its content as being suspicious. And while I personally consider it largely NAI, Drought also was against lynching Ornstein both before and after the two wagons got going.

This! (see above quote) is discussion!

You see, the way that you are reacting to my vote gives us information. The way that I respond, etc. all gives us information. So, although it wasn't a instant Discussion Generator, it still does generate discussion.

Continuing on through your posts:

In general I am getting a villager read from your posts, you seem to want what is best for the village, but I still have a feeling that something is off in them. I can't point it out, but it is just a bit of a gut read. This may be from one of the past games I've played with you, though. So I'm not going to be pushing a lynch on you, but I won't be defending you at all. 

(And this post has an extremely "I'm washing my hands of this" type of feel to it...

So new person!

 

I think that @Darkness_ has been sounding suspicious; he has a sarcastic sounding tone to his posts, and hasn't put forth much useful discussion in his posts, which may be his play style (Don't remember the last game I played with him) or could be the fact that he is an eilm, and trying to distance himself from the thread. So, my vote will be going on Darkness for now.

[nutellaspren]

Skimming over D1 again I'm finding myself suspecting Droughtbringer a fair amount for his araris vote, attitude against lynching ornstein/inactives in general and his switch to asterion. Araris looks much more town than Drought imo in the current discussion.

[Araris Valerian]

@nutellaspren lynching inactives is unhelpful 9 times out of 10. An inactive player hasn't participated in discussion, and there is little reason for elims to defend an inactive teammate. This game is a weird case where we had two bandwagons, both people died, and there was an inactive elim on D1. Not to mention that we were forced to lynch someone or risk losing the game. All of that together means that the elims might have tried to defend their teammate, but as a general rule I agree with Drought that lynching inactives is a bad policy. I mean, an inactive elim still loses if they are the last player left, since they can't send in kills.

[nutellaspren]

Yeah I do agree with that in general (I didn't participate in either the inactive lynch or the counterwagon, and was pretty surprised when the inactive actually flipped bad, it's pretty lucky/rare for that to happen on D1 in my experience). Idk, I just found Droughtbringer's vote activity, and his discussion of you in particular, to sound fishy.

[Seonid]

It's too quiet around here.

Probably the holiday has something to do with it, though. I had family over yesterday, and will be doing more family things today.

Brief thoughts, to be followed by a vote later in the day if the opportunity arises:

Ok, the mistborn killed Devotary - a good call on their part, they were the most suspicious of the asterion swing bunch. Araris' caution about the possibility of an Elim bus on Ornstein is well-taken. (It could just be the remarks of an Eliminator trying to direct attention away from their attempt to save a compatriot, though.)

Now I'll add my voice to the discussion on inactivity, a direct rebuttal to @Araris Valerian and @Droughtbringer - this bit is a bit meta, but since it involves this game, I'll keep it in this thread instead of moving the discussion to the SE meta thread:

The vast majority of our games seem like they are plagued with high inactivity, starting from D1. This is exacerbated by a trend of anemic D1 discussion followed by a lynch on a target that is often only lynched because the established consensus says that lynching D1 is ideal. From there, the game settles into a pattern of lynching the most prolific or active players because they put out enough volume that something in there looks suspicious. After a game has followed up that pattern, the endgame is seldom interesting. I've personally played a game where the endgame consisted of 4 active players, almost none of whom posted more than two or three times in the cycle. There was almost no discussion, and there were still more than a dozen players nominally in the game.

Now, the established consensus is correct in the abstract. In Mafia, forgoing a D1 lynch is a poor play. But in our recent games, we often come to the end with only one or two of our players contributing at all. There is a decent amount of discussion going on about how we can implement high-level community standards to deal with the situation, but any long-term, sustainable solution has to come from the players themselves, as a community. One of the contributing factors to the problem is that we tend to lynch the most active and talkative players. Mostly because, in an environment where most of the players say little to nothing, the players that actually post end up making incriminating mistakes - generally regardless of whether they are Elims or town.

Now, it is often the optimal play - and I'm not suggesting that we deliberately play sub-optimally. However, on D1, there is often so little information to go on that lynching an inactive could allow active players to talk and say more over the course of the game. As a result, our later lynches would be more informed, as there would be more interactions between players to build suspicions off of and to analyze after the alignment flip. Certainly, the D1 inactive lynch garners almost nothing on its own, but I feel it makes up for it by improving the quality of later cycle's discussion. In fact, it might be a decent delaying play on its own - if we don't have any good leads, lynching an inactive is better than building a weak case against someone who is actually contributing to the game. Take a short-term hit on the amount of information gained in the immediate future in anticipation of a long-term payoff.

Again, I don't advocate choosing plays that are obviously against the best interest of the town. If the discussion D1 has been fruitful, and somebody has gathered a great deal of suspicion, and as a result there is an obvious lynch choice (or several that are being argued over), then that's wonderful and my suggestion doesn't apply. And the end goal of our community ought to be to get to the place where every game goes like that, where only a couple of players or even none at all are long-term inactive.

Like I said, this as all been a little bit meta, and I'm sorry to sidetrack the discussion. I'll be back after church and family holiday gatherings to reappraise the gamestate and make longer, more intelligent commentary that can hopefully put my money where my mouth is wrt activity and contributing to the game.

Finally, @A Joe in the Bush, is there any way we can get a 24 hour extension, in recognition of the holiday? For myself, it would be helpful, and I expect that others find themselves in similar situations.

[DrakeMarshall]

29 minutes ago, Seonid said:

The vast majority of our games seem like they are plagued with high inactivity, starting from D1. This is exacerbated by a trend of anemic D1 discussion followed by a lynch on a target that is often only lynched because the established consensus says that lynching D1 is ideal. From there, the game settles into a pattern of lynching the most prolific or active players because they put out enough volume that something in there looks suspicious. After a game has followed up that pattern, the endgame is seldom interesting. I've personally played a game where the endgame consisted of 4 active players, almost none of whom posted more than two or three times in the cycle. There was almost no discussion, and there were still more than a dozen players nominally in the game.

Now, the established consensus is correct in the abstract. In Mafia, forgoing a D1 lynch is a poor play. But in our recent games, we often come to the end with only one or two of our players contributing at all. There is a decent amount of discussion going on about how we can implement high-level community standards to deal with the situation, but any long-term, sustainable solution has to come from the players themselves, as a community. One of the contributing factors to the problem is that we tend to lynch the most active and talkative players. Mostly because, in an environment where most of the players say little to nothing, the players that actually post end up making incriminating mistakes - generally regardless of whether they are Elims or town.

Now, it is often the optimal play - and I'm not suggesting that we deliberately play sub-optimally. However, on D1, there is often so little information to go on that lynching an inactive could allow active players to talk and say more over the course of the game. As a result, our later lynches would be more informed, as there would be more interactions between players to build suspicions off of and to analyze after the alignment flip. Certainly, the D1 inactive lynch garners almost nothing on its own, but I feel it makes up for it by improving the quality of later cycle's discussion. In fact, it might be a decent delaying play on its own - if we don't have any good leads, lynching an inactive is better than building a weak case against someone who is actually contributing to the game. Take a short-term hit on the amount of information gained in the immediate future in anticipation of a long-term payoff.

Again, I don't advocate choosing plays that are obviously against the best interest of the town. If the discussion D1 has been fruitful, and somebody has gathered a great deal of suspicion, and as a result there is an obvious lynch choice (or several that are being argued over), then that's wonderful and my suggestion doesn't apply. And the end goal of our community ought to be to get to the place where every game goes like that, where only a couple of players or even none at all are long-term inactive.

Like I said, this as all been a little bit meta, and I'm sorry to sidetrack the discussion. I'll be back after church and family holiday gatherings to reappraise the gamestate and make longer, more intelligent commentary that can hopefully put my money where my mouth is wrt activity and contributing to the game.

Okay... Hm.

I think this might be a policy I could get behind.

[Droughtbringer]

20 hours ago, nutellaspren said:

Yeah I do agree with that in general (I didn't participate in either the inactive lynch or the counterwagon, and was pretty surprised when the inactive actually flipped bad, it's pretty lucky/rare for that to happen on D1 in my experience). Idk, I just found Droughtbringer's vote activity, and his discussion of you in particular, to sound fishy.

The switch to Asterion was simply to try and prevent an inactive from getting lynched. I personally prefer to have a game where I lose, where everyone is active, then a game where I win where I am the only one active. This means that, to come closer to achieving this, we can not just lynch the inactives, but need to reach out and encourage them to come back into the game. That being said, we also need (sorry, meta stuff) to generally encourage everyone to participate in discussion, and have some form of punishment if they don't, but I don't think just lynching them is the best way to do this. Inactives really, just end up breaking the balance on games.

I just want discussion, really. If it sounds fishy so be it, but I just want to make sure that we take a look at everyone that we have not hard cleared for the village, and even then we still need to be careful. This doesn't apply yet, but I think that we should be talking a look at every person playing, and not just the people who are immediately suspicious.

 

EDIT: The extension would be nice

Edited December 31, 2017 by Droughtbringer
Add on

[Steeldancer]

Well, I'm following the conversation and I'm still not entirely sure how this turned into a meta issue, but I'm not sure how its an immediate issue. Are you saying that instead of lynching araris, we should lynch an inactive? What do we do when inactives don't come back? Whether Ornstein turned out elim or not, he was detracting from the game by virtue of not contributing, and he hadn't been on the Shard for several days. How are we supposed to get people to come back who just.. don't come back? It's not like we aren't trying to get people to get back. We are tagging people, lynching people, trying to get people to contribute...

[DrakeMarshall]

33 minutes ago, Steeldancer said:

Well, I'm following the conversation and I'm still not entirely sure how this turned into a meta issue, but I'm not sure how its an immediate issue. Are you saying that instead of lynching araris, we should lynch an inactive? What do we do when inactives don't come back? Whether Ornstein turned out elim or not, he was detracting from the game by virtue of not contributing, and he hadn't been on the Shard for several days. How are we supposed to get people to come back who just.. don't come back? It's not like we aren't trying to get people to get back. We are tagging people, lynching people, trying to get people to contribute...

@Seonid, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was referring more specifically to D1 lynches.

From a meta perspective, I don't see any problem with lynching Araris or Drought this cycle.

His point was that D1 lynches tend not to be informed or useful in the first place. At the beginning of the game, killing an active player gives barely more information than killing an inactive player, but the long-term cost to game discussion is non-trivial.

[Seonid]

9 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

@Seonid, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was referring more specifically to D1 lynches.

From a meta perspective, I don't see any problem with lynching Araris or Drought this cycle.

His point was that D1 lynches tend not to be informed or useful in the first place. At the beginning of the game, killing an active player gives barely more information than killing an inactive player, but the long-term cost to game discussion is non-trivial.

That's exactly my point

[Araris Valerian]

@Seonid my opinion is that there isn't really a good player response to inactivity. Last cycle the end result was useful for two reasons, but as I mentioned earlier that is due to the particular mechanics of this game and the result of the die roll. Also, asterion was not totally inactive, but present and choosing not to participate. So the two wagons weren't inactive versus active, they were lurker versus inactive.

@Steeldancer, @ShaneysRus, I understand that you are suspicious of me. However, it isn't too helpful to leave your vote on me and have done with the discussion. What are your thoughts on players that weren't involved in the two wagons? Of the players that voted for Ornstein, who are you most suspicious of? If Drought and I were both dead, who would you be voting for?

The following players haven't posted this cycle:

@Straw, @Hemalurgic Headshot, @Darkness_, @shanerockes, and @Aspen. You guys are nearly 1/2 of the living players.

I'm going to withdraw from Drought now, since I think I've gotten my point across about him. And if I get lynched and flip village, I would prefer you guys lynch Drake rather than Drought. I think Drake might be trying to lead the village through a chain of lynches. He was the 3rd vote on Asterion, but then tried to distance himself from the result of the lynch. His post about dying in the night would be very safe to make as an elim (unless he got mistborned, I suppose).

I think Nuttalla is village, and probably Steeldancer as well. My next suspicion would be Seonid.

[DrakeMarshall]

50 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

 

The following players haven't posted this cycle:

@Straw, @Hemalurgic Headshot, @Darkness_, @shanerockes, and @Aspen. You guys are nearly 1/2 of the living players.

That is a little concerning.

In fairness, holidays might play into that. I figure we can hope many of those folks will be back soon.

Still... I kind of wish we had a stronger inactivity filter in this game.

50 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

 

I'm going to withdraw from Drought now, since I think I've gotten my point across about him. And if I get lynched and flip village, I would prefer you guys lynch Drake rather than Drought. I think Drake might be trying to lead the village through a chain of lynches. He was the 3rd vote on Asterion, but then tried to distance himself from the result of the lynch. His post about dying in the night would be very safe to make as an elim (unless he got mistborned, I suppose).

I think Nuttalla is village, and probably Steeldancer as well. My next suspicion would be Seonid.

Believe it or not, but I was waiting for you to do this.

Actually, I suspect that if you hadn't been caught up in self-defense, you would have done it immediately after I accused you.

Regardless, this doesn't really change my read of the situation. If I am wrong about you, I will accept the consequences, though I will note that this risks creating a chain of lynches, which is the very thing you've accused me of doing.

Incidentally, I don't recall ever distancing myself from the Asterion lynch. I openly accept responsibility for making a bad decision. Though I won't be too hard on myself, because I had so little information to base my decision off of.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Drake Marshall
fixed typo, "every" to "ever"

[Araris Valerian]

Well if you actually are village and do lynch me, then just be careful. Unfortunately there are a lot of people that aren't contributing right now. Seonid kinda hit the nail on the head; a large part of the reason I'm voting for you is that you are one of the only people that has said enough for me to form any sort of opinion, and I fully acknowledge that it's a stretch. I'm just worried because nobody seems to have a problem with lynching me this cycle. So if I flip village, you guys should consider either that the village is being led by an elim, or that the elims are lurking since we haven't locked onto them.

[Aspen]

So sorry about my inactivity. I'm still getting used to this. But I'll do my best to stay on top of things. 

As for the game, I have to agree with @Araris Valerian and put my vote on Drake

 

[Steeldancer]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Seonid my opinion is that there isn't really a good player response to inactivity. Last cycle the end result was useful for two reasons, but as I mentioned earlier that is due to the particular mechanics of this game and the result of the die roll. Also, asterion was not totally inactive, but present and choosing not to participate. So the two wagons weren't inactive versus active, they were lurker versus inactive.

@Steeldancer, @ShaneysRus, I understand that you are suspicious of me. However, it isn't too helpful to leave your vote on me and have done with the discussion. What are your thoughts on players that weren't involved in the two wagons? Of the players that voted for Ornstein, who are you most suspicious of? If Drought and I were both dead, who would you be voting for?

The following players haven't posted this cycle:

@Straw, @Hemalurgic Headshot, @Darkness_, @shanerockes, and @Aspen. You guys are nearly 1/2 of the living players.

I'm going to withdraw from Drought now, since I think I've gotten my point across about him. And if I get lynched and flip village, I would prefer you guys lynch Drake rather than Drought. I think Drake might be trying to lead the village through a chain of lynches. He was the 3rd vote on Asterion, but then tried to distance himself from the result of the lynch. His post about dying in the night would be very safe to make as an elim (unless he got mistborned, I suppose).

I think Nuttalla is village, and probably Steeldancer as well. My next suspicion would be Seonid.

I don't quite have negative reads on anyone, so idk who else I would vote on. However, I have fairly strong village read on Drake and Seonid. That's pretty much it, I need people to talk more in order to get reads. 

So, I ask, if this is mainly about the day one lynch, why aren't we discussing this in the meta thread? It's a great discussion, I just feel like it's not entirely relevant to the current lynch. 

[Sart]

My gut is clearly evil, considering I nearly botched a lynch on an Eliminator and got a village member killed. I'm just going to take the cowardly option, and try to kill another inactive. To clarify, I wasn't against lynching Ornstein, I was just more in favor of lynching someone who saw the thread, but still went inactive. I'll vote for Shanerockes, since he hasn't posted since he signed up for the game.

[DrakeMarshall]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Well if you actually are village and do lynch me, then just be careful. Unfortunately there are a lot of people that aren't contributing right now. Seonid kinda hit the nail on the head; a large part of the reason I'm voting for you is that you are one of the only people that has said enough for me to form any sort of opinion, and I fully acknowledge that it's a stretch. I'm just worried because nobody seems to have a problem with lynching me this cycle. So if I flip village, you guys should consider either that the village is being led by an elim, or that the elims are lurking since we haven't locked onto them.

Hmmm this post reads differently to me than the prior ones 

I need to think for a bit about this.

[A Joe in the Bush]

4 hours ago, Seonid said:

Finally, @A Joe in the Bush, is there any way we can get a 24 hour extension, in recognition of the holiday? For myself, it would be helpful, and I expect that others find themselves in similar situations.

 

4 hours ago, Droughtbringer said:

EDIT: The extension would be nice

If a third person agrees, then yes.

[ShaneysRus]

4 hours ago, Seonid said:

is there any way we can get a 24 hour extension, in recognition of the holiday?

This would be really really helpful. I'll try to get on and catch up by the end of the cycle if not, though.

[DrakeMarshall]

I think either Araris or Drought is likely to be an elim. I doubt both are.

I think there has to be one other elim out there, and I think that elim is probably inactive/lurking.

If Araris were guilty, I would then probably look closer at Aspen. If Drought were guilty, I would then probably look closer at ShaneysRus.

Both Araris and Drought seem plausible.

 

However. There's something we're not considering. The unstable mistborn.

What if we got this lynch right? I figure there'd probably be only one elim left as the night cycle started. The unstable mistborn would pretty much get a clear shot at ending the game, and unless we have a lurcher 2 that is both active and capable of outguessing the mistborn, this would be out of our control.

Personally, I'd rather avoid that risk. I predict that the unstable mistborn, if they are active, should be able to finish the eliminator team in about... 3 nights, about? Also keep in mind that the unstable mistborn has vote manipulation powers and takes two cycles to lynch properly.

If we, as the village, focus mainly on the elims, we will be playing into the unstable mistborn's hand. This game is meant to be a triangle. The unstable mistborn kills elims. The elims kill village. The village kills the unstable mistborn. If we focus instead on the elims, it will go poorly for us.

I propose we turn up the pressure on the unstable mistborn, and direct our efforts to lynching them, instead of an eliminator.

To the unstable mistborn: I offer you a challenge. I believe the current information is sufficient to give you a fighting chance. You will race to kill off the eliminators, while we will race to kill off you. I'd recommend starting with Araris or Drought, but I leave that up to you (if either Araris or Drought is in fact the unstable mistborn, that would be quite entertaining).

 

With that, I believe it is in order to remove my vote from Araris, although I still believe there is a fair chance that they are one of the elims.

...and now this is the difficult part. Finding the unstable mistborn will be rather difficult, because they, like a normal villager, want to kill elims. I think perhaps our best bet is to look at people trying to draw discussion away from the unstable mistborn, but seeing as before now I've kind of been ignoring this role it's hard to fault others for doing so.

16 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

If a third person agrees, then yes.

If nobody objects, I will voice my support for the extension. Such an extension would be appreciated.

[A Joe in the Bush]

This Cycle is hereby extended by 24 hours. The Cycle ends in

[Araris Valerian]

I'll be completely without internet access on the 2nd, so an extension means I would miss the night cycle (assuming I'm still alive). However, my role isn't that helpful, so I'm fine with an extension.

[Steeldancer]

36 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I think either Araris or Drought is likely to be an elim. I doubt both are.

I think there has to be one other elim out there, and I think that elim is probably inactive/lurking.

If Araris were guilty, I would then probably look closer at Aspen. If Drought were guilty, I would then probably look closer at ShaneysRus.

Both Araris and Drought seem plausible.

 

However. There's something we're not considering. The unstable mistborn.

What if we got this lynch right? I figure there'd probably be only one elim left as the night cycle started. The unstable mistborn would pretty much get a clear shot at ending the game, and unless we have a lurcher 2 that is both active and capable of outguessing the mistborn, this would be out of our control.

Personally, I'd rather avoid that risk. I predict that the unstable mistborn, if they are active, should be able to finish the eliminator team in about... 3 nights, about? Also keep in mind that the unstable mistborn has vote manipulation powers and takes two cycles to lynch properly.

If we, as the village, focus mainly on the elims, we will be playing into the unstable mistborn's hand. This game is meant to be a triangle. The unstable mistborn kills elims. The elims kill village. The village kills the unstable mistborn. If we focus instead on the elims, it will go poorly for us.

I propose we turn up the pressure on the unstable mistborn, and direct our efforts to lynching them, instead of an eliminator.

To the unstable mistborn: I offer you a challenge. I believe the current information is sufficient to give you a fighting chance. You will race to kill off the eliminators, while we will race to kill off you. I'd recommend starting with Araris or Drought, but I leave that up to you (if either Araris or Drought is in fact the unstable mistborn, that would be quite entertaining).

 

With that, I believe it is in order to remove my vote from Araris, although I still believe there is a fair chance that they are one of the elims.

...and now this is the difficult part. Finding the unstable mistborn will be rather difficult, because they, like a normal villager, want to kill elims. I think perhaps our best bet is to look at people trying to draw discussion away from the unstable mistborn, but seeing as before now I've kind of been ignoring this role it's hard to fault others for doing so.

If nobody objects, I will voice my support for the extension. Such an extension would be appreciated.

The only issue I have with your plan is my own estimations predict 4 elims, given village powers. But given that we only have 15 people or so, I guess that's a good plan. 

The best idea I had for finding the mistborn is using thug 2, to predict their kills and then they would be attacked. This would reveal them. 

However, for the moment I will be keeping my vote on Araris. 

Edited January 1, 2018 by Steeldancer