Long Game 73: The Forgotten Coup

[Araris Valerian]

Some people are suspicious of Striker, and have given reasons why. Striker has given his refutation of those reasons. And Kas wants the thread to be more than 3 people tunneling on each other.

[Random Bystander]

6 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Some people are suspicious of Striker, and have given reasons why. Striker has given his refutation of those reasons. And Kas wants the thread to be more than 3 people tunneling on each other.

Oh. Thanks!

[Kasimir]

5 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Some people are suspicious of Striker, and have given reasons why. Striker has given his refutation of those reasons. And Kas wants the thread to be more than 3 people tunneling on each other.

Matt had told him this, many times. (Over many lives, really. Countless lives.) [OOC: Yep. Exactly. Plus, silence lets the Forgotten hide. Best case scenario, no misgrinch today. But absolute worst case scenario, we misgrinch and focus on what had been a three-Villager squabble because no one else said anything.]

Keep your suspicions fluid. Duncan didn't know if he was doing the right thing. Condemning his brother to die - could he do that? And yet, the reasoning seemed...

He told himself he didn't have to decide now. And yet, he wondered if it was right to focus on the one named Reading at this point. He had, after all, been suspicious of Grace Brooks... [OOC: Random Bystander, apologies for the suddenness but I don't want to forget as I need to sleep soon >>]

[Archer]

1 hour ago, Ventyl said:

I would like to say, I passed the clock to Gears. Then, in my PM @Sart said I passed it to the thief. But that obviously isn’t right since STINK just won as thief.

Excuse me while I tunnel on Ventyl a little longer. Why didn't v!they keep it? Steal comes before use, so if the elims wanted it, they'd have it. But maybe they're busy this round. Fortunately it's hidden where they don't know where it i- oh, it's with Gears? Cool. Now it can be stolen again. I'm glad Ventyl didn't use it because Lotus splashed the acid (village points to you), but this wasn't  super helpful either and frees up their action to take the gun. I'm either tunneling on a villager not paying much attention and making questionable decisions and or I'm looking at an Elim, and I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. 

As for the confusion, if Sart typoed, it can be stolen. If the thief took it, that's unfortunate. If it was handed to the thief, that's an Elim move. (Anyone know if STINK took an action last night?) 

[Random Bystander]

7 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Matt had told him this, many times. (Over many lives, really. Countless lives.) [OOC: Yep. Exactly. Plus, silence lets the Forgotten hide. Best case scenario, no misgrinch today. But absolute worst case scenario, we misgrinch and focus on what had been a three-Villager squabble because no one else said anything.]

Keep your suspicions fluid. Duncan didn't know if he was doing the right thing. Condemning his brother to die - could he do that? And yet, the reasoning seemed...

He told himself he didn't have to decide now. And yet, he wondered if it was right to focus on the one named Reading at this point. He had, after all, been suspicious of Grace Brooks... [OOC: Random Bystander, apologies for the suddenness but I don't want to forget as I need to sleep soon >>]

It's fine. I don't take offence. I won't try to get revenge.

... Or will I. 

[StrikerEZ]

@Kasimir I know you've suspected Rando for awhile (and I've flip flopped on them in the past in our PM), but would you be willing to vote Araris or Reading with me? I think Araris's position in coming up with the defense plan early in the game and his sudden flip on me and Gears (what was that about?) is enough for me to vote on him. Plus, he's become the last known player with a lantern. All they have to do is take out the last player with the lantern before Araris can say whatever he wants about what the defense was each night (at least for a time). As for Reading, I do think their voting patterns have been odd and they have been keeping at the edge of the game, which is where I think most of the elim team probably is so far.

And as I'm typing this I'm realizing that I really am basically suspicious of almost everyone. And, ironically, talking myself out of being suspicious of Gears. The only player I actually trust is Archer, and he'll probably end up getting converted eventually. I guess I should list everyone I'm suspicious of. Araris, Devo, Reading, Rando, Ventyl. I think that's it. And obviously not at all of them can be elims. So I don't know who I suspect more. I wish more people would talk. We're just running out of leads, or the leads we do have a very thin. We should have more information by now. 

[Gears]

2 hours ago, Ventyl said:

I would like to say, I passed the clock to Gears. Then, in my PM @Sart said I passed it to the thief. But that obviously isn’t right since STINK just won as thief.

.......I don't have the Clock. Maybe the Thief stole it from you? Chat with Sart in your GM PM about it and get back to us.

39 minutes ago, Archer said:

Excuse me while I tunnel on Ventyl a little longer. Why didn't v!they keep it? Steal comes before use, so if the elims wanted it, they'd have it. But maybe they're busy this round. Fortunately it's hidden where they don't know where it i- oh, it's with Gears? Cool. Now it can be stolen again. I'm glad Ventyl didn't use it because Lotus splashed the acid (village points to you), but this wasn't  super helpful either and frees up their action to take the gun. I'm either tunneling on a villager not paying much attention and making questionable decisions and or I'm looking at an Elim, and I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. 

As for the confusion, if Sart typoed, it can be stolen. If the thief took it, that's unfortunate. If it was handed to the thief, that's an Elim move. (Anyone know if STINK took an action last night?) 

V!entyl [puns!] would pass it because the elims might snatch a random item and then if they didn't pass it, it would only make it more likely that the elims found it. Of course, saying who they passed it to was a strange move [silly duckling]. Using it would be silly, so they definitely shouldn't have done that. What about the gun? Ventyl has been a confusing entity every time I've played with them, so I'm setting them aside for a bit, at least until they get back about the Thief confusion.

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, @Gears most of your points are things I addressed in response to Kas.

Let me investigate. [Apologies for long quotes]

3 hours ago, Gears said:

Striker. Reasoning is as follows: You seem to conjure suspicions out of nowhere occasionally [EX: Illwei start of D2, Condensation] and say that you had mentioned them earlier. In most cases you did, but just as an aside with barely any reasoning. Then you follow those suspicions with no reasoning and say, "I suspected them earlier." In addition, many of your votes seem to be capitalising on small mistakes that you are blowing out of proportion in an attempt to kill them. Instead of being open to an alternate perspective, you weave a narrative that seems specifically designed to get them killed [EX: Matrim, Gears].

So this vote seems a bit sensible. It seems strange that Matrim would do this. [But the point about disagreeing seems odd. People are allowed to disagree] But then the misunderstandings are clarified, and Striker remains on Matrim despite new evidence.

As you can see, despite the points Striker used being explained, Striker remains on Matrim. 

This post is not one of the votes I was talking about, but it is good to note. Why look at Illwei again? Illwei was fairly cleared at this point.

No reasoning, no points. Easy credit for no work.

Reasoning against Gears: Profiling and revealing. Striker makes no attempt to consider the perspective of the idiot village and attempts to build a case against me. They cite prior suspicions without those suspicions existing [as far as I can remember/find in my iso]. Then come the post-justifications. Reasoning for suspicion in post. Staunchly opposed.

Why wouldn't I lie? I lie a lot in these games [see MR46, that was a doozy of a lie-fest, Cryptics would have flocked to me]. I see no reasons why a villager would not speculate on elim actions. Also, the evidence hinges on the fact that I'm intelligent. That is a lot to predicate this on. Besides, this read seems designed to paint all of my actions in a negative light. No attempt to view anything from the village PoV. 

PM reasons. Easy to misrepresent events, easy to skew.

It's not inherently suspicious for a player to steal from you. If they thought you were suspicious, it would be the villager thing to do. 

In conclusion: Striker's suspicions and votes seem to come from the perspective of someone who wants the chosen few dead and will find any reasoning to do so, NOT from the perspective of someone who actually wants to find the guilty. They refuse to consider the PoV of a villager and fit every action into the chosen viewpoint. 

Then the Order vote. A sheep from an elim who had never sheeped before. Other people have talked this point to death, but it contributes. Another point that makes me think better of Ventyl: You were the only one who knew they had the Revocation Specialization. As such, why aren't you dead? They could have silenced you easily, and then no one would have known that they had stolen it, merely that it had been stolen. The benefits of the Lantern returning to the pile are not high. Perhaps Araris is an elim and trying to become the sole indicator of Defense, but still. You have been coordinating things this entire game. You have been SpiderEZ. You have been Connected. So why aren't you dead? 

[Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.]

My points: Conjuring suspicions with little substance, refusal to pay attention to new evidence or consider a village PoV, Order sheeping, not dying.

9 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I wasn't trying to say that TUO was trying to kamikaze and take me down with him. I just think that it makes far more sense for an elim to sheep a villager than an elim. If you're just sheeping an elim and then that elim flips, you automatically look worse. And I don't think the elims think I'm indispensable or anything. I think they think I serve a good job of getting people to focus on me and draw attention away from them, which would eventually lead to my death rather than one of theirs. I don't know if TUO's move was an attempt to implicate me by association in case they died, but it's the one thing that makes the most sense to me. And I wish I had been less busy over the course of D4 because I do remember finding his sheeping vote on me odd, but didn't comment on it because I was just trying to keep up with the posts and forgot about it. Plus I was tunneling on Gears and probably still am.

I know I can't convince you on this point, but I do know that I was just going too hard on those players in the early cycles. I was way too overconfident in my own abilities, and I've been far more wishy-washy with my reads since then.

Again, my tunneling on Mat and insistence on staying there was due to the aggressiveness I was playing with in the early cycles. As for the players who were voting for Mat, I would be down for voting for Devo. I've been suspicious of her all game so far.

Going to comment more specifically on this later, but yeah, I understand this. Connie did keep slipping in and out of my radar, though there are reasons (which I will get into in a later quote).

If I wanted to protect Connie...wouldn't I just have voted for Lotus? But I didn't see any reason to vote her, so I voted for someone else that I was suspicious of that I saw someone else was willing to possibly grinch as well. And when the Ventyl train isn't even leaving the station, my vote isn't doing anything there, so no point keeping it there.

I forgot my early suspicions of Connie at first. Illwei reminded me of them. And as for asking for people to persuade me: I was insanely busy over the course of D3. I shouldn't have even been able to get on to vote for Connie in the first place, but I managed to squeeze some time in. I was asking people to persuade me because I knew that I wouldn't really have the time I'd like to deeply look over things. And of course my vote on Connie, after seeing the arguments for each of the players, would be at the end of the turn, because that's when I was actually free. And I know that my suspicions haven't shifted much. I haven't had time to go reread anything and most of the time I'm just reading things as they happen. Making plans and reads on the fly, letting what I can remember plus what I'm currently reading affect how I think of a player. Which is how you get me saying I thought I sussed Connie earlier on, or come up with the plan to help Stink get his bribes (which was highly inefficient, though effective), or end up sussing Quinn/Mat/Illwei for a very long time. If I manage to survive today, I hope to try and do a readthrough of the thread at some point, though I can't promise much activity this weekend as it's Valentine's Day on Sunday and I will be spending most of this weekend with my girlfriend. So, maybe it would be a good thing if I die this turn.

I did think that Gears was more suspicious, yes. I still do think he's suspicious. That doesn't mean I didn't think that TUO wasn't suspicious at all. 

I can respect this. I do hope that maybe you might change your mind, but I understand if you don't. 

Your points: Order sheep villager more likely, tunneling villager, was busy. 

We can debate about Order's vote for a while, but I perceive it as a likely response to elim!Striker being voted on. While sheeping a villager may be more advantageous in general, I don't think it happened here for the following reason: Order sheeped 2 minutes afterwards, not enough time to ask and get a response about sheeping the vote, and I'm uncertain as to whether or not they'd do it on their own, being a relatively new player and a first-time eliminator. Your points about tunneling have merit. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing on both sides, and your narratives of confirmation bias could seem more insidious to me, who suspects you. If you were busy, you were busy. I don't like voting on someone with no reasoning with barely any previous mention of them, but if that's all you could do, perhaps I could let it slide. HOWEVER: You are not dead. I do not consider this point addressed. You are alive despite being a prime target. 

Conclusion: Order vote inadequately addressed [you have good points, but I remain unconvinced], tunneling excuse acceptable, preoccupation valid, but you are alive. 

Alternates: Araris [that one post... Everything comes back to that one post...], Devotary [and I don't remember why, which irks me], Ventyl [for Striker's points, which is also irksome, I'd rather wait on them until they confer with Sart and get back to us]

Ninja'd by Striker.

6 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

@Kasimir I know you've suspected Rando for awhile (and I've flip flopped on them in the past in our PM), but would you be willing to vote Araris or Reading with me? I think Araris's position in coming up with the defense plan early in the game and his sudden flip on me and Gears (what was that about?) is enough for me to vote on him. Plus, he's become the last known player with a lantern. All they have to do is take out the last player with the lantern before Araris can say whatever he wants about what the defense was each night (at least for a time). As for Reading, I do think their voting patterns have been odd and they have been keeping at the edge of the game, which is where I think most of the elim team probably is so far.

And as I'm typing this I'm realizing that I really am basically suspicious of almost everyone. And, ironically, talking myself out of being suspicious of Gears. The only player I actually trust is Archer, and he'll probably end up getting converted eventually. I guess I should list everyone I'm suspicious of. Araris, Devo, Reading, Rando, Ventyl. I think that's it. And obviously not at all of them can be elims. So I don't know who I suspect more. I wish more people would talk. We're just running out of leads, or the leads we do have a very thin. We should have more information by now. 

Could you quickly outline the reasoning for your suspicions, especially Random Bystander and Reading?

Edited February 10, 2021 by Gears
Sentence cut off

[Random Bystander]

Just now, Gears said:

Could you quickly outline the reasoning for your suspicions, especially Random Bystander and Reading?

I'd like to know why I am suspicious as well. I don't feel like I am doing anything suspicious, so it would be nice to know what I'm doing exactly.

[Araris Valerian]

7 minutes ago, Random Bystander said:

I'd like to know why I am suspicious as well. I don't feel like I am doing anything suspicious, so it would be nice to know what I'm doing exactly.

I think you’ve held back from being very involved. Playing too safe is suspicious in and of itself, since villagers that are doing their best to find the elims tend to make mistakes and do things that draw suspicion.

[Archer]

6 minutes ago, Random Bystander said:

I'd like to know why I am suspicious as well. I don't feel like I am doing anything suspicious, so it would be nice to know what I'm doing exactly.

You mostly just respond when people mention or sus you. It can be seen as an Elim trying to lie low. It's like a politician who never states a firm opinion in order to avoid scandal and attention. As far as I can remember, you haven't gone on the offensive much or made any new arguments. I understand not wanting to be wrong, but it doesnt give people much to read into. Kas is trying to prod you into saying who you think makes the best case, or if anything has stood out to you, or if you have a suggestion about how to approach the next stage of the game. 

Once you stop being a rookie, you're going to start being seriously sussed in games if you continue playing very conservatively. It is of course your choice, just letting you know it's most helpful for the village if people are talkative. Otherwise your defense will always be well I haven't said anything incriminating, to which people will respond, well you haven't said anything that brings us closer to finding elims either. 

Ninjad by Araris. 

[Random Bystander]

10 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I think you’ve held back from being very involved. Playing too safe is suspicious in and of itself, since villagers that are doing their best to find the elims tend to make mistakes and do things that draw suspicion.

1 minute ago, Archer said:

You mostly just respond when people mention or sus you. It can be seen as an Elim trying to lie low. It's like a politician who never states a firm opinion in order to avoid scandal and attention. As far as I can remember, you haven't gone on the offensive much or made any new arguments. I understand not wanting to be wrong, but it doesnt give people much to read into. Kas is trying to prod you into saying who you think makes the best case, or if anything has stood out to you, or if you have a suggestion about how to approach the next stage of the game. 

Once you stop being a rookie, you're going to start being seriously sussed in games if you continue playing very conservatively. It is of course your choice, just letting you know it's most helpful for the village if people are talkative. Otherwise your defense will always be well I haven't said anything incriminating, to which people will respond, well you haven't said anything that brings us closer to finding elims either. 

Ninjad by Araris. 

Ah. I guess that makes sense. I'll try to add to conversations more. 

[Kasimir]

5 minutes ago, Archer said:

I'm either tunneling on a villager not paying much attention and making questionable decisions and or I'm looking at an Elim, and I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. 

[OOC: This is my problem in a nutshell with Ventyl. Inflexible suspicions, part sheeping, and overdefensiveness. I could give him some credit for being the start of the turning point where the TUO grinch was concerned, but he backed down after you challenged him, and it's hard to determine whether that's really the beginning of the bus, or if the bus began after Ventyl.

2 minutes ago, Gears said:

Could you quickly outline the reasoning for your suspicions, especially Random Bystander and Reading?

Response to Gears, but gonna quickly @StrikerEZ in on this one.

My personal suspicions for Reading and Random Bystander boil down to peripheral play. In Reading's case, as I've outlined in the massive wall of text (not the best place, I know, sorry  ) two votes jump out at me - D3 where Reading suddenly jumps on an existing Lotus vote once I tied up by putting my first vote on Connie. Reason: negative gut on Lotus's reads list, which isn't much to go on. A few other players had expressed concern about the reads list too, but I'm more interested in what Reading's action does - it effectively turned Lotus into the leading vote train, against my single, deliberately-unsubstantiated Connie vote. I could see that as a teammate cautiously trying to poke someone else ahead while waiting to see if anyone else bites on the Connie train. The second thing that stands out for Reading in my view is the late vote on the TUO train D4: Reading more or less states, for no apparent reason, that they believe the Gears-versus-Striker trains are both Villagers and TUO is most likely Evil. Where does this certainty come from? 

Quote

Now, I think that there is a possibility that the striker/gears stuff is v/v. (That seems the most likely) If it is, then The Unkown Order is elim. If he's village, than I think that striker would be an elim. Mainly, because I think that E!Gears wouldn't come after Striker that hard.

[Color-edited for Sart's sanity.] I dislike this framing because it sets up Striker and Gears both as Villagers, and...if you're suspicious of either of Gears or Strikers, that's one hell of a red flag, and it's not really clear where this comes from. Araris does press Reading a little on the issue, and Reading backpedals a little. One thing to note is Reading did in fact claim to be the missing LoW on N2, bringing our total up to a Defense of 6. If this is true, then TUO and Reading would both be Warding in the same Turn, which I find mildly odd if we were to presume Reading were Evil.

My suspicions of Random Bystander as I said - peripheral play, and a bit of gut, plus I'm always naturally suspicious of players who emphasise being new a bit too much. I was Evil on my very first SE game and the team I was on immediately instructed me to lurk where possible and play the rookie to the hilt. (Alv would remember this, because we were Evil together that game, and he had to babysit me while I was busy crapping my pants that Meta and Wyrm were after me. Unfortunately, he's dead now. Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Sarge, TJ, Illwei, Mat.) It's a fair strategy used by both sides - El wielded it to lethal effect as a Village Mistborn vigilante in LG15b, and Phat tried that tactic as well in QF6, though Meta and I were on his case. Random, especially early on, was also swift to respond to pokes, which could be a new player thing, but as I've mentioned, can be telling with regard to Evil players.

Random has referenced playing such games before, so they're not that fresh off the boat either, and I note that they did delay on using the map, like TUO, until both TUO and Random were called out over it on D3. To which Random's response was that they'd had other actions planned. That seems weird to me, but Random also did use their map, and I find it weird that Random and TUO would both be on one team and one would use their map and the other not. (The counterpoint might be if TUO had to take the kill because Connie or someone else was unable to.)]

[StrikerEZ]

32 minutes ago, Gears said:

HOWEVER: You are not dead. I do not consider this point addressed. You are alive despite being a prime target. 

Conclusion: Order vote inadequately addressed [you have good points, but I remain unconvinced], tunneling excuse acceptable, preoccupation valid, but you are alive. 

I really think I'm still alive because I'm like a sponge for valuable discussion. Or maybe a magnet is a better metaphor. I am a vocal player, I've done some suspicious things, and people will always tend to come back and look at me and try and grinch me. I'm the perfect candidate to keep alive as a possible grinch candidate so the elims can increase the chalklings' strength and avoid a grinch for a cycle. As for me being a threat to the elims...I feel like I have demonstrably proven that I am not much of a threat when it comes to actually finding elims. Which is why I'm wildly throwing around suspicions in an attempt to find something that sticks.

Obviously, this relies on the fact that I know that I am village. And I am making assumptions about what the elims are thinking. So...I could be completely off base for why the elims are still keeping me alive.

32 minutes ago, Gears said:

Could you quickly outline the reasoning for your suspicions, especially Random Bystander and Reading?

I mean, to start, it's because I have no idea who I'm suspicious of because all of my ideas throughout this game have been completely off so far. But, as for why exactly, I'm suspicious of Rando because they keep showing up only when people mention that they're suspicious of Rando. And they were involved with TUO and the map situation and the fact that they didn't want to use it at night, which is better for the village. And Reading has been mostly off to the side, generating little in terms of reads or getting people to read them (which is suspicious in and of itself later in the game), plus they did vote on Lotus (who I think is village) in response to Gears being up for the shrek. Not saying I think you're an elim necessarily, but if Reading is an elim, I would take a deeper look at you again.

But again, I need to emphasize: I really don't know what I think of anyone at this point. I guess my strongest trusts are Kas (their analysis feels like it always does when they're village) and Lotus (mostly because their acid claim makes most sense as a villager, because claiming a fake acid would lead to her getting exed if we got overrun). Oh, and Archer, though he might end up getting converted, so that's not a permanent trust, especially since the Shadowblaze is now in play.

Got ninja'd a bunch while I was typing this. Kas has stated a lot of the same reasons for being suspicious of Rando and Reading as I have thus far. 

[Ashbringer]

I feel like sponges and magnets form two entirely different metaphors, but I can't for the life of me think of the difference.

As I mentioned in the MR, I got quite swamped the last two days and will be similarly busy for most of today. But rollover isn't for a while so I should be fine to catch up this evening/tomorrow. 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

13 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Plus I’ve been a very talkative player and have (most likely) interacted little with the elims in terms of suspicions (besides for Connie, who I did in fact express suspicion of way back on D1/D2, at a time when there was no reason to draw attention to her). As for TUO: I think it makes far more sense to follow a villager with suspicions than an elim. If either of you flip elim, that makes the other look bad.

You did mention Connie and Quinn as your second and third suspicions behind Mat D1 before saying that Mat was your only real suspicion 30 minutes later. That brings Connie up but doesn't really put her in danger. Voting alongside elim you would have been more about protecting you than sheeping you, but Order wasn't at all protective of Connie so that would be a change. Order hadn't voted at all in previous rounds so mostly I think that makes Gears more village without proving anything about you.

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

2. As I've said, I'm suspicious of Reading as well for opportunistic voting patterns (mentioned in that ginormous post), and Books for voting patterns that are strange, including that very self-conscious post against the TUO grinch. I go back and forth about Ash given his vote on TUO,  I would probably be willing to swap to Reading as a secondary vote target while making my mind up on Striker.

Depends on your Evil profile. If I'm right that Reading is Evil, then Evil vote clumping isn't ideal. Some more risk-friendly Evil teams (hi Araris!  ) are willing to take vote dilution risks (1/3 odds) over a more noisy and suspicious/blatant countertrain, especially since I and TJ were the only two on Connie at that point in time and I had withheld my reasoning. Evil teams have historically displayed both behaviours - I just haven't played Evil Striker before so I wouldn't be certain of which to model.

Devotary- I assume you Crab scanned Ventyl, then?

The vote was 5-3 Order-Gears when Reading voted, which isn't quite doomed, but it was clear the vote was heading towards Order. I think elim!Reading gains more by stating that Gears and Striker are likely v/v if one of them is evil, since an elim would want to leave open the possibility of voting for one of them next cycle if they were both village. Books doesn't seem to be putting a lot of thought into votes. No reason given for voting Matrim D1, voting Matrim again D2 seemingly just for the tie, and then a foregone vote for Order as a slightly better option than Striker or Gears. No vote at all the turn Connie died, though looks like lack of time from their blue text, and probably hasn't had a lot of time to think about any of their votes. Elim Ash would likely be using that revocation specialisation to disappear inconvenient items. I don't know of anything important being taken, although I doubt Ventyl would have been informed of the difference between losing the clock to the thief vs a LoR+. 

I did scan Ventyl, no clock.

2 hours ago, Archer said:

Excuse me while I tunnel on Ventyl a little longer. Why didn't v!they keep it? Steal comes before use, so if the elims wanted it, they'd have it. But maybe they're busy this round. Fortunately it's hidden where they don't know where it i- oh, it's with Gears? Cool. Now it can be stolen again. I'm glad Ventyl didn't use it because Lotus splashed the acid (village points to you), but this wasn't  super helpful either and frees up their action to take the gun. I'm either tunneling on a villager not paying much attention and making questionable decisions and or I'm looking at an Elim, and I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. 

As for the confusion, if Sart typoed, it can be stolen. If the thief took it, that's unfortunate. If it was handed to the thief, that's an Elim move. (Anyone know if STINK took an action last night?) 

I believe the only revocation specialists are Ash and Ventyl, unless Archer's handed it out or multiple people started with revocation. There's a decent chance the elims couldn't have stolen from Ventyl. I don't know why he would claim to have given it to Gears, especially since Gears says that's not true. There were no bribes available, so Stink would have stolen from someone. If nobody else was stolen from, the clock was presumably stolen instead of given to Stink.

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

24 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

You did mention Connie and Quinn as your second and third suspicions behind Mat D1 before saying that Mat was your only real suspicion 30 minutes later. That brings Connie up but doesn't really put her in danger. Voting alongside elim you would have been more about protecting you than sheeping you, but Order wasn't at all protective of Connie so that would be a change. Order hadn't voted at all in previous rounds so mostly I think that makes Gears more village without proving anything about you.

The vote was 5-3 Order-Gears when Reading voted, which isn't quite doomed, but it was clear the vote was heading towards Order. I think elim!Reading gains more by stating that Gears and Striker are likely v/v if one of them is evil, since an elim would want to leave open the possibility of voting for one of them next cycle if they were both village. Books doesn't seem to be putting a lot of thought into votes. No reason given for voting Matrim D1, voting Matrim again D2 seemingly just for the tie, and then a foregone vote for Order as a slightly better option than Striker or Gears. No vote at all the turn Connie died, though looks like lack of time from their blue text, and probably hasn't had a lot of time to think about any of their votes. Elim Ash would likely be using that revocation specialisation to disappear inconvenient items. I don't know of anything important being taken, although I doubt Ventyl would have been informed of the difference between losing the clock to the thief vs a LoR+. 

I did scan Ventyl, no clock.

I believe the only revocation specialists are Ash and Ventyl, unless Archer's handed it out or multiple people started with revocation. There's a decent chance the elims couldn't have stolen from Ventyl. I don't know why he would claim to have given it to Gears, especially since Gears says that's not true. There were no bribes available, so Stink would have stolen from someone. If nobody else was stolen from, the clock was presumably stolen instead of given to Stink.

I submitted the action to give it to Gears, but after rollover, my PM said I’d given it to the thief. So I guess Stink stole it from me... I didn’t think that would come higher than passing in the OOA.

[Araris Valerian]

The confusion here might be that some of what Sart puts in our PMs is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

[Archer]

22 minutes ago, Ventyl said:

I submitted the action to give it to Gears, but after rollover, my PM said I’d given it to the thief. So I guess Stink stole it from me... I didn’t think that would come higher than passing in the OOA.

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Order of Actions:
Day: Vigor, Making, Silencing, Bribe, Acid, Supply, Map, Steal, Revocation, Giving, Gun, Lynch
Night: Vigor, Forbiddance, Making, Warding, Clock, Lantern, Supply, Map, Steal, Revocation, Giving, Gun, Kill, Crab, Teach

You're right about the OOA, but, and this meta discussion is putting Sart in a bad spot and I apologize, but when my bribe was taken by Stink, the wording was similar to 'your item disappeared!'. Stink later claimed in PMs to have taken my bribe, so I'm fairly sure it was them. 

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Slightly. The Thief's action goes before Lines of Revocation, so if the Thief and a Line of Revocation go after a player with only one item, the Thief gets it. If you lose an item, you will not know if it was a Line of Revocation or the Thief.

Bold mine. This is Sart's rules clarification on the Thief ability. This would seem to imply that you would not receive a message saying you gave the item to the Thief. (Unless Sart messed up, but our working assumption should be that they didn't unless confirmed otherwise.) I propose that Ventyl willingly gave the clock to the Thief to get rid of it... and claimed it was stolen in case they were scanned doing it? 

Also, re-reading the rules clarification posts, I was reminded the elims need to spend an action to submit their kill. I propose that that's what people like TUO were doing when they 'forgot' to grab something. Tonight, if you come up empty-handed, that's highly suspicious. Submit :clap: your :clap: actions :clap: !

Edit: Araris, you are dangerously close to implying that Sart is fallible and I think that you must be GM smote on the spot

Edited February 10, 2021 by Archer

[Araris Valerian]

There is a difference between an item being given to a thief (i.e., stolen), and given to The Thief (taken by STINK). So I by no means think Sart is fallible .

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

He did capitalize Thief in the PM so...

[Ashbringer]

Let us know if Sart clarifies. I'd rather not vote for Ventyl until that does happen.

Books hasn't responded... hmm. @Burnt Spaghetti, anything of note on your end?

[Flyingbooks]

22 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

@Flyingbooks, what have you been doing actionwise?

Last night I forgot to take an action. This is the first game where I've actually had actions, so I'm not used to having to remember to put one in every turn.

 

This might just be my paranoia speaking, but I'm a bit suspicious of Araris. Both of the games that I've had as an elim have been with him. In one of them he did a major bus and in both of them he put his teammates on his sus list.

[Kasimir]

[OOC: I'm starting to think I make bad decisions. Anyway. @Archer, mention of the Thief definitely sounds odd. But also, as of N3, STINK told me he had 3 Bribes and had tried going for the clock in the Day but failed. We know he claimed a Bribe D4, though there were no more valuables in the Camp Supplies N4 and staying longer only put him in more danger of losing via death.

Anyway, given those constraints — STINK could trust Striker would make good on his public claims to be giving a Bribe, or he could simply take things in his own hands by stealing the clock since he knew who had it and that his action would beat giving — and might fail anyway. 

From what I understand, it was actually win-win, though STINK might not know that, since STINK would have exited the game no matter what he stole.

On the Araris point — yes, and I would like people who are going for the lanterns to publicly declare this to avoid a pile-up. Depending on Araris alone given the silence of the other lantern holders ain't good. But we need as many people on the Shadowblaze as possible. Meanwhile I will roll the dice with the gun. Best case we get a second grinch, worst case we deny Evil a second kill.] 

[StrikerEZ]

For what it's worth, Sart told me that I gave a Bribe to the Thief. So...he can be a bit silly in terms of what he says about how our actions played out.

[Archer]

10 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

For what it's worth, Sart told me that I gave a Bribe to the Thief. So...he can be a bit silly in terms of what he says about how our actions played out.

Sacrilege, smite him 

Given that Striker has no incentive to lie about this, I'll buy that the alleged wording is accurate, however, I'd still like @Sart to confirm or deny whether his previous statement that the Thief steal is always indistinguishable from the Revocation theft based on the GM PM message, or if there's wiggle room. (@Elandera because this is meta stuff) 

36 minutes ago, Flyingbooks said:

Last night I forgot to take an action. This is the first game where I've actually had actions, so I'm not used to having to remember to put one in every turn.

This might just be my paranoia speaking, but I'm a bit suspicious of Araris. Both of the games that I've had as an elim have been with him. In one of them he did a major bus and in both of them he put his teammates on his sus list.

As said before, this is indistinguishable from an elim submitting a kill action unless you're scanned. 

Who do you believe he's bussing? Because this implicates both the bussed and the busser, but the way you've worded it, it could be seen as trying to protect the person Araris is voting on (Striker, I think) by hitting Araris first as a misexe, after which you may say that it wasn't a bus, so his target must not have been evil after all. 

It's a good point though, so thank you. I like that you've been getting similar vibes as I. It's certainly worth looking into more!