Long Game 46: A Land War in Asia

[Mr Doctor]

5 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

1. I said nothing about this game in particular; the behavior you are describing is always alignment indicative, much more so than being properly inactive. Choosing not to participate when one manifestly has the time to do so is dubious, doubtful, and dicey.

2. Dislike is a strong word, but I do find that behavior more typical of an eliminator than a villager. Do you have an alternative suggestion for how to use votes? As you recently wrote, "this is the best time to weigh in on suspicion." Would you like to rethink, review, or revise that statement?

3. I didn't ask you not to vote. That is inconceivable. Implausible. Incogitable. I do what I can to encourage everybody to vote at all times  Voting is unequivocally a good behavior, but a vote without a suspicion backing it this late in the game is alignment indicative.

4. I gave three distinct and succinct points about why I think one of them is an elim, four if you count gut read as a reason. I don't really have anything to add; I would just be using highly fashionable synonyms to restate, rehash, and recapitulate.

1. I see, now I am aware, and it at last makes sense. I completely misunderstood, misled myself, and proved myself to be a buffoon of the highest order. You used the word "game" in a different context and I thought that you were talking about LG46, when really you were talking about "voting games". 
2. I meant it not as an accusation, nor to point fingers, and neither still to cast suspicion upon you. I wanted to understand the typical shape of mid-to-late game, and how things changed as more information came to light, and I didn't understand why you said what you did. Thank you, you have my gratitude, and I salute you in respect for revealing your reasons. As you can tell, I'm trying to learn this game at the same time as play it, and so it leads to lots of questions and queries. I do not wish to reconsider that statement, and neither shall I revoke or rescind it, as it referred more to providing analysis and contributing to the discussion.
3. That makes sense. So in the early game, poke voting and more-or-less random votes is normal, but in late game, unfounded votes become more AI. Yeah, I understand now.
4. "Analysis" to me involves a decent amount of quoting and analysis of specific posts, but that's almost certainly me projecting how I try to analyse people. I find it a lot more difficult to determine motive from a player's general pattern of actions, and so I do a lot more low-level analysis of posts, which (as you can see) involves a lot of quoting. Seeing someone who doesn't do that is strange, alien, and bamboozling to me, but that does not invalidate the techniques of others. If I were to make that claim, I would be rude, unpleasant, and terribly uncivil.

[Dalinar Kholin]

First, yay for pinch hitters! Please be active! I suspect an elim is among you, so participating will help us root them out! I'm very confused at the elims right now. Bort kept his vote on Doc12 until the last moment, meaning he never came back on to check (even though he knew I had voted on him). That strikes me as sort of odd behavior for an elim. Did he think he would be saved by miracle max? That could explain it, after all, we've given credit to self defense behavior on the part of Randuir before, so it wouldn't be held against him necessarilly. Otherwise, it could just be lack of elim coordination (which could also explain the no vote manipulation).

Also, I'm considering the lack of items. At first I thought it might mean the elims had used a dagger or rum in the past, buuuut, not everyone needs to have an item, so it's hard to so whether it means anything.

I'm not sure what I think of the strong defense of Randuir by Bort. Bort didn't think that Bort was about to be lynched, so no reason to connect with a village (get a village lynched and put village of the elims tracks). Or Bort could have been trying to defend an elim friend (but why so openly?). The only reason I can think of is that the elims were desperate (perhaps a lot of inactives?). Or Bort could have been trying to appear village when Rand flipped village. Of these I'm not sure what I think is true at the moment, but I'm going to take a day to consider the Rand lynch. 

Other thoughts, I like the straw lynch if he doesn't show up. I don't like the Walin lynch at the moment (but @Walin Why would you want to be neutral if you're a village? Seriously, your playstyle will get you lynched eventually, just because that's not a good village precedent.)

My theoretical analysis concludes consequentially that in all probability there would seem to appear an indication of there existing a possibility of appearing or being present evil! Snipexe. Either that or Mr. Doctor. I suspect one or the other is evil. Way to be active @Mr Doctor ! Your amount of content and analysis has been amazing. 

[DrakeMarshall]

29 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

1. I see, now I am aware, and it at last makes sense. I completely misunderstood, misled myself, and proved myself to be a buffoon of the highest order. You used the word "game" in a different context and I thought that you were talking about LG46, when really you were talking about "voting games". 
2. I meant it not as an accusation, nor to point fingers, and neither still to cast suspicion upon you. I wanted to understand the typical shape of mid-to-late game, and how things changed as more information came to light, and I didn't understand why you said what you did. Thank you, you have my gratitude, and I salute you in respect for revealing your reasons. As you can tell, I'm trying to learn this game at the same time as play it, and so it leads to lots of questions and queries. I do not wish to reconsider that statement, and neither shall I revoke or rescind it, as it referred more to providing analysis and contributing to the discussion.
3. That makes sense. So in the early game, poke voting and more-or-less random votes is normal, but in late game, unfounded votes become more AI. Yeah, I understand now.
4. "Analysis" to me involves a decent amount of quoting and analysis of specific posts, but that's almost certainly me projecting how I try to analyse people. I find it a lot more difficult to determine motive from a player's general pattern of actions, and so I do a lot more low-level analysis of posts, which (as you can see) involves a lot of quoting. Seeing someone who doesn't do that is strange, alien, and bamboozling to me, but that does not invalidate the techniques of others. If I were to make that claim, I would be rude, unpleasant, and terribly uncivil.

1. On the contrary, you have not proven yourself to be a buffoon of the highest order. Double meanings are a strange inversion of synonyms, and therefore I choose to interpret the invocation of a double meaning as a very profound social commentary on fashion, fads, frivolity. 

2. A fair point, proposition, punch-line. Questions are good, great, gainful.

3. Your mileage may vary on what I deem "alignment-indicative" but yes, you are correct, comprehending, clear-sighted.

4. In general, you are quite right. That's how most people do analysis. In fact, that's often how I do analysis. I am trying something different, distinct, divergent. I am trying to be concise. Compact. Condensed.

[Snipexe]

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

That's a fair reason, but I disagree with parts of it. The timeline doesn't really work out. If I wanted to save Bort, I could have voted on Fifth, who was already at 2 votes at the time. Sart was on 0. I suppose it's reasonable to expect you to join the vote, but since you weren't especially active it seems like a bit of a stretch to be counting on you. Not to mention that it would be one vote and one maybe-vote against whatever Bort was accumulating. I don't expect you to believe me, but the thought had not occurred that anyone would join me in voting against Sart.

Yeah, that makes sense. mr. Doc

[Dalinar Kholin]

Also, @Mr Doctor Seriously, Sart is cleared to a significant degree. I don't see how that could possibly be otherwise. I get why you could argue that the first time was a coincidence or elim versus elim situation, but not two. That's ridiculous odds.

[Mr Doctor]

37 minutes ago, Dalinar Kholin said:

Also, @Mr Doctor Seriously, Sart is cleared to a significant degree. I don't see how that could possibly be otherwise. I get why you could argue that the first time was a coincidence or elim versus elim situation, but not two. That's ridiculous odds.

Yeah, I suppose that's true. Sart's seemingly accidental lynching has gone from Elim-weird to just weird-weird. And from a logical standpoint, Sart's been under enough heat that if he was an Elim, they'd probably just get rid of him and let the other member fade into the shadows under the aegis of killing an Elim. I suppose I was tunneling a bit, so I'll ease off now. I imagine that my suspicions were based on the fact that I saw something strange and decided that it must be something indicative. I'll need to keep reminding myself that coincidence doesn't take a holiday just because there's conspiracy about.

 

I'll probably take a look at Drake next, because I wasn't too keen on Eternum and I'd like to see what his replacement is like. 

[DrakeMarshall]

Vote Tally, Tracking, Total
Straw (2): Sart, randuir
randuir (2): Fifth Scholar, Hemalurgic Headshot
Walin (1): Drake Marshall

@manukos, @Jondesu, @Doc12, @Dalinar Kholin, @Straw, @Val, @Elandera, @Rathmaskal, I invite you all to weigh in.

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

I'll probably take a look at Drake next, because I wasn't too keen on Eternum and I'd like to see what his replacement is like. 

Naturally, Eternum and I share the same alignment. Affiliation. Affinity.

I look forward to reading your assessment. Appraisal. Arbitration.

I am finding the game's fashion mechanic to be enjoyable. Engaging. Entertaining.

Edited June 17, 2018 by Drake Marshall
Fixed tally, I should have re-run the count when more posts happened XD

[Mr Doctor]

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Vote Tally, Tracking, Total
Straw (2): Sart, randuir
randuir (2): Fifth Scholar, Hemalurgic Headshot
Walin (1): Drake Marshall
Mr Doctor (1): Snipexe

As suspicious, malignant, and malevolent as I'm sure this makes me look, I must point out that Snipexe rescinded, cancelled, and revoked his vote upon me, myself, and I. For your review, purveyance, and consideration, that post can be found here, in this location, and at the place where this link leads.

 

5 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

4. In general, you are quite right. That's how most people do analysis. In fact, that's often how I do analysis. I am trying something different, distinct, divergent. I am trying to be concise. Compact. Condensed.

I suppose, ruminate, and arrive at the conclusion that the irony is not lost on you that today's fashion (in which you have taken a great role in participating with your effort) is counterproductive to, in direct violation of, and opposes the spirit of conciseness.

[DrakeMarshall]

9 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

I suppose, ruminate, and arrive at the conclusion that the irony is not lost on you that today's fashion (in which you have taken a great role in participating with your effort) is counterproductive to, in direct violation of, and opposes the spirit of conciseness.

I do so adore irony. Improbability. Incongruity. 

[DeTess]

8 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

Would you expect new Elims to check in and start posting very quickly, because they have more information to go on and a team to bring them up to speed? You propose that theory with Doc12 later on in this post, and I wonder if that would also apply to new Elims.

I've only ever been a New Elim once, so take this with a grain salt, but I think  New player would, all other things being equal, be a bit more active as an elim than as a villager, because this game can be rather overwhelming, and having people around to help you out and to plan with can be a boost to activity.This is not really something I think we can base suspicions on though, as you need to know how active someone normally is to see the difference, and that's kinda a problem with new players  .

13 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Not easily available to actually link to. You don’t recall all the times I was saying I was paranoid of people even after they were almost certainly cleared and providing reasons? I did it as Amethyst Scorpion in the AG, too.

I'd say that's different, as I do that all the time myself, even when I'm dealing with someone that's so ridiculously hard-cleared that it would take like four or five secret rules for him to be an elim. That's however crazy theories showing a lack of knowledge, while the theory I called out showed too much of it, if you get my drift. Just for the record, you're not my number one suspicion right now, but it is something that stood out.

 

Edited June 17, 2018 by randuir

[Jondesu]

Eh, I can understand that, Rand.  I simply stated it more assuredly than was perhaps warranted, thinking I'd possibly caught a plot and hoping to draw out a reaction.

I'm not bandwagoning here exactly, but I'm going to tack on a vote to Straw.  Of him and Rand, I think he's more likely to be Elim, which is me mostly just agreeing with assessments that have already been stated.  I'm open to switching my vote later, though, but I've abstained from voting too many times already this game and I don't want to miss it while I have a chance to jump on now.

[Straw]

*suddenly shows up*

Surprise! I’m back! Sorry for my brief period of inactivity, but I had some IRL stuff that severely limited my ability to talk. Fortunately, that’s now over.

@randuir @Sart @Jondesu

[Mr Doctor]

Fifth made an interesting point about Bort defending Rand here. Rand brought up a counterargument about pocketing, and Fifth dropped the matter. But I’m not so convinced, and so I started thinking about why Bort would pocket Rand.

 

While I’m sure that it’s reasonable for Elims to attempt to pocket Villagers, I don’t think it’s quite so common that an Elim would try and attach themselves to a Villager that was already a sinking ship. Why not go for someone who’s far cleaner? The general theory is that the Elim borrows some of the Villager’s honesty, and so if the Elim gets suspected, people will associate them with the Villager who, hopefully for the Elim, looks a lot more honest.

Because of that, it’s most probable that your Elims pocket your most honest Villagers, or perhaps the ones that they deem to be less observant and more trusting of people that take their side. It makes no sense that Bort would try to pocket the most suspected player currently active. Rand avoided one lynch by the chance of iocaine, and now got away from another due to Sart preferring to vote on Bort than him. That doesn’t seem like a safe pocket to me.

It’s inconceivable that Bort would have thought that pocketing a Villager a short step from the lynch was a good idea. It would have been far easier to capitalise on the Village’s existing suspicions and push Rand over the edge the next cycle, and then pocket someone more trustworthy. Given the way that the votes are turning out, one person can make a lot of difference. Pocketing is probably out of the picture in this case.

Because of that, I’m going to vote randuir for now. It’s possible that Bort made a mistake and I’m reading into it too much, or maybe I missed something that proves how this isn’t as uncommon as I thought. If someone could help clear that up, then it would be great.

 

I don’t have enough to convince me that Straw is worth lynching. He hasn’t been defended enough that seeing him flip would reveal the alignments of many others. Sart’s post here is the only solid argument against him that I can find, and while I agree that Elenion defending him back when neither of them was suspected is a bit strange, it’s not enough to sway me just yet. I agree that the voting pattern is pretty bad.

Now that he’s been pointed out, the thing that gets me about Straw is the quietness. He’s not completely inactive, as evidenced by the posts, but those posts aren’t much. I had suspicions of Rand because he wasn’t defending himself as much as I’d like, and I’m wondering if the same thing is happening to Straw. Why not defend yourself? Why not respond to the questions? The answers aren't good. He's just posted as I'm writing this, so maybe this will clear things up.

The only reasons why I’m not voting on him just yet is because I haven’t digested the idea long enough to vote with confidence, and I also don’t think that he’s worth lynching solely to see how he flips, because no one’s really defended or targeted him recently. Perhaps clearing Sart would be useful, so my vote has potential to change.

Although, forewarning, the coming turnover might not be the best time for me. I'll be able to change my vote and provide some discussion, but a big analysis will be more difficult. I'll try my best.

[Burnt Spaghetti]

mmmm I've kinda read up on the stuffs now, but that's just skim reading currently, so i'm yet to decide on things like peoples alignments.

Also a note to those who haven't played with me much (though i think i've probably played at least once or twice with most of y'all). I'm a habitual lurker- i'll read the posts in thread but won't often say much, usually if anything i'll post a player list with a percentage next to peoples names to show my gut feelings on people, occasionally accompanied by a comment saying why, but I am active in pms (when i'm awake- I'm Aussie btw so yay weird timezones) - that's primarily where i'll build my reads on people. Unlikely to vote very often, unless i'm fairly sure about my vote.

Also, pocketing people isn't a term i'm familiar with. I'm assuming that means something along the lines of defending a vulnerable person so they trust you and tell all and do all? or something? idk i'd like clarifications pleaaaase.

Also what i've gathered is today people either wanna lynch rand, the talkative suspect who could maybe lead village into badness, or straw the quiet lurker who could be hiding things?

[Straw]

1 hour ago, Burnt Spaghetti said:

I'm a habitual lurker- i'll read the posts in thread but won't often say much.

*lurks with Burnt* 

1 hour ago, Burnt Spaghetti said:

Also, pocketing people isn't a term i'm familiar with. I'm assuming that means something along the lines of defending a vulnerable person so they trust you and tell all and do all? or something? idk i'd like clarifications pleaaaase.

Pocketing is when an eliminator protects a villager and agrees with lots of stuff they say so the villager trusts the eliminator.

1 hour ago, Burnt Spaghetti said:

Also what i've gathered is today people either wanna lynch rand, the talkative suspect who could maybe lead village into badness, or straw the quiet lurker who could be hiding things?

Pretty much.

[Rathmaskal]

On 6/15/2018 at 11:54 PM, Mr Doctor said:

So, the update on Sart puts him more neutral than before. More neutral, but also lucky (and fortuitous, favoured by fate, chosen of Lady Luck, and many more synonyms and similar words).

Even implying that luck has to do with Sart's votes should say that you're arguing village.  Elims don't need luck to vote on someone.  (I guess if you're saying it was a bit of luck that it was another elim twice...that seems unlikely...)

I've been waffling quite a bit on this vote.  Right now amongst active people I'm seeing randuir and doc12 as the more suspicious...  doc12 due to voting history (Araris > Abstain > Devotary > Abstain)  The main argument I could see against that being suspicious is that the two elim votes were close enough that not abstaining could have resulted in a different result.

randuir...is interesting...various people seem to have various reasons for suspicion right now.  I find the assertion that Devotary offered no proof to the Spaniard claim to be kind of odd...  As much as someone COULD offer proof, Devotary did...explaining exactly who was followed and the results.  Additionally, my comment that randuir seemed to have a strong village read on me resulted in almost immediate backtracking and the comment that I was someone to watch now.  Either mega backtracking there to try to save face...or a fairly significant internal shift in opinion of me...

Since the topic has come up, Straw does seem a bit suspicious...twice there's been a comment of basically, "Oh, I wish I had come back so I could retract my vote..." (D2 on Sart and D3 on DoS)."  As always, RL needs to be considered, but that seems a bit odd.

Other than that, Walin's decision to be somewhat active yet not vote is highly suspicious...the only reason to do that is as a supremely meta-game decision.  If you never vote in any game, no one can get a read on you...I haven't played enough with Walin to know whether or not that's a standard practice...but that seems a relatively bad decision even from a meta perspective - you're likely to be village far more often than elim...so you're harming your team more often than helping.

At this point, Straw and randuir are leading in votes...  I'm going to sit my vote on randuir for now.

[DeTess]

I've done another review of Fifth. All my points from before still stand as far as I can see, but I can't see why Bort would defend me when elim!fifth was up on the chopping board. It could have been a sort of semi-busing maneuver or something, but I'm not seeing it. I'll be keeping a close eye on him, but I want to broaden my outlook a bit more right now.

Speaking of which, I've done a review of Bort's posts.

I've already talked about his Walin vote during D1 and how it's basically WIFOM, so I'm moving onto D2. He put quite a bit of attention on the Araris lynch, which means that that wagon was probably mostly pure. If there was an elim on it, I suspect it's one of the two he didn't directly call out (mr Doctor or Eternum/Drake), but the wagon could just as easily be entirely without elims, which suggest that Doc, HH and fifth are more likely to be village in light of this interaction.

During D3 he defends me (I'll leave it to others to judge this, I've already said my piece about it), and brings up Walin in response to a question about wether he thought the Araris lynch was meant to protect anyone. In hindsight this looks a bit odd, as Walin had two votes on him that where basically joke-votes and therefore rather unlikely to lead to a lynch, but when the Araris lynch got going, there was also a bunch of suspicion on Elenion, who already was a confirmed Elim back then. It looks like he was trying to stir up a Walin lynch there, but he never goes deeper into that or votes on Walin, so it's not possible to know for certain, and could also be part of a distancing pattern started with his vote  D1.

conclusions: Doc, HH and fifth look more village, Bort's interactions with Walin are still WIFOM.

@Straw, I noticed you're back. Are there any game-thoughts you wish to share with us? One of the things that initially got you on my radar was that, despite posting a decent number of posts, you didn't actually talk about much at all.

@Rathmaskal and @Jondesu, you both motivated your vote in part as choosing between the leading wagons. If that was not a concern right now, who would you be voting?

[Straw]

Huh, looks like I’m actually in danger of getting lynched. Might as well throw a vote onto Randuir.

[Val]

Hey, I live. Sorry, I've been busy going out, and today is Father's day, so I'm not sure I'll be able to catch up today. 

[Elandera]

Hello, I'm here now! I've been camping out of cell service range and am now driving home. I don't have a whole lot of ability to weigh in just yet, but I will try to vote before the end of the cycle.

[Fifth Scholar]

11 hours ago, Dalinar Kholin said:

Also, @Mr Doctor Seriously, Sart is cleared to a significant degree. I don't see how that could possibly be otherwise. I get why you could argue that the first time was a coincidence or elim versus elim situation, but not two. That's ridiculous odds.

Dalinar, while I too trust Sart, I will not completely rule out the possibility of a well-timed bus or two. While our village read of Sart may be 99%, and we might have good reasons for it, pushing it up to 100% without hard evidence, such as a scan or alignment flip, is foolish. 

4 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

Fifth made an interesting point about Bort defending Rand here. Rand brought up a counterargument about pocketing, and Fifth dropped the matter. But I’m not so convinced, and so I started thinking about why Bort would pocket Rand.

 

While I’m sure that it’s reasonable for Elims to attempt to pocket Villagers, I don’t think it’s quite so common that an Elim would try and attach themselves to a Villager that was already a sinking ship. Why not go for someone who’s far cleaner? The general theory is that the Elim borrows some of the Villager’s honesty, and so if the Elim gets suspected, people will associate them with the Villager who, hopefully for the Elim, looks a lot more honest.

Because of that, it’s most probable that your Elims pocket your most honest Villagers, or perhaps the ones that they deem to be less observant and more trusting of people that take their side. It makes no sense that Bort would try to pocket the most suspected player currently active. Rand avoided one lynch by the chance of iocaine, and now got away from another due to Sart preferring to vote on Bort than him. That doesn’t seem like a safe pocket to me.

It’s inconceivable that Bort would have thought that pocketing a Villager a short step from the lynch was a good idea. It would have been far easier to capitalise on the Village’s existing suspicions and push Rand over the edge the next cycle, and then pocket someone more trustworthy. Given the way that the votes are turning out, one person can make a lot of difference. Pocketing is probably out of the picture in this case.

Because of that, I’m going to vote randuir for now. It’s possible that Bort made a mistake and I’m reading into it too much, or maybe I missed something that proves how this isn’t as uncommon as I thought. If someone could help clear that up, then it would be great.

 

I don’t have enough to convince me that Straw is worth lynching. He hasn’t been defended enough that seeing him flip would reveal the alignments of many others. Sart’s post here is the only solid argument against him that I can find, and while I agree that Elenion defending him back when neither of them was suspected is a bit strange, it’s not enough to sway me just yet. I agree that the voting pattern is pretty bad.

Now that he’s been pointed out, the thing that gets me about Straw is the quietness. He’s not completely inactive, as evidenced by the posts, but those posts aren’t much. I had suspicions of Rand because he wasn’t defending himself as much as I’d like, and I’m wondering if the same thing is happening to Straw. Why not defend yourself? Why not respond to the questions? The answers aren't good. He's just posted as I'm writing this, so maybe this will clear things up.

The only reasons why I’m not voting on him just yet is because I haven’t digested the idea long enough to vote with confidence, and I also don’t think that he’s worth lynching solely to see how he flips, because no one’s really defended or targeted him recently. Perhaps clearing Sart would be useful, so my vote has potential to change.

Although, forewarning, the coming turnover might not be the best time for me. I'll be able to change my vote and provide some discussion, but a big analysis will be more difficult. I'll try my best.

On the contrary, Elims will attach to sinking-ship villagers to gain trust and credit-they wouldn’t necessarily move to pocket the player, but defending someone who ends up flipping village, against a host of people accusing that person, can give an Elim a lot of village cred. Also, I am still suspicious of Rand, which is why my vote is still on him. 

51 minutes ago, randuir said:

I've done another review of Fifth. All my points from before still stand as far as I can see, but I can't see why Bort would defend me when elim!fifth was up on the chopping board. It could have been a sort of semi-busing maneuver or something, but I'm not seeing it. I'll be keeping a close eye on him, but I want to broaden my outlook a bit more right now.

Stop pocketing me, Rand.  You aren’t helping the fact that I’m trying to maintain an Elim read on you. I’m mostly succeeding, but your tone is throwing me off, even if that’s a terrible reason to townread someone. 

[DeTess]

2 hours ago, Straw said:

Huh, looks like I’m actually in danger of getting lynched. Might as well throw a vote onto Randuir.

Apart from this, are there any other observations observations you want to share? This quick self-preservation vote is doing nothing to convince me I should be trying for a different lynch than you.

[Doc12]

From what reading I've been trying to do, it seems to me that Eternum/Drake and Dalinar are quite cleared - if it hadn't been for them bringing up Bort as an alternative lynch last day, Bort would have been perfectly safe while Sart or Fifth got lynched. Eternum/Drake was also the first vote on Len, and while voting on one elim could have been coincidence or planned, beingaa decisive factor in two elim deaths pretty much clears him in my opinion. Sart, too, even though his reasons were clearly self preservation, makes it really unlikely for him to be an elim too. 

I find Walin's stance on not voting really troubling as well, and right now while we have better suspects up for the lynch, I'd be inclined to put him up on lynch. In any case, on the Straw and Rand lynch. I'd be comfortable with lynching Rand, he has done enough analysis on other players that upon his alignment reveal there's a wealth of information to go through. I do dislike the choice being between an active, contributing player and a lurker, though. There's not much against Straw - plenty of people have been popping up and not really saying much. His voting patterns are erratic, and in this cycle is purely a self-preservation vote. There's really not much reason to vote on him other than that. Between a lurking elim and an actively talking elim, I think lynching Straw would be the lesser of two evils, and reveal a bit more about Rand at this point. 

So, Straw

The current vote count goes 

Rand (5) Fifth, Headshot, Mr. Doc, Rath, Straw

Straw (3): Sart, Rand, Jon

Walin (1): Drake

There's about five hours left in the cycle, and a lot always happens then, so I doubt this is what the final vote count would look like. I'll be honest here, I'm inclined to try and create a tie between Straw and Rand, and letting chance decide. (I'm sure Alv would be properly enthralled by these proceedings) 

@Drake Marshall, Seeing as Walin is very unlikely to be lynched this cycle, why don't you throw your vote onto one of the leading suspects? I'm interested in making it a close vote. 

With that. I bid you goodnight, and hope for a favorable result in the morning. 

[Elandera]

Alright, I've had a bit of time to review some posts. It's not enough to do a full analysis, but I can offer up some gut reads.

Early on (while still just a spectator) I had a bad gut read on Fifth. That has lessened some, but my suspicions aren't enough for me to lynch him.

I'm uncertain about Rand. From what I've seen, it's relatively neutral. At this point, being that neutral is rather suspect. However, I'm unsure I'm willing lynch a fairly active player without a solid elim read.

I have no read to offer on Straw, so I will decline putting my hat in that ring.

I find myself agreeing most with Drake's read on Walin. Some of his interactions with confirmed eliminators have been... odd. So, I find myself pointing the finger of suspicion at Walin. 

[DeTess]

This is going to be my last post of the day, and potentially of this game. I'd tried to get a final list of questions up, but I'm currently too tired for that. Instead, I'd like to urge everyone to not just be active, but also help others to be active. Don't just do analysis in your own bubble, but also try to directly engage other people with questions to draw them more into the game, even if they don't feature in your current list of suspicions.