Long Game 65: Dancing through Life

[Araris Valerian]

@Furamirionind, Wilson already confirmed that RP lies count.

25 minutes ago, Coda said:

The following analysis is in the order of the master player list, excluding those who are insane. Apologies if you are annoyed by it, I don't really care. Question: Is analysis alignment-indicative? If so, then wouldn't it quickly be exploited by the mafia team and therefore made not alignment-indicative? 

Analysis in and of itself isn't alignment indicative, although I think players that appear to be trying to solve the game are worth leaving alive longer. Analysis worth doing is opinionated, and that gives everyone else something to go off of when they try and read you.

Things that stuck out to me:

1) Post by Karnage seems too exuberant for some graphs.

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Also Straw, thanks for the graphs! These are extremely helpful! Is there going to be more analysis for the different turns for past games the same that you did for this one.

2) Elandera suggests spreading votes to commoners. Could be evil indicative if there are several elim nobles.

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If we do keep all votes on nobles, that also increases the chances they will be brought on the Horns. Masters have 5 DP they give out to people with at least one complaint. @Elbereth @little wilson, do the NPC Masters give out all 5 DP every turn? If so, then there's potential for all 9 to be brought on the Horns right away, or if RNG hates someone enough, for someone to get expelled right away. However, if commoners and nobles all have a single vote, the chances of someone getting enough DP from RNG is much lower.

3) Elkanah downplays the usefulness of mommets

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I didn't get that impression from the mommets, but maybe you caught something I did not. A role block is decent, but the odds of the timing ever really becoming relevant seem quite small. Especially where only a third of us can become masters at a time. When I was reading LG 18 it looked like people were voting purely for role play reasons and that had little to do with even what class people were in. I didn't read LG 33 so they may have tried this egalitarian approach.

4) Coda emphasizes the randomness of his vote

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I have decided to vote, as it seems beneficial. I've picked randomly from those who are not Edema Ruh. My trusty random generator has given me... Walin! @Walin, you have been complained about. And now some RP.

5) Kynedath didn't vote, seems village to me (or at least non-elim, since they probably want to maximize cash)

6) Lumgol suggests that people spread out their EP. This would benefit the elims' win condition by helping them become masters. He's now insane, so that's debunked

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I'll note that the math may work differently depending on variability in total numbers of EP filed in various fields. Y'all should check if what I did above is correct because it may very well turn out to be wrong. But I think this shows that if you care about getting elevated at all, it is in your interest to spread out EP as thin as possible. If you particularly want a certain field, though, then yes, feel free to go for that field.

7) Striker votes on two people I have village reads on, unfortunately he's probably village.

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Anyway, I really think it's time I start trying to figure out who I think are Skindancers. I don't know why, but something about Lopen has been setting alarm bells for me. The tone just feels off to me. If I had the time to dedicate to a full reread of everything I would try and go through and find out why. However, I don't really have that time right now, so I just have to rely on my gut. 

As for my second vote, I'm going to use it on Straw. I'm still not a huge fan of how much he was trying to keep us from spreading out our votes last turn. He's also been putting in a lot of work on something that isn't necessarily super helpful for the village. In my experience, players who put a lot of work in on something that isn't necessarily alignment indicative (such as post counts, mentions of other players in posts, etc.) tend to be elims. They're trying to show that they're putting effort into the game without necessarily doing something super helpful. (Also, Straw, don't take this personally in case you're actually a villager. This is how I caught an elim once in the AG, so I've started picking up on it in other games too. I do really appreciate your work despite all this! )

7) Post this cycle by DeTess, since I'm just doing my job of encouraging bloodthirsty lynches, which I do every game, regardless of alignment

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Araris

I really like Araris' encouragement of swapping to a proper lynch. I don't believe that this change was in the favor of the skindancers, so I can't see skindancer!araris making that push.

And another thing: It seems to me that an elim would be relatively more likely to be elevated than a villager, since the elims can coordinate their EP to not compete with each other. That supports the possibility of Bard being an elim. Based on this, and #7 of the above, I'll put my complaints on Bard (El'the) and DeTess (Re'lar) for now.

[Elandera]

Well, I started to do analysis before Xino posted about Bard's apparent lie. My focus was on Lopen (since he's been a focus of suspicion for several people), and whatever else stood out. I was only able to get through turn 1.1, since I'm at work and keep getting distracted. 

I just wanted to get this posted since in my read through I caught several things that seemed odd about Xino. 

First, @TheMightyLopen:

Spoiler

First post urges not voting on Ruh; spreading out the votes unless we are intentionally trying to roleblock/expe; offers advice based on prior games (Archives might be full); suggests getting in actions early; suggests helping Ruh by putting up easy contracts;

Nothing inherently suspicious other than the strong desire to help Ruh. Could be teammates with a Ruh.

Second post is a response to Elkanah’s musing about talent pipes saying it’s possible no one can get them.

NAI

Third post gives vote count and votes Coda for a tuition reduction and suggests again spreading out the votes. The rest is RP.

Again, pretty NAI, especially on D1.

Fourth post just stated he’d respond to RP later. Fifth/Sixth post was all RP.

For now, neutral. That might change once I get further into the cycles. (Sorry for not linking Lopen's posts. Since I didn't find anything suspicious, I didn't feel it was necessary.)

Now onto @xinoehp512

Spoiler

Asks if anyone else is staying at the Windy Tower for coordinated RP. Also could have been an attempt to fish out who would, from the start, have an extra EP, and therefore slightly higher chance of getting elevated.

Asks if anyone is willing to admit to staying in the Golden Pony. Seems very interesting in where people are staying, especially in the two more useful locations. Also, knowing who’s staying at the GP would help narrow down the field of Vintish Noblemen.

Seems to encourage people to use all of their votes and spread them out, but then doing an analysis of DP and suggesting it’s dangerous.

There was a lot of D1 effort to pull information out of people that could be used by Skindancers to remove the biggest early threats. It was all phrased in a way that, at first, passed without much notice.

His information about Bard is very interesting, though. If it did come from a third-party, we can't clear Xino for it. I don't think that third party should step forward, though. They are too important.

I think I'll vote Xino and Bard.

I'll try to keep going through the cycles tonight and get a few more reads down.

[DeTess]

@Araris Valerian, to confirm, you're voting on me because you think I might have been attempting to pocket you by reading you as village for a reason you disagree with?

@Lord_Silberfarben, what advantage would elim!me get by not talking about elim!fura?

Anyway, let's get back to getting that reads list done. Only the commoners are left, but I won't be able to get to all of them.

Burnt Spaghetti

So, question for Hael and Burnt, is saying nothing alignment indicative using a lot of posts an australian thing?   

There are a few more things that stood out to me in Burnt's early posts than in hael's though, in particular her lamenting the lack of information, while at the same time not really doing much to start generating that information, as far as I could see. 

Her post pointing out that the attack on bard could have been a WGG also stands out to me in how cautious she is in raising the possibility. That post feels to me more like an elim trying to play both sides while knowing that it was a WGG (not putting more suspicion on Bard, but maneuvering herself in a position where she could earn more trust by being able to say 'I told you so' if elim!bard flips).

So overall, I'm somewhat suspicious of Burnt right now.

Straw

First a small comment:

10 hours ago, Straw said:

Personally, I think that avoiding suspicion is fairly NAI. No one really wants to get lynched, regardless of alignment.

It is true that no one really wants to get lynched, but for the elims 'not getting lynched' takes precedence over everything else. I expect villagers to be more willing to take risks and say what they thinking, while an elim will be far more cautious. Coda's approach to not getting lynched really doesn't suggest he's a villager to me.

Now, on to posts as a whole. I think Straw might have the most posts I've had to go through so far. A lot of it is just general strategy and graphs, which is all NAI. I don't think him helping in organizing the spread of the votes in the early cycles is very alignment indicative, but I do find it noteworthy that when we had started voting seriously he still worked on spreading out the votes. If he was just after tuition he could have bandwagoned on any of the established wagons with that explanation, so this was the result of a conscious decision to try to reduce the consequences for those already up for the vote. As with Elandera, if Straw ends up flipping Elim, it'll pay to take another look at that vote to try and figure out who he might have wanted to protect.

Overall, I'm uncertain about straw, but I don't feel like lynching them this cycle. He's started to get involved more, so I reckon his alignment will become clearer in future cycles.

Xinoehp

Xinoehp has been a lot more active than I've seen him before, which is quite nice to see. There's also some alignment discussion in his most recent posts, which is also nice to see. However, there is one bit of one post by him that I really don't like the look of:

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Lopen. Until new information comes to light, best to just keep doing as we're doing and spread the votes around. It seems to have worked better this time than it did last turn, at least. :P. 

That was back before we started voting seriously, but I really dislike the implication in this post that everyone should just continue spreading out the votes. If it had just been his personal decision that'd be fine, but encouraging everyone else to follow suit doesn't sit well with me at all.

That having been said, he followed this immediately with offering himself up in the 'I'm not a fae' gambit, though an elim could very well have doen that if they knew that the person elevated in linguistics was on their side.

So, my overall verdict is to keep a close eye on them for now.

Lord Silberfarben

Lord Silberfarben has mostly RP'd so far. I think his only potentially alignment indicative post was going after me and Furami this cycle, and though I think the reasoning is a bit far fetched, It doesn't come from an obvious elim position. If anything, I'm getting the impression that Lord_silberfarben does not have access to an elim doc or similar supporting palce where he can ask for clarifications and questions, which makes me lean a bit village on him.

Experience

Experience has posted almsot solely RP, with the exception of a vote on Walin for low activity. @Experience, who do you trust most and least right now?

Anyway, I'm tempted to add a vote to Burnt right  now, but that'd kinda defeat the purpose of trying to consolidate votes. I might very well do that next cycle though.

[TheMightyLopen]

 

7 hours ago, Coda said:

As I have been advised to act upon my suspicion by a person I do not distrust, Lopen Lopen. @TheMightyLopen, my least sincere apologies.

 

4 hours ago, Coda said:

 

Lopen: Hasn't said much besides RP.  (I have partially gotten over my residual animosity. I will attempt to keep our relationship professional)

Ah, this is what I was kind of wary of happening. You're using our RP clashing as a reason to vote, which I see as basically an excuse not to give a vote based on suspicion. Honestly, I wouldn't mind you voting on me except that you've literally said you're only voting because I accidentally caused the lashings on you. >> You're now also looking to get justification from people in thread for your votes, which is another thing that doesn't sit right with me. Coda

I've looked over Bard's posts, but don't see any other obvious statement that he would have lied about that would be an innocent lie. I'm content with putting my second vote on him unless something new comes up(and might move my first one as well if needed). I also agree with Araris that him already reaching El'the could be another sign that he's a Skindancer. I remember in LG18 I was suspicious of one of the Skindancers partially for that very reason(they were an early El'the in a field that wasn't being studied much...I think it was Alchemy?). I don't remember how it was in LG33, but it makes sense that if they're coordinating their EP into separate fields they'll have a high chance of elevating faster in a specific field than the village. Bard

I will say this. If there's no new information that clears Bard to some extent, I think we should actually try to kill him rather than just expelling him. For one, if it was a Skindancer Physicker that used Cheating Death on him, they'll be "exhuasted" where they won't be able to do so this Month, meaning this might be our best chance at actually killing him. Another thing that would help is getting absolute confirmation of his alignment. I'm always wary of trickery until I actually see the GM(s) post that red text. Bard, if this is just some mix up and we missed something obvious, sorry for being so bloodthirsty. I just would really like to see some alignments at this point. 

[Burnt Spaghetti]

4 hours ago, Kynedath said:

So with Bard surviving an attack I'm interested in the possibility of a WGG. Although Burnt pointing it out like they did also feels a bit suspicious to me. It felt like they were trying to throw the discussion into chaos, I couldn't tell if they were trying to say that it was likely a WGG or if it was likely not. That looks like staying on the fence and that post stood out to me. So Burnt for that one.

Thats fair, its definitely something I was being careful about how I was wording it. You couldn't tell if i was trying to say if it was likely or not, because that's not what i was trying to say  Because we don't know for sure if its a WGG or not, so I was making sure to not be convincing people either way, more so just trying to highlight the possibility and make sure people were aware of it, letting them come to their own conclusions. 

1 hour ago, DeTess said:

Burnt Spaghetti

So, question for Hael and Burnt, is saying nothing alignment indicative using a lot of posts an australian thing?   

There are a few more things that stood out to me in Burnt's early posts than in hael's though, in particular her lamenting the lack of information, while at the same time not really doing much to start generating that information, as far as I could see. 

Her post pointing out that the attack on bard could have been a WGG also stands out to me in how cautious she is in raising the possibility. That post feels to me more like an elim trying to play both sides while knowing that it was a WGG (not putting more suspicion on Bard, but maneuvering herself in a position where she could earn more trust by being able to say 'I told you so' if elim!bard flips).

So overall, I'm somewhat suspicious of Burnt right now.

 

Well you'd have to include bard in that if it was an Australian thing  Its unfortunately a very me thing though for sure. I can guarantee if i didn't have tuition reductions motivating me to post theres a high chance i'd have only posted maybe once a cycle with equally as little info  And on that note thats sorta all i've been worrying about up till nowish- finances, getting those reductions. I dunno, starting thread discussion has never been my thing. I don't enjoy the resulting attention  Partly why the wgg post was so cautious.  I felt that it needed to be said but yeaah.

I didn't want to come out swinging proclaiming that bard must be evil from the possibility of a potential WGG and start a bandwagon when he very well may be perfectly innocent. Its a tricky situation in general. Because no one should be punished for successfully surviving an elim attack. In general though, i'm really not the kind of player to lead lynches or to be aggressive or anything  
Though if i'm honest. I'm not expecting this to be the only instance of the sabotage being blocked. With bloodless, grams, and particular lodgings to help against it,  I fully expect to see others survive an attack this game. The circumstances with this being allegedly an organised thing is more why I was concerned about this possibility. Kinda curious as to why not just let people think it was an item that protected rather than telling everyone you survived due to physicking, which if true, just makes you a target for things like bribe the messenger or wind pm spying. Theres a lot of information that has the potential of being drawn out as a result of claiming how you survived. Although being honest and forthright about that from the get go is a point in their favour i think. Though now that there's the lie scan result it makes everything a lot more suspect.

 

Lopens idea of suggesting Bard as a kill target Is not necessarily a bad one. Theres definitely things to be learnt from that result. With there being nobles who have had time to stockpile coin, and three namer elevations, kills are going to be possibilities at this point.

 

I use entirely too much

[Coffeecat]

3 hours ago, DeTess said:

I expect villagers to be more willing to take risks and say what they thinking, while an elim will be far more cautious.

This is exactly why you might not want to talk about your fellow elims.

it is, as we both said, very far-fetched.

however, I have no other leads.

[STINK]

Guess it's time to look back at Bard's posts with a very fine comb eh? Though I'm kinda late to that since I finally got a good nights sleep (but then it lasted 12 hours so was it really that good? Idk how sleep works) but before I do that just a quick thing I noticed while reading the thread that I wanted to comment on but forgot to hit quote on.

'Twas something along the lines of 'I'm glad people are analysing older cycles for why's and the how's etc etc' sorry if I didn't get it right exactly but you get the gist and hopefully you all know the post I'm on about because you are all reading this thread as well right? Anyways, I would actually kinda disagree with this. If anything, now that I think about it I'd kinda be disinclined to trust people doing this. Since really Term 1 didn't really have anything happen in it right? It's similar to an extended D1-Lynch in that most people are just trying to unlock some actions to start doing stuff and the RP was there for tuition reduction. I wouldn't get anything of worth from it and sure I could probably look at it and start doing word volleys at people that sounds rational with this and that but realistically it'd be making a mountain out of a tiny little bump in the game's history. Gotta look at the more recent stuff imo. Anyways that's actual game talk from Stink whoa something must be going on. To Bard!

Luckily there's only 3 posts to look through with the hyper-focus of the Xino said he's lying (interesting to me that I saw no-one bringing up that maybe Xino is the one lying in this 'he-said-she-said' but who am I to say) and I'll try to ignore the fluff that the GM's hopefully ignored like where he says he forgot it was May and maybe he didn't and it's a big conspiracy etc etc

Bard First Post: Yeah looks like this is the thing that set everyone off and can't say I disagree tbh, only other option really is if he was secretly in PMs panicking about the insanity being not Skindancers but thats like a 0.001% chance and no-ones confirmed that happening so gotta go with the other option. That's probability, y'all

Bard Second Post: Claims in RP to be doing Rhetoric and Logic. With the whole RP being lies counting thing, could be that which set it off unless anyone can confirm that he is in fact doing Rhetoric and Logic. If not, that's a second option and all that I could really see from this.

Bard Third Post: Again, an option is always that his reads in thread are different from his PM ones in which case thats a lie, but would need someone to confirm that. Purely thread-wise, could be the part where he's not suspicious of anyone yet where if I was a GM reading that in the 4th month, I'd be really tempted to say that as a lie if they weren't inactive cause surely everyone has suspicions by now right? But that could also be a PM thing which makes it hard to know, Bard could have PM'd someone saying they really don't like X and then in thread don't bring up X and bam now he's lying in thread.

So TL;DR (even though it's not that long):

1. First Post lying means basically skindancer.

2. Second Post lying means not doing R&L despite claiming to.

3.Third Post lying means his public reads are different from private reads.

In terms of what I think happened here? I'm tempted to say it's just the second post that got him in, cause unless anyone's publicly claimed where they are going yet then everyone is gonna be lying about that when it's hinted at in thread. Unless I've missed something and Xino gets specifically pointed at the post/PM(?) where the target was lying. 

Wow this post has gotten long I just wanted to flex my brain but yeah enjoy that word volley peeps I'm gonna drink some tea which is a stereotype but it's true.

And I wanted to RP smh

[DeTess]

47 minutes ago, Lord_Silberfarben said:

This is exactly why you might not want to talk about your fellow elims.

it is, as we both said, very far-fetched.

however, I have no other leads.

But that's kinda the point i'm trying to make. Why would elim!me talking about elim!fura be less risky than the opposite? It was a rather noticeable omission, as the very next poster already pointed it out.

edit: Don't take this the wrong way, btw. If you feel the need to vote on me, I definitely won't stop you. But I do want to make sure that the reasoning behind it is sound.

Edited May 9, 2020 by DeTess

[Coffeecat]

 

 

As you can see, I can't really see what Coda actually said, (so I can't see how incriminating their post actually was) but it seems that they wanting to not be suspicious for a lynch(which seems reasonable unless they were excessively exclaiming their innocence) was enough to warrant double votes.

 

I am not saying you shouldn't vote Coda, but...

something that seems sound to someone might not for someone else. perhaps consider my vote a semi gut read.

 

Also, if you are actually a student, sorry, and thanks for trying to dissuade me from doing something dumb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DeTess]

43 minutes ago, Lord_Silberfarben said:

 

As you can see, I can't really see what Coda actually said, (so I can't see how incriminating their post actually was) but it seems that they wanting to not be suspicious for a lynch(which seems reasonable unless they were excessively exclaiming their innocence) was enough to warrant double votes.

Should be fixed now, the moving of the thread broke the link  

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Also, if you are actually a student, sorry, and thanks for trying to dissuade me from doing something dumb.

Putting a vote in for serious reasons is never dumb, even if you're wrong. Everyone playing this game is wrong about people about 60-95% of the time, so that's nothing to worry about. And if anything, you standing firm with the vote when I put it under scrutiny makes me trust you a bit more, as an elim would probably be starting to look for a reason to reconsider and go after an easier target.

Edited May 9, 2020 by DeTess

[Elandera]

3 minutes ago, DeTess said:

Putting a vote in for serious reasons is never dumb, even if you're wrong. Everyone playing this game is wrong about people about 60-95% of the time, so that's nothing to worry about. And if anything, you standing firm with the vote when I put it under scrutiny makes em trust you a bit more, as an elim would probably be starting for a reason to reconsider and go after an easier target.

@Lord_Silberfarben, I can echo this sentiment. I'm wrong more often than not with analysis but my gut tends to have a better judgement. If all you have is a gut read, sometimes you just have to say that. Most of us understand and will be forgiving (even if we ask for a bit more, if possible). And I am leaning more village on my read of you for the same as Tess said. 

[Elkanah]

I am awake and ready to go at it again. You all have had some really good analysis since I have been gone. I will do what I can to respond with my thoughts to each, but if I miss something let me know.

9 hours ago, Coda said:

Elkanah: Talkative, analysis. Strong trust. I actually think I trust this person more than I should. I have an instinctive trust of this person.

Thank you for the analysis, Coda! I appreciate it. As for this line, I can guarantee you trust me more than you should because I have not done anything super alignment indicative yet. Luckily for both of us, I am not a skindancer so your trust is not wasted.

9 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

Not to say that he doesn't fit the profile, of course; in fact, I would be wavering back and forth on this if it wasn't for the fact that I have been informed that Bard lied last turn. Now, it's possible that I may have overlooked something in his posts in the last turn, but it seems that the only lie that he could have told was this one.

Maybe I can help with this. You see, I know something Bard lied about. I was happy for him to to take the blame, too. After all, my action the turn before was to frame someone. Kendel set the fire. The action was specifically to set a fire in the archives and frame Burnt. I figured it would make for some fun role play and not come to much. Then Young Bard took the fall for it and that was even easier. If the fact he lied last month is the determining factor in lynching him, here is your explanation. If the possible wounded gazelle gambit is the reason we are lynching him, I do not think the science bears that out either. If low activity is the reason we expel him (below the radar or otherwise), I can see an argument. If we are expelling him for being the first El'The, I have argued we do this twice already. If we are voting on him for putting two votes on me... Ah screw it. Bard Bard.

More to come

[Straw]

14 hours ago, Furamirionind said:

The thing is, I also recognized both ways of interpreting it before my initial post. I posted that anyways because I wanted to see how they reacted. To be honest, the response didn't make me feel much better. I'm also surprised by just how aggressive you are defending him. While I feel like this would be a strange response for an elim!Straw to have with an elim!Silber... But I don't think I've played a game with you before as an elim, so I'll just take note of it.

I was defending him since I thought that it was far more likely that it was just badly phrased, rather than thinking that he was saying they were confirmed good. Silber had also quoted "(and perhaps bad if you are a skindancer)" in his second post as evidence that he was not assuming it, which supports my interpretation. I was also annoyed that you had said that that post alone would make him your highest suspicion, which I thought was overreacting to it. There are quite a lot of posts you can look at this game, and I'm not a huge fan of lynching someone over one comment compared to their overall behavior.

Hmm, so Bard lied. I'm curious as to what he'll have to say about that. I'll retract on Coda and Furamirionind and vote Bard Bard. IDK if Elkanah is telling the truth about the RP lie, but I'll wait to see what Bard says. RP lies and PM lies counting as lies is very annoying, since they both seem to offer a pretty easy way to explain stuff away. Note: I suspect that the Skindancers have had someone go into Physicking, both to prevent the village from gaining access to it and also because it would give them several useful abilities. Psychological Counseling would allow the Skindancers to use the more deadly fields without going insane.

Also, I think we'll probably start seeing more people going insane soon. People will have gained elevations in insanity-causing fields, and will presumably be using their abilities. I also suspect that people will be staying at the Mews due to how cheap it is, and will also be going insane from that.

[Young Bard]

Alright. The fact that the scan revealed I’d lied last turn was as much news to me as it was to everyone else, so I’ll try and analyse my own posts, which is… new. (And for the record, no, I didn't have a PM with Xino last cycle, so that can't have been it.)

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OK, I haven't found anyone I'm kind of suspicious of yet. But I do have a few people that I'm not suspicious of, I think? So I'll start by listing those people, I guess.

Xino - they've been posting more than usual, and I've generally gotten a very village read from their posts, like they're not as concerned about how their posts are seen like I'd expect an Elim to be.
Karnage - new player, seems like he wants to jump in and be supportive of the village effort. I read him as genuinely trying to figure things out.
Straw - this is going to be a controversial one, but in it's own strange way, I feel like a Skindancer Straw might not want to draw attention to themselves by continuing to support the spreading the votes out strategy after Araris disagreed with him over it - the fact he's held to that makes me think he is a villager just with a particular view on the most effective way to play the game - I don't agree, but I don't think he's a Skindancer for saying so.

I suppose, in the absence of anyone else, I'll put a vote on Lopen.

Ah, right. I think this post has a lie in it. Technically. I knew the Physicker’s identity by this point, and I was somewhat confident that they were one of us, but because it wasn't based on anything in the thread, I didn't share that information. When I said “I’ll list the people I’m not suspicious of”, there are additional names I could have put on that list but chose not to, which is a kind of lie. If that can trip up the Linguistic Analysis detector, then it seems like it's a really borderline case, but oh well.

(The other thing, which I didn’t notice until Stink pointed it out, is that my RP could be viewed as me claiming to have ranks in R&L, which I don’t, and never really viewed myself as claiming. I don’t think that would trigger the Linguistic Analysis, but I’m still not really sure what does and does not count as far as RP claims are concerned, so it’s worth mentioning in case.)

3 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

I will say this. If there's no new information that clears Bard to some extent, I think we should actually try to kill him rather than just expelling him. For one, if it was a Skindancer Physicker that used Cheating Death on him, they'll be "exhuasted" where they won't be able to do so this Month, meaning this might be our best chance at actually killing him. Another thing that would help is getting absolute confirmation of his alignment. I'm always wary of trickery until I actually see the GM(s) post that red text. Bard, if this is just some mix up and we missed something obvious, sorry for being so bloodthirsty. I just would really like to see some alignments at this point. 

Lopen jumps fairly quickly to the idea of killing me, but seems to hedge a little about it, like he might be able to distance himself later if I flipped village. Though honestly, thinking about it, it probably isn’t such a bad idea for people who can afford them to start using assassins, since the village really needs the info. I’d prefer it not to be on me, but… such is life. Maybe at least wait until a Linguist can confirm I was telling the truth this cycle before you send the assassins after me. So, I get a slight Skindancer impression from Lopen’s post overall?

---

(Apologies to Xino for some godmodding with your character, but I'm limited by having to get the apology written this turn if I don't want a massive hike in tuition fees, and timezone differences/general busyness mean it's difficult for us to RP together. Otherwise, I'd have loved to have some joint RP with you.)

If she could get over to Imre, she'd be safe - she'd head to her inn, get a fresh change of clothes, hide the notebook somewhere secure, and nobody would be able to trace the fire back to her. She'd miss a couple classes, but that was better than being expelled.

She was crossing the bridge across the river when she saw a young man was approaching her.

"Excuse me, are you Nethwyl?"

He had a kind of grin on his face, that meant I'm being nice now, but don't make any sudden moves.

"Would you come with me? There are a few people that want to ask you some questions."

Nethwyl smiled awkwardly, thinking quickly. "I'd really rather head to my inn first, drop a couple things off -"

"They were very insistent."

He knew. And if they opened her bag, they'd have all the evidence they needed to expel her. But she didn't have a choice.

"I'll be one moment." She slowly walked back over the bridge, the ice-cold river below swirling and eddying past beneath her... River...

As she got to the edge of the bridge, where... what was his name - Malm? Marm? Maern, that was it - was waiting for her, she slowly walked a couple steps forward and passed him. And before he could react, she 'tripped', tumbling down the riverbank into the icy waters.

Merciful Tehlu, the water was cold. As the cold slowly seep into her bones, Nethwyl's arms involuntarily spasmed, but that only served to splash even more water over her. As she was carried downriver, the bridge passed above her, and she could barely see Maern racing to the other side to try and haul her out. Before she could think twice about the action, she quickly took a deep breath, and dunked her entire body under the water - please, let that be enough to get the smell of smoke off of me. I don't want to have done this for nothing.

Sunlight poked through as she reached the other side of the bridge - Maern had managed to grab a vine growing from the side of the bridge and threw it out to her, trying to get her to grab on. Fingers already going slightly numb even from her brief dunk, she clamped on, willing herself not to release the grip as Maern slowly pulled her in.

After what felt like an eternity, she belly-flopped onto the riverbank, not bothering to crawl any further away, or do anything but lie there. Maern, for his part, grabbed her backpack and started rifling through it. Rude. He found her notebook, opened it, before throwing it down in disgust. And Nethwyl could see, even from where she was lying, that her crisp, clean handwriting was gone. The only thing left were completely illegible splotches of ink.

[Guest Coda]

After some thought, I am retracting my votes on Lopen Lopen as this suspicion is baseless. While I personally like Bard, the lying does bother me enough to vote Bard. If you are innocent, you have managed to convince a good number of my stronger trusts against you. Congratulations.

[Young Bard]

I didn't see @Elkanah's post until after I posted, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I claimed to have started the fire isn't what triggered the Linguistic Analysis. First, I'm pretty sure I have to know it was a lie as I'm writing it for it to count, which in this case, I didn't (if you mentioned you started the fire in thread, I somehow must have missed it? I don't know how that happened.) Second, I don't think I explicitly claimed to have started the fire until this turn - I merely strongly implied it last turn. Thirdly, I'm still not even sure if that's how Linguistic Analysis of RP works, so even if the first and second points were there, it may not have counted anyway. But... yeah. I don't know why I'm arguing against you when you're providing me an alibi, maybe I should just say "Yeah, that's definitely it" and be done with it.

[Elkanah]

9 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Linguistic analysis covers all the posts made in a turn, and any PMs. Do you have or intercept any PMs with Bard in turn 2.2?

Could be a lie if Bard specifically told the GMs whether or not Nethwyl set the fires, which was presumably not the case. Other than the unlikely lies of not realising it was May, and claiming copper chloride turns flames blue when it's specifically copper(I) chloride that does so, other potential lies would be the reads list.

Lying about reads and/or an opinion on spreading out votes is almost as suspicious as lying about being surprised with the sabotage target though.

Yeah the lie was not a misconception. Easy call for the GMs.

8 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

3) Elkanah downplays the usefulness of mommets

True. I will give you that targeted mommets that sympathists make can be useful. Especially the death mommets that you can make based off of who attacked a person. The mommets I am not afraid of are Devi's. I stand by cheating her both as a statement against moneylenders and because you can twist the meaning of the game as the opportunity to sell a mommet of yourself as a good. That goes regardless of field, but not class as an Edema Ruh is forbidden from selling their Devi mommet. (maybe a little salty).

11 minutes ago, Young Bard said:

Ah, right. I think this post has a lie in it. Technically. I knew the Physicker’s identity by this point, and I was somewhat confident that they were one of us, but because it wasn't based on anything in the thread, I didn't share that information. When I said “I’ll list the people I’m not suspicious of”, there are additional names I could have put on that list but chose not to, which is a kind of lie. If that can trip up the Linguistic Analysis detector, then it seems like it's a really borderline case, but oh well.

That is a bit harder for the GMs to call. If you trust someone and do not list them in your trusted list, it is really borderline as to whether that is a lie. You start by saying you will start listing people you do not suspect. You list two people you do not suspect. I do not think you claimed the list was complete. Also, if I say I suspect Kynedath at the start of a turn and say I do not suspect Kynedath at the end of a turn in a private message, was either one necessarily a lie? I may have changed my mind, or I may have intended to mislead the thread, or I may have intended to mislead my contact. I do not know how picky the GMs will be about us claiming to be suspicious.

 

Ninja Bard

Sorry, I do not mean to throw off your role play. I am perfectly happy for your character to be the one who set the fire. I intentionally never admitted to setting it because I was framing Burnt. (sorry not sorry, Bryn). 

5 minutes ago, Young Bard said:

I don't know why I'm arguing against you when you're providing me an alibi, maybe I should just say "Yeah, that's definitely it" and be done with it.

hahaha yes this.  I really do not see what other lie you could have told in thread. If you were dishonest in a private message, that is totally different. 

[CadCom]

cadCom, Bard

I think Bard gas more than enough votes. If votes did reveal alignment I would keep my vote on him, but since they don't, we are potentially condemning an innocent man to expulsion with no way of revealing his alignment, making the information gathered minimal. At this point, I'd feel more comfortable making it so he loses actions as that would still hurt the elim team without hurting village in the long run. 

I would still like to vote though, can I get an official vote count @Elbereth @little wilson

Edited May 9, 2020 by CadCom

[TheMightyLopen]

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

 

Lopen jumps fairly quickly to the idea of killing me, but seems to hedge a little about it, like he might be able to distance himself later if I flipped village. Though honestly, thinking about it, it probably isn’t such a bad idea for people who can afford them to start using assassins, since the village really needs the info. I’d prefer it not to be on me, but… such is life. Maybe at least wait until a Linguist can confirm I was telling the truth this cycle before you send the assassins after me. So, I get a slight Skindancer impression from Lopen’s post overall?

---

 

Well. After everything that people had posted(WGG possibility, linguistic scan, you hitting El'the), I think I got kinda hyped up. Then, after thinking about how many times I've fallen for theories about WGG's or some other convoluted ways to be suspicious of someone, I was hesitant to actually call for a kill straight up. Now I'm really second-guessing myself. >>

1 hour ago, Coda said:

After some thought, I am retracting my votes on Lopen Lopen as this suspicion is baseless. While I personally like Bard, the lying does bother me enough to vote Bard. If you are innocent, you have managed to convince a good number of my stronger trusts against you. Congratulations.

This really bothers me...feels like Coda knows Bards innocent. Bard Coda I'd prefer to wait and see if we get some confirmation about whether Bard's lie could have been from his RP or reads list thing, but I have to sleep now. I really should not be awake right now.

[Haelbarde]

How is the cycle already mostly over...

Silberfarben(2): Fura{1}, Fura{2}
Coda(5): DeTess{1}, DaTess{2}, Rath{1}, Straw{2}, Lopen{1}, Lopen{3}
Araris(2): Karnage{1}, Karnage{2}
Elkanah(2): Bard{1}, Bard{2}
Bard(11): CadCom{1}, Xino{1}, Xino{2}, Araris{1}, Elandera{2}, Lopen{2}, Elkanah{1}, Elkanah{2}, Straw{3}, Straw{4}, Coda{3}, Coda{4}, Hael{1}
CadCom(0): CadCom{2}
Fura(1): Straw{1}, Silber{2}
Lopen(0): Coda{1}, Coda{2}
DeTess(2): Silber{1}, Araris{2}
Burnt(1): Kynedath{1}
Xino(1): Elandera{1}

So a clear lead on Bard, although we're currently still somewhat spreadout.  

I'm sorry to have not gotten to post otherwise. And given the time, I'm not likely to be up in time for rollover, so this post is going to have to be it. Don't really have time to spend finishing read throughs of everyone else, so just going to focus on what's happened this cycle.

7 hours ago, DeTess said:

Burnt Spaghetti

Her post pointing out that the attack on bard could have been a WGG also stands out to me in how cautious she is in raising the possibility. That post feels to me more like an elim trying to play both sides while knowing that it was a WGG (not putting more suspicion on Bard, but maneuvering herself in a position where she could earn more trust by being able to say 'I told you so' if elim!bard flips).

For what it's worth, she rarely commits strongly to opinions in person, so this isn't exactly out of character, for all it's not a very useful villager character trait. 

---

So, Xino's claim of Bard's lie.

To briefly consider whether or not this claim is true - if the linguist is village, then they've no reason to lie. If village!Xino would have no reason to lie of being informed of a lie either. Elim!Xino would be playing a dangerous game to make such a claim - as soon as Bard dies, Xino would be under extreme scrutiny. It's not much better if Xino was informed by an elim - doing so would require Xino to know their identity, and unless they were to take out Xino before Xino shares that identity with someone else, you end in a similar situation. While this probably was in little doubt, I'm happy to trust the Xino's reporting that Bard was scanned to have lied as truthful. I'm also glad to be seeing a proper application of Linguistic Analysis!

Obviously there's then the question of what Bard's lie was. Discounting any lies made in PMs that we're not privy to, the options of the source of the lie are the claim about being unsure of the reason for skindancer kills, or from his RP. Because I feel the RP stuff is borderline, and given we don't really have confirmation of exactly to what degree RP lying would trigger linguistic analyis, I'm going to hedge my bets and just put the one complaint on Bard, because outside of the scan, I'm not sure his actions have warranted the number of votes he's already acrued over the last cycle or so. 

But I really should sleep at this point. 

[STINK]

Starting to feel that no one read my post NGL fellas

[Burnt Spaghetti]

 

1 hour ago, Elkanah said:

hrow off your role play. I am perfectly happy for your character to be the one who set the fire. I intentionally never admitted to setting it because I was framing Burnt. (sorry not sorry, Bryn). 

 

I admit els post gave me mild panic as i tried to work out whats going on before being excited about rp possibilities, cause that was a awesome idea, bryn would absolutely do that  

---

Bryn was tired. She'd spent her day bundled up in the bottom shelf of one of the large bookshelves in the back corner of the archives. She'd been actively avoiding being spotted by any officials in the area since the last terms incidents. It wasn't necessary, but it was a fun challenge. This time she'd arranged a table and some chairs around the spot to hide her from view. Unless someone was bending down she wasn't going to be seen. It had actually been quite cozy, surrounded by the smell of ancient tomes. She had recently discovered that books could be bound with a wax coated thread, and she'd found some books that had used beeswax. They smelt divine.  She'd been idly reading through one of them. It wasn't particularly interesting so shed just opened it up, placed it over her face to enjoy the smell and nap. Probably wasn't the best use of time, but it was worth the resulting back ache and grogginess. Besides, the longer she could put off having to go back outside to go through the snow to her lodging, the better. It was far too cold for her liking. I wonder how hard it would be to make a secret hole in the wall here or something and just live here. Free lodging, and easy access to all the books. Quiet too! 

 

(also, fun fact. I've legit borrowed a book purely because it was old, pretty and smelt of beeswax and i didn't want to say bye to it so soon  Think it was something music related but I don't recall. I didn't read it )

[little wilson]

Official vote count:

Bard (11): Hael, Elandera, Elkanah, Elkanah, Straw, Straw, Xino, Xino, Coda, Coda, Araris
Coda (5): DeTess, DeTess, Rath, Lopen, Lopen
Araris (2): Karnage, Karnage
DeTess (2): Silber, Araris
Elkanah (2): Bard, Bard
Silber (2): Fura, Fura
Burnt (1): Kynedath
Fura (1): Silber
Xino (1): Elandera

[Young Bard]

Nethwyl climbed the podium for the second time in 3 terms to give her public apology. She'd been insanely lucky - a few of the masters seemed to want her expelled anyway, evidence be damned, but at the end of the day she'd had enough plausible deniability to just about get away with it. As a compromise, they'd forced her to give a public apology for missing class, and for 'careless behaviour endangering the safety of other students'. Nethwyl was fairly sure that that last one was made up, but was frankly too exhausted by this point to argue.

She looked at the note in front of her. "To all the students at the University, I apologise for my Undignified Mischief over the past few days. I missed class, which is inappropriate behaviour for a student of the Arcanum. This is doubly true given my recent elevation to the rank of El'the, meaning it is my responsibility to be a model pupil for our more junior students. I will endeavour to be more consistent with showing up to class, and with my studies more generally, in future."

"I also apologise for being careless in where I was walking. This caused me to slip and fall into the river, forcing my good friend Maern" with that, she shone a forced smile at Maern out in the crowd "to have to try to rescue me, at some risk to himself. I will be more careful not to endanger myself or my fellow students like that again."

With that, Nethwyl folded the note and stepped down from the podium. She hoped that would be the last time she was up there, but frankly, she doubted it - most of the Masters seemed to have it out for her now - she'd have to make sure not to get caught with a toe out of line from here on out.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

24 minutes ago, STINK said:

Starting to feel that no one read my post NGL fellas

If Bard put any EP in R&L it would definitely not be a lie for Nethwyl to have taken an exam in the subject. If he didn't put any EP in, it would be GM discretion I think, since he never claimed to have put in EP.

I don't think I would say 

Quote

But I do have a few people that I'm not suspicious of, I think? So I'll start by listing those people, I guess.

precludes the possibility of there being more unsuspicious people, but I could see why it might have been marked as a lie.

1 hour ago, CadCom said:

I think Bard gas more than enough votes. If votes did reveal alignment I would keep my vote on him, but since they don't, we are potentially condemning an innocent man to expulsion with no way of revealing his alignment, making the information gathered minimal. At this point, I'd feel more comfortable making it so he loses actions as that would still hurt the elim team without hurting village in the long run. 

Expulsion barely hurts village!Bard, since he's already an El'the and it would take at least five turns to become a Master, assuming he's staying at the Windy Tower. Abilities will be less useful, but that's the case for role blocks as well.The elims are unlikely to sabotage village!Bard at this point in the hopes that he gets killed by a student. Expelling Skindancer!Bard contributes to the win condition, but leaves him free to do things. A role block followed by a kill could be helpful, though with five DP currently there's still a good chance for no charges/apology. One more vote on Bard makes it very likely to get into at least the 8-10 DP range.