Mid-Range Game 56: Day of Reckoning

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

47 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

I really feel like this WAS the elim kill 

Clearly I should have chosen someone else to push for. If you don't want me here you can just kill me and get it over with, but it doesn't help your win condition to do so.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

1 minute ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Clearly I should have chosen someone else to push for. If you don't want me here you can just kill me and get it over with, but it doesn't help your win condition to do so.

that was a particularly suspicious comment.

[Ashbringer he/him]

43 minutes ago, Tani said:

there's a problem

I asked if I would flip vil or grey and TJ said PAFO

Technically, everyone’s flipping Black…

Honestly I’m a little curious if Devo’s kill will flip alignment. Could be just the exe that’s broken. That would be fun.

I’m not that curious, though. 

Edit: Devotary, you’re not an Epic, right? But Striker is?

Edited February 14, 2022 by Ashbringer

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

2 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

that was a particularly suspicious comment.

I'm not going to keep trying to kill someone with a passive ability to block attacks. I have better things to do with my time, currently Epic scanning Archer since that's what people wanted. And if nobody else is going to vote for Stick there's no point in me doing so either.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

@Ashbringer my PM did not say I got hit by a kill.

[Experience he/him]

2 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

@Ashbringer my PM did not say I got hit by a kill.

I...don't think you were attacked. 

[Kasimir he/him]

There's still no alignment flip?! 

What the bloody hell TJ. How do you expect us to ID Elims if we don't even know how the hell a player flips. 

Ugh. 

I'm going back to sleep. This can be worked out later. 

Edited to add: P. S. TJ told me I was redirected to someone else. I had targeted Archer, trying to Riot him to Karn. But I was redirected to an ineligible target so my Riot failed. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Illwei]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Edited to add: P. S. TJ told me I was redirected to someone else. I had targeted Archer, trying to Riot him to Karn. But I was redirected to an ineligible target so my Riot failed. 

I thought it'd be fun

[Ashbringer he/him]

24 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I thought it'd be fun

… oh no

[Quivil]

1 hour ago, Illwei said:

I thought it'd be fun

I FOUND A FRIEND!

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Just now, Tani said:

I FOUND A FRIEND!

Rusts, Tani has a friend. good job?

[Kasimir he/him]

6 hours ago, Illwei said:

I thought it'd be fun

k

Edited to add: When you're done trying to be cute, did you by any chance redirect Mat to himself C1?

Edited to add 2: Gonna step away from the cycle for a couple hours. I think the chaos gremlin EoC and the lack of a karking flip are irking me more than they should.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Quivil]

What if we didn't lynch anyone until we got more info? We're not getting flips, there's no reason to keep killing ourselves. What if we wait a couple cycles, gather information, and poke around with our Epic powers instead of lynching?

 

Are there any valid reasons to keep lynching people in this case?

Devo, Stick just to cover all my bases and make sure I'm not voting anyone.

 

Ed1t: @|TJ| can we vote for no lynch? Ed2t: Because if we can, no lynch.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Tani

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 minute ago, Tani said:

What if we didn't lynch anyone until we got more info? We're not getting flips, there's no reason to keep killing ourselves. What if we wait a couple cycles, gather information, and poke around with our Epic powers instead of lynching?

 

Are there any valid reasons to keep lynching people in this case?

Devo, Stick just to cover all my bases and make sure I'm not voting anyone.

The problem with this is, where are we getting more info? The Elims apparently aren't killing anyone. Devotary is, or is trying to, but apparently has a wincon to kill Epics. (Devo, do you need to use your own kill on Epics, or does exing them advance your win con?) Nothing is happening, which means either we've got a conversion or the Elims just aren't doing anything for some reason. 

It's possible that TJ's "events" mean that something will change on a certain cycle number, but there could also be any other trigger.

[Kasimir he/him]

4 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

The problem with this is, where are we getting more info? The Elims apparently aren't killing anyone. Devotary is, or is trying to, but apparently has a wincon to kill Epics. (Devo, do you need to use your own kill on Epics, or does exing them advance your win con?) Nothing is happening, which means either we've got a conversion or the Elims just aren't doing anything for some reason. 

I'll come back later to do justification but that's essentially the problem. Also, @|TJ| — is there a minimum vote threshold? Because if there isn't, we're committed to a lynch any way you slice it so this line of conversation is a non-starter. (I do think it should be a non-starter anyway depending, because of Sja problems if you think we are in [Convert World] and obvious reasons if we are in [Regular SE World]. 

TJ keeps complaining in response to my questions that this is a normal SE game so he doesn't see why we keep asking all the questions. Funny that, because I'm usually not locked out of a standard SE game and shut down in terms of effectiveness because of the lack of a flip is killing my ability to do vote analysis without having to build in each separate path—which gets dicey very fast as interactions increase—or just to even correct my assumptions. Maybe I should take this as a sign to engage dgaf mode because it's clear I'm not going to get what I need to do my own small part as a player ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, my frustration aside, I think he's not wrong it's probably a standard SE game. I think events do include player death and I'm starting to wonder if someone here is actually Vexcave and we need to ID and kill them for alignment flips, since the D1 write-up suggests that Vexcave does fog. Which is probably a conspiracy theory and a sign of how done I am. I'm starting to understand how Orlok feels about drowning in thread volume and so being unable to use his dominant playstyle effectively. 

The seeming lack of a NK is especially egregious given the number of redirects apparently flying around in this game. Even if we suspected Mat put in the kill, it's odd because who put it in then for C2, Karn? That requires willful bad play from the Elims. In [Convert World], the convert should be able to kill while Sja converts someone else. So why is there no kill? 

One option is that Devo's C2 kill was actually the NK. I do wonder if it's a true claim from a certain point of view—she only acquired the kill C2 because she was converted C1. 

Devo's wincon is odd to me because there are so many Epics that it feels like the role was always going to have an easy path to victory, which means there's a catch we likely know nothing about.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Araris Valerian he/him]

56 minutes ago, Tani said:

What if we didn't lynch anyone until we got more info? We're not getting flips, there's no reason to keep killing ourselves. What if we wait a couple cycles, gather information, and poke around with our Epic powers instead of lynching?

 

Are there any valid reasons to keep lynching people in this case?

Devo, Stick just to cover all my bases and make sure I'm not voting anyone.

 

Ed1t: @|TJ| can we vote for no lynch? Ed2t: Because if we can, no lynch.

I'll vote Tani, no point in playing SE if we aren't murdering each other.

[Quivil]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

The problem with this is, where are we getting more info? The Elims apparently aren't killing anyone. Devotary is, or is trying to, but apparently has a wincon to kill Epics. (Devo, do you need to use your own kill on Epics, or does exing them advance your win con?) Nothing is happening, which means either we've got a conversion or the Elims just aren't doing anything for some reason. 

It's possible that TJ's "events" mean that something will change on a certain cycle number, but there could also be any other trigger.

Killing people doesn't give us more info. Not killing people right now makes it harder for the elims to win. The elims aren't getting a free kill for every night we don't exe, because they aren't killing either. Not exeing people also gives us more ways to find info. We have known epic powers that give info. There are almost definitely epic powers we don't know that also give info.

If this game goes on long enough, I can check everyone's power and see if we can figure out what it is. Devo can scan everyone and see if we're Epics, and at least somewhat what we do (he knew Striker was lying.) There are probably others.

If this game goes on long enough, we might be able to find all the elims just by what people say and how people act. Secrets have weight.

Bye Im going to sleep now.

Ed1t: 

10 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'll vote Tani, no point in playing SE if we aren't murdering each other.

rude!

Edited February 15, 2022 by Tani

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Honestly I’m a little curious if Devo’s kill will flip alignment. Could be just the exe that’s broken. That would be fun.

Edit: Devotary, you’re not an Epic, right? But Striker is?

The problem with this is, where are we getting more info? The Elims apparently aren't killing anyone. Devotary is, or is trying to, but apparently has a wincon to kill Epics. (Devo, do you need to use your own kill on Epics, or does exing them advance your win con?)

That's one of my theories for why the elims aren't killing anybody. Arsonist was another but I don't know if that would be listed as a faction kill.

Striker's an Epic, I just kill them.

Any sort of scan role, but mine isn't too helpful for alignment purposes apparently. Killing and voting for the exe target both work for me.

28 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Anyway, my frustration aside, I think he's not wrong it's probably a standard SE game. I think events do include player death and I'm starting to wonder if someone here is actually Vexcave and we need to ID and kill them for alignment flips, since the D1 write-up suggests that Vexcave does fog. Which is probably a conspiracy theory and a sign of how done I am. I'm starting to understand how Orlok feels about drowning in thread volume and so being unable to use his dominant playstyle effectively.

One option is that Devo's C2 kill was actually the NK. I do wonder if it's a true claim from a certain point of view—she only acquired the kill C2 because she was converted C1. 

Devo's wincon is odd to me because there are so many Epics that it feels like the role was always going to have an easy path to victory, which means there's a catch we likely know nothing about.

The obvious choice for this would be Archer able to obscure dead people's alignments as well as talk to them when they're not revealed, although it doesn't make sense that he would immediately claim if this was the case.

There's no world in which I'm a good convert except for evil Stick who thought she would flip on death. Aman already wanted to kill me D1.

It's simple but I would not say easy, especially now that I've had to claim. I would also like to kill as few village Epics as possible.

Edit: Archer or someone with a similar role being the one to obscure alignments instead of a specific mechanic means that possibly only one person's alignment can be obscured per cycle, which would explain the lack of a kill but also that without an exe the elim or my kill could be obscured. Although there's much less value in hiding the alignment of the elim kill since killing one of their own would be extremely strange.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Devotary of Spontaneity
Added thought

[Ashbringer he/him]

… I have a few ideas. Better to type them on a laptop though.

5 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

That's one of my theories for why the elims aren't killing anybody. Arsonist was another but I don't know if that would be listed as a faction kill.

Striker's an Epic, I just kill them.

Any sort of scan role, but mine isn't too helpful for alignment purposes apparently. Killing and voting for the exe target both work for me.

I had a slightly terrifying thought. Devo… does your hunter have a name? Do NOT tell me what, but do they?

I want PMssssssssssssss

[|TJ| he/him]

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Also, @|TJ| — is there a minimum vote threshold?

No. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

Once again, don't have much time, because spending too much time really did not go well yesterday.

We're at a loss for what to do. Let's see if that can change. Because something that's been drilled into my head enough in Biology classes is if the world's too complicated to make a model, put in some simplifying assumptions.

Option One: Standard Elim Team, Unaware of Lack of Flips

If there's a standard Elim team, no conversions, either they're very small and uncoordinated or they're just as confused as we are. Maybe that will change tonight. Maybe not. But, let's assume they didn't know about their being no alignment flips until either 1) C2 or 2) Archer brought it up.

Of course, that's assuming V! or N! Archer. In this case, I'm assuming that too. What does that tell us to look for? Look for anyone - especially known risk-takers - who shift dramatically after Archer's claim. Or, in general, look at early D1 compared to... what a normal D1 looks like. What's different.

Option Two: Tricksy Elim Team, Aware of Flips

Maybe the Elims knew, though. They could be less careful. But that leaves a certain Archer out on the field - why spill the beans? Honestly, I think E! Archer would have to. Either that, or claim vanilla. If he hadn't shared that information until he first got answers - around C3 - then he'd lose all credibility. Imagine if he claimed now. That would be interesting. Of course, Archer could be the Village Chosen One in this scenario, but that's a lead.

Option Three: Tricksy Elim Team, Kill

This would be Devotary. Not much else to say, unless someone wants to fess up to being a Roleblocker Overlord.

Option Four: Tricksy Elim Team, No Kill

Uh oh. This... feels like the simplest explanation, but it's also one we simply can't investigate right now. Unless someone has an idea how. Conversions, arsonists, overwhelming role power, pizza jesters... we'll see.

Option Five: Tricksy Tricksy Tricksy

*Inhales*

STRIKERRRRRRR

 

TL:DR, Archer and Devotary are suspect by role proximity. Not many other reasons. But if we're going on role claiming to the high hills, then I'm going to analyze things. Or at least make a portfolio for someone else to do it. (Others suspect by role proximity are Mat, Stick, Striker, to some degree Tani, to some degree Kas.) However, the same idea with role action means no Elim action also helps. Might need to map that out too.

Why are blackout games always ending in action mapping? This is like LG68 on probiotics.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Edit: Archer or someone with a similar role being the one to obscure alignments instead of a specific mechanic means that possibly only one person's alignment can be obscured per cycle, which would explain the lack of a kill but also that without an exe the elim or my kill could be obscured. Although there's much less value in hiding the alignment of the elim kill since killing one of their own would be extremely strange.

If it were a specific mechanic, what sort do you think it is?

3 hours ago, Tani said:

Killing people doesn't give us more info. Not killing people right now makes it harder for the elims to win. The elims aren't getting a free kill for every night we don't exe, because they aren't killing either. Not exeing people also gives us more ways to find info. We have known epic powers that give info. There are almost definitely epic powers we don't know that also give info.

If this game goes on long enough, I can check everyone's power and see if we can figure out what it is. Devo can scan everyone and see if we're Epics, and at least somewhat what we do (he knew Striker was lying.) There are probably others.

If this game goes on long enough, we might be able to find all the elims just by what people say and how people act. Secrets have weight.

1. We're not interested in what everyone's powers are. We're interested in finding Elims. Not all info is the same kind of info, or equally valuable with regard to our objective.

2. I'm not interested in further entertaining this line of discussion and revisiting a more exotic form of the D1 lynch arguments. If this were a QF6 sort of game, I might be persuaded since that's essentially a "who blinks first" showdown. There is no vote minimum, therefore someone will die one way or another and I'd prefer we direct the shot rather than let RNGesus take the wheel. The point is moot.

26 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

TL:DR, Archer and Devotary are suspect by role proximity. Not many other reasons. But if we're going on role claiming to the high hills, then I'm going to analyze things. Or at least make a portfolio for someone else to do it. (Others suspect by role proximity are Mat, Stick, Striker, to some degree Tani, to some degree Kas.) However, the same idea with role action means no Elim action also helps. Might need to map that out too.

I'll be honest that I just shot a PM to TJ asking if there's something I'm missing about my role. I'm noticing there's something that's a bit of a deviation from the others (especially since Karn's role PM dropped) and what has been said so far about Epics, but TJ seems to be confused so maybe it's just me being paranoid.

I'm starting to swing powerfully towards mass claiming at this point because we just know nothing anyway, but either way, minimally, I'd hope get some kind of accountability going if Orlok can bounce target scans off Striker.

@Devotary of Spontaneity - Interested in whether you'd consider scanning TUA, under my Padan Fain hypothesis. But I'm starting to think that if we hypothesise the kill gives alignment info, then maybe we should request Devo doubletaps the lynch.

26 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Maybe the Elims knew, though. They could be less careful. But that leaves a certain Archer out on the field - why spill the beans? Honestly, I think E! Archer would have to. Either that, or claim vanilla. If he hadn't shared that information until he first got answers - around C3 - then he'd lose all credibility. Imagine if he claimed now. That would be interesting. Of course, Archer could be the Village Chosen One in this scenario, but that's a lead.

Archer seems unaware of whether Mat can lie, but that just builds more confusion: because if Mat can lie, then why would Mat give an honest answer to Archer's questions anyway if Mat is Evil? That just doesn't really make sense as a way of detecting alignment. And the same problem stands: having the only way of detecting alignment depend on one player is extremely volatile.

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

It's simple but I would not say easy, especially now that I've had to claim. I would also like to kill as few village Epics as possible.

Yes, but when you're designing the role as the GM, you don't think about balance or win con achievability by looking at the player. In such a target rich environment, if you hadn't attracted that D1 attention, it feels like you'd have had a substantially easy time fulfilling your wincon.

Honestly you almost sound like an SK.

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

That's one of my theories for why the elims aren't killing anybody. Arsonist was another but I don't know if that would be listed as a faction kill.

Yeah, if the theory is correct, then it was the other way around in LG7. Kills obscured, but the lynch was the only method of death that revealed alignment. I'm curious - could you try asking TJ if your kill reveals alignment? I suspect you'd get PAFOed but my theory is that if you do get PAFOed, the Elim team probably would've too.

3 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'll vote Tani, no point in playing SE if we aren't murdering each other.

Araris swooping in by being laconic again.

@Ashbringer In this context, what do you mean by tricksy?

Thaid.

Edited to add: TJ clarified the oddity is flavour, rather than anything significant. I tried.

@Illwei - You play quite a bit offsite. How do you guys handle flipless?

Edited February 15, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Amanuensis he/him]

20 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I swapped with Aman last cycle, and someone Gifted me a single use Soothe (sorry @Amanuensis if you wanted that).

Nah, I'm pretty content being roleless. Though I am surprised. Did you not think I'd be attacked last night?

@Orlok Tsubodai did you get any juicy info from who you followed?

@Illwei So you're claiming a redirection role yeah? Epic or Non-Epic?

@Ashbringer, @STINK, @Szeth_Pancakes, @JNV, @MintSilverTea, @Dannnex: So far we have 13 role claims (including the dead) and 2 Regular claims out of 21 players. At this point, I think role safety has completely gone out the window, and with no alignment flips we desperately need info. How many of you are Regulars like TUA and I?

[Ashbringer he/him]

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I'll be honest that I just shot a PM to TJ asking if there's something I'm missing about my role. I'm noticing there's something that's a bit of a deviation from the others (especially since Karn's role PM dropped) and what has been said so far about Epics, but TJ seems to be confused so maybe it's just me being paranoid.

I'm starting to swing powerfully towards mass claiming at this point because we just know nothing anyway, but either way, minimally, I'd hope get some kind of accountability going if Orlok can bounce target scans off Striker.

@Devotary of Spontaneity - Interested in whether you'd consider scanning TUA, under my Padan Fain hypothesis. But I'm starting to think that if we hypothesise the kill gives alignment info, then maybe we should request Devo doubletaps the lynch.

Yeah, you're in that group for the dupe role. Flavor's less so now that we have Robbin Hood on the case, but Tani's in there anyway. (Well, Tani's in there for another reason, but not as much as Devo-Archer.) 

LG74's given me enough reason to be more afraid of a half-hearted mass claim than a full one. So I'd be alright. Prefer not to, but eh.

Honestly... I'm not sure if Devo's scan only reveals Epic vs not Epic or more about them, but maybe scan Archer unless we decide to stab him. Having our resident Neutral Killing know about Archer's full capabilities is just fine by me.

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Archer seems unaware of whether Mat can lie, but that just builds more confusion: because if Mat can lie, then why would Mat give an honest answer to Archer's questions anyway if Mat is Evil? That just doesn't really make sense as a way of detecting alignment. And the same problem stands: having the only way of detecting alignment depend on one player is extremely volatile.

If Mat can't lie, there's not much point to talking to Mat vs talking to TJ though. Except, of course, flaaavor. And it's more about Archer potentially being the only village outlet into that, for better or worse. Probably worse, because I feel like a weak village outlet is far less likely than a fake one.

More so I just want to hear from @Archer. It's been a while.

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Yes, but when you're designing the role as the GM, you don't think about balance or win con achievability by looking at the player. In such a target rich environment, if you hadn't attracted that D1 attention, it feels like you'd have had a substantially easy time fulfilling your wincon.

Honestly you almost sound like an SK.

In Devo's defense, she's done similar things as Vyre, specifically not going for one wincon that needed her to kill the other Neutral (Battar / Mat) in my LG. 

But based on Epic/not-Epic ratios, yeah, somewhat SKish. 

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

@Ashbringer In this context, what do you mean by tricksy?

Thaid.

It's tricksy to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time
It's tricksy...it's tricksy (tricksy) tricksy (tricksy)

 

... don't know why that was in my head. Tricksy as in not normal/not traditional/how most of this game is going. Either an Elim team that has a weird unexpected capability like Conversions or Arsonists, or something else entirely.

 

hi aman, give me a sec

 

Edit: Oh, yeah. That.

I'm an Epic, but I'll wait to see what the others say to say what my role fully is. It's fun though, and pretty sure I can prove it.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Ashbringer

[Amanuensis he/him]

Oh and because I spent a couple hours down the no elim starting team / no elim nk rabbit hole yesterday only to find out it was a waste of time:

Quote

• Reckoner Allies: You are the uninformed majority. You win when Corrupted Epics are eliminated.
• Corrupted Epics: You are the informed minority. You have a doc to scheme in and access to one faction kill per cycle. You win when you achieve parity with Reckoner Allies.

ED1T:

10 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I'm an Epic, but I'll wait to see what the others say to say what my role fully is. It's fun though, and pretty sure I can prove it.

Consolidating...

1 Non-Epic Role (Knighthawk Scientist)
2 Neutral Epic Roles (Striker, Devotary)
11 Epic Roles (Including Illwei if Epic Confirmed 3 posts down)
2 Regulars (Aman, TUA)

BUT WHY THO

ED2T:

Going to the store for a pack of cigarettes. I may not come back.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Amanuensis