Mid-Range Game 32: The Blight Encroaches

[BrightnessRadiant]

Just now, Rathmaskal said:

I said that I would be best served by voting on one of the other candidates so far...not necessarily that the village would be.  I also said I didn't really agree with any of those votes so far and I'd be around to adjust if necessary.  Retaliation votes always strike me as rather...sketchy.

Retaliation votes on their own are sketchy. But, I found your vote sketchy regardless of the fact that it was on me. It was because i thought you were saying you should vote for one of the other people but then just voted on someone else with a gut feeling. That could be an elim trying to not play sides and just keeping the lynch at 1 and 1 and 1 and etc. I still don't see how keeping the vote tied at all 1's by just adding a gut vote would really help the lynch and so I felt like you were avoiding getting involved until maybe someone else did analysis towards the end of cycle that you could jump on.

[Karnatheon]

Knowing he is Fal Dara still doesn't prove anything about his alignment. Rand, village, elim, or Forsaken could all be in there.

[Rathmaskal]

I just read back and see how that could be misunderstood...they were supposed to be two separate thoughts.  At the time I posted, there was still sufficient time for others to join the thread and affect the vote.  If two more people had come in at this point and voted for you, suddenly my vote looks pretty good, right?

You use the word 'felt' in your response...does 'feel' more accurately represent your feelings since you didn't retract your vote?

[Mr Doctor]

Just now, Mark IV said:

Mark here. I know this is a little late but Snip is part of the Fal Dara Doc. I can confirm.

Good to know. 

Just now, Ookla the Ring said:

Knowing he is Fal Dara still doesn't prove anything about his alignment. Rand, village, elim, or Forsaken could all be in there.

It doesn't guarantee anything, but it makes it less likely that you're an Elim sacrificing yourself to lynch Rand. If he wasn't in that doc, he would either be Aginor or Rand, and that's a 50/50 that I'm not sure I want to take. Given how much you pushed for it, it made me suspicious, but now that I know that he could be a Fal Dara Elim, I'm more tempted to vote for him.

If he flips Village, then you would be the highest candidate for an Elim.

[BrightnessRadiant]

1 minute ago, Rathmaskal said:

I just read back and see how that could be misunderstood...they were supposed to be two separate thoughts.  At the time I posted, there was still sufficient time for others to join the thread and affect the vote.  If two more people had come in at this point and voted for you, suddenly my vote looks pretty good, right?

You use the word 'felt' in your response...does 'feel' more accurately represent your feelings since you didn't retract your vote?

I said "felt" because I misunderstood part of what you were saying so I'm thinking about what I want to do and if I still suspect you based on reconsidering my position.

[Mark IV]

9 minutes ago, Ookla the Ring said:

Knowing he is Fal Dara still doesn't prove anything about his alignment. Rand, village, elim, or Forsaken could all be in there.

Yeah. I'm actually wishing he does get . lynched. It would clear up D1 to some extent too. As it stands, we basically don't know much of the results of D1 yet. 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Mark IV

[Karnatheon]

I completely understand and agree that if he is village I am probably going to be lynched. I am feeling less confident about my theory now, but if I back down it will probably look even more suspicious. So I'm sticking to it even if it gets me killed. At least if you guys lynch me now, you'll probably be more inclined to suspect him next time? Who knows.

Also,

I just realized it might be against the rules for me to quote something from a pm.

Sorry. I'm very frazzled right now.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Ookla the Ring

[Rathmaskal]

You can summarize something that occurred in a PM, but you can not quote it.

[Mr Doctor]

5 minutes ago, Mark IV said:

12 minutes ago, Ookla the Ring said:

Knowing he is Fal Dara still doesn't prove anything about his alignment. Rand, village, elim, or Forsaken could all be in there.

Yeah. I'm actually wishing he does get . lynched. It would clear up D1 to some extent too. As it stands, we basically don't know the results of D1 yet

Does that mean you'll vote?

 

Bleh. I guess my suspicions of Bard can wait until I hear more from him. This might come back to bite me, but it's worth it to get an Elim or identify Karnatheon.

Young Bard / Ookla the Unprepared. Snipexe / Ookla the Skeptical

 

Votes:

Droughtbringer(1): Furaminoid.

Rathmaskal(2): Randuir, BrightnessRadiant.

Young Bard(1): Steeldancer.

Xino(1): Ark

BrightnessRadiant(1): Rath

Snipexe(2): Karnatheon, Mr Doctor.

Karnatheon(1): Snipexe

[BrightnessRadiant]

Okay so about Snipexe, I said I was leaning village on him because:

1. He was already in the spotlight so much on Day 1 then why would elim!Snip want more spotlight on him with the redirected action that Fura talked about?

2. If Padan Fain exists and could have killed Village!Snip than would they have or would they use a mislynch? Or could they have been inactive? Or could they have missed that rule clarification? 

3. If Snip flips as Rand then that could be really bad. (I know this isn't a point in favor of him actually being village, it just made me worry about lynching him.)

However, based on the fact that Karn is pushing very hard for his lynch, I would like to see Snip's alignment and for the same reasons as day 1 I would like to know Snip's alignment based on all of the interactions people have had regarding him. I think at this point, it's probably just worth it to find out his alignment so we have more to look at from there. Rathmaskal 

Snipexe

Edited December 10, 2018 by BrightnessRadiant
Clarity

[Karnatheon]

Ok. I can confirm then that Fifth just PMd me to confirm that Fain would kill Rand, and prevent the Protect action from the Green Man. This means that if Snipexe was Rand, and Fain tried to kill him, he would have died.

[Rathmaskal]

20 minutes to go...sorry Snipexe...  It would be nice to get one more vote or one off me *ninja BR*  (had to verify Aginor's abilities in the rules here as well...hence the longer wait for 7 more words) so that Aginor can't affect the vote.  BrightnessRadiant

Edited December 10, 2018 by Rathmaskal
retract

[Mr Doctor]

Votes:

Droughtbringer(1): Furamirionind.

Rathmaskal(1): Randuir.

Young Bard(1): Steeldancer.

Xino(1): Ark.

Snipexe(4): Karnatheon, Mr Doctor, BrightnessRadiant, Rathmaskal.

Karnatheon(1): Snipexe.

[Mark IV]

31 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Does that mean you'll vote?

I'm actually torn between Rathmaskal and Snip. 
With regards to Rathmaskal, his first vote rang alarms for me. His reasoning for vote was silly, granted. But then, he takes it off at the slightest challenge. That I don't get. If you're being silly in voting, I don't see why you would suddenly become rational. On the other hand, it could be an elim throwing on a first vote to seem village and then removing it when the slightest amount of attention got called to it.
Granted, I don't have context for the previous game so I may be missing the severity of it. 
This is only a very light accusation. So, I'm not too sure of lobbing on a vote for this. 

Well, ninja'd. So, I guess I'll be voting for Snip to help with the lynch? Not much can hap[en in the last 15 minutes, I don't think? 
 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Mark IV

[BrightnessRadiant]

   I feel like I should point out that if he does flip village, that we shouldn't be too quick to kill Karn. 

I'm not certain that elim!Karn would push that heavily for a lynch this early in the game?

I just get nervous when I see so many people saying that it would essentially confirm Karn's alignment. Remember to keep an open mind.

[Mark IV]

1 minute ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

Remember to keep an open mind.

Scheduling my brain surgery right this minute!

[Mr Doctor]

Just now, Mark IV said:

2 minutes ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

Remember to keep an open mind.

Scheduling my brain surgery right this minute!

Antor Vadenfort hefted his sword. "That sounds far too costly. I have a better solution right here."

[Furamirionind]

I wrote a pretty detailed analysis post about Karn's and and Snip's messages, however, Mr. Doctor said all I was going to and some more.

I will respond to BRs comments on me next cycle.

Just a reminder, PLEASE defend if you are in Moiraine's Circle, OR are roleless. I think that should be a good number of people... Though it is a gamble.

I don't want us to have to hold Ring three so Rand can kill the creepers for us!!

Edited December 10, 2018 by Callsign: Jato

[Steeldancer]

45 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Note: A lot of this post is just responses, and I think that the discussion about Karnatheon’s vote at the end is very pertinent and I want opinions on it. If you don’t have the time to read all of this post and respond to it, read that at least.

 

Karnatheon is sounding a lot like I did in my first Elim game, which is being helpful and active. However, the reason why that strategy works is because it’s what an earnest Villager would do. I’ll keep an eye on it.

 

I’m inclined to agree. Mat has no powers that are particularly powerful beyond his information, and that can be bent to the Elims. The Elims can keep him around until he’s outlived his usefulness and then get rid of him whenever they want.

 

I disagree with this, but don’t find it all that suspicious of you. The special roles are higher than vanilla Villagers, but in this game even vanillas have powers, so the offset isn’t as great. The instinct to kill anyone with power is strong, but if the Elims can manipulate Mat into revealing other roles then it’s definitely worth keeping him around.

 

The interaction between Karnatheon and randuir makes me think that they probably aren’t in a trusted doc together, because a newer player would feel more comfortable discussing what they should and shouldn’t do behind closed doors, so to speak. This doesn’t feel especially staged, so it’s probably not a coordination. So that means to me that of randuir and Karnatheon, only one of them is likely to be an Elim.

 

Reasonable suspicions, but make sure that you don’t bandwagon and don’t vote off him if he justifies himself. I do find Snipexe's last sentence a bit weird as far as tone goes.

However, as a counterpoint, wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for a complete inactive rather than someone who might be active later on?

 

I’m inclined to agree about this (hmm I seem to do that a lot with you), and I’m holding off any particularly strong analysis on him until I see him discuss people, because it’s much easier to spot an Elim when they’re analysing and accusing than when they’re thinking about rules. I think that we should keep in mind that if Karn has been suggesting rules discussion, that should be questioned if he turns out to be an Elim. With rules as complicated as these, it would be pretty easy to manipulate the people who are just going along with what others say.

 

Heh, that made me chuckle.

 

Lynching an inactive isn’t a terrible thing as far as I’m concerned. I used to hate it, but I’ve sort of become desensitised I guess.

 

I don’t disagree. Of the players doing heavy maths, Devotary was possible one of the more experienced, which may justify a kill. Or perhaps she simply gives off a Village tone.

 

@Ookla the Skeptical

Thanks for the analysis! It’s useful to see something breaking down people’s posts and trying to find reasons. Personally, I feel that Devotary is a pretty good and analytical player who naturally gives off a Village tone, and so the Elims would have a hard time framing her, especially since there aren’t as many lynches to go off of and voting patterns are easier to poke holes in. As a contrast to randuir, who is also analytical and helpful, but is far more neutral and so harder to read. It then makes some sense that she died. [[[Tag snip]]] what do you think of that? It might also be worth going through who she interacted with and finding connections that way.

 

This makes me wonder if you can protect someone from a kill by Defending them. I don’t offer myself as a test subject, though

 

@Callsign: Jato

Gotcha about the Ring defence. Thanks for breaking this down, provided that you’re not trying to manipulate us to an early Eye of the World destruction.

 

I didn’t like Bard’s position because he attacked BR pretty suddenly and his RP hid a lot of what could be gleaned from it. And he’s been quiet ever since then. Lynching him would give us a bearing on BR, so I’m inclined to join you in this. I’ll see, though.

 

I think that this makes a lot of sense. It makes me wonder if there aren’t actually any Agents of the Blight, but in that case there’s an entire mechanic (Sabotage and the last Ring of the Eye) that’s unused. This might also be reasonable because Fifth said that 20 players was the rough number to play at its fullest, which could either mean that it’s the lowest number that gets all of the unique roles for flavour (i.e. 3 Elims for the 3 book characters), or the lowest number for all of the mechanics (i.e. 1 of each Elim type).

 

Some really good points in here, and an excellent post for a new player. Well done!

I’ll talk about Snipexe because that’s the most pertinent issue, but I’ll want to respond to the rest if I have time.

Firstly, I disagree that Padan Fain would expect someone to come to your conclusion. That seems unlikely for an Elim to trust the Village to do their dirty work without a bit of prodding. The only person who’s mentioned that is you, and by drawing attention to it you’re either genuine, or you’re trying to seem TWTBAW (too wolfy to be a wolf). I don’t think that this is especially likely.

I agree that Fain would at least know that they can do this, because they would be paying attention to what their role could do. However, we have several inactives in this game and any of them could be Fain, so that possibility has gone down in my mind. I also think that Fain does exist, for what it’s worth.

The reason that I agree with it is because I think that you’re either a very valuable player to the Village, or a very dangerous one. And I think that the reasonings against Snipexe are better than those against anyone else, other than maybe Bard, even though they aren’t particularly strong. Since you’re one of the most active players in this game, I’d want to test your alignment and judgement over BR’s or Steel’s.

 

If I’m wrong about Snipexe, then I think that Karnatheon is likely to be an Elim. I doubt that they can do that much analysis and be that insightful and be so adamant about this, and yet be completely misguided. But I don’t think that they’d be willing to put their neck so far if they were an Elim, unless they think that they’re taking down Rand (no, not that Rand. Rand al’Thor).

 

Hmmm… Actually, I don’t think that I’ll vote for Snipexe. If the Elims know that he’s Hardy and have someone in the Fal Dara doc and know that he’s not in there, then they know that he’s Rand, and therefore the largest remaining threat to them. And the reason why Rand!Snipexe isn’t dead is because the Green Man can protect him every Night, saving him from Fain, assuming that’s how protection works.

@Ookla the Ring what do you think of that?

 

I think I’ll put my vote on Young Bard for now, because of his tone-hiding and mostly unjustified attack on BR. I’m also testing BR and Steel with this vote.

 

If someone from the Fal Dara doc claims that Snipexe is in there, then I’ll listen closer to Karnatheon. Until then, this suddenly looks a lot like the Elims potentially trading Karnatheon for Rand.

Okay, looking back through Snipexe's posts, I find that his tone has been a bit odd in places. His analysis of Devotary doesn't conclude much, which could mean that either he's trying to reduce the amount of analysis on a kill or there actually isn't anything to see.

Now, if Snipexe dies and flips Elim, then it clears Karnatheon, which in turn clears randuir somewhat because of the amount that they've interacted in-thread.

If Snipexe dies and flips Village, then Karnatheon was probably an Elim trying to kill Rand al'Thor. However, in this case, it might make it seem like randuir was an Elim because of a potentially staged discussion about misunderstanding and forgiveness. I know that this contradicts what I said earlier about that discussion, but that's because this has really thrown everything that I thought out the window.

 

Hmm, I'm still not sure about my vote. @Ookla the Unprepared if you're here, my mind might change with some justification.

Great I found a moment between things to hop on. Huh. You're right about Young Bard. I don't really understand the snipexe lynch, and so I don't see much reason to join the bandwagon. So for now I'll keep a bit of pressure on Bard, about his aggressiveness. 

[Mark IV]

1 minute ago, Mr Doctor said:

Antor Vadenfort hefted his sword. "That sounds far too costly. I have a better solution right here."

Lars lifted his hand against the sword. "You dare doubt my belief in modern medicine? Tairen surgeons are the best in the world. As it happens, I have one in my retinue. Would you like to me to schedule one for you too?"

[Mr Doctor]

1 minute ago, Mark IV said:

4 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Antor Vadenfort hefted his sword. "That sounds far too costly. I have a better solution right here."

Lars lifted his hand against the sword. "You dare doubt my belief in modern medicine? Tairen surgeons are the best in the world. As it happens, I have one in my retinue. Would you like to me to schedule one for you too?"

Antor snorted and a hint of a smile moved behind his beard.

"I would sooner trust a butcher. At least he would know his way better around a bonesaw than one of yours."

[BrightnessRadiant]

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Positive said:

Great I found a moment between things to hop on. Huh. You're right about Young Bard. I don't really understand the snipexe lynch, and so I don't see much reason to join the bandwagon. So for now I'll keep a bit of pressure on Bard, about his aggressiveness. 

The Snipexe lynch is pretty well explained in some of the last several posts if you're interested. Got about 7 minutes to read them lol.

[Steeldancer]

Ah, ok, Snipexe is ookla the skeptical. That makes a bit more sense. I'll still leave my vote on Bard, though. It's more likely to net information if I don't pile on the already sufficient vote. 

[Mark IV]

1 minute ago, Mr Doctor said:

Antor snorted and a hint of a smile moved behind his beard.

"I would sooner trust a butcher. At least he would know his way better around a bonesaw than one of yours."

"What splendid coincidence!" Lars said with a gleam in his eye. "Astoril was a butcher before he decided to apprentice to a surgeon!" 
Spinning around to his hand-servants, Lars motioned them to book an appointment for Antor. "Tell Astoril to make double the preparations! We're having a brain celebration!" 
Lars turned to face Antor again "I'm so glad you decided to change your mind." 

[Mr Doctor]

Just now, Mark IV said:

5 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Antor snorted and a hint of a smile moved behind his beard.

"I would sooner trust a butcher. At least he would know his way better around a bonesaw than one of yours."

"What splendid coincidence!" Lars said with a gleam in his eye. "Astoril was a butcher before he decided to apprentice to a surgeon!" 
Spinning around to his hand-servants, Lars motioned them to book an appointment for Antor. "Tell Astoril to make double the preparations! We're having a brain celebration!" 
Lars turned to face Antor again "I'm so glad you decided to change your mind."

Antor fixed the grinning nobleman with a look that had made kings quail and tightened his grip on the sword.