Quick Fix Game 62: He Who Arises In Might

[SymphonianBookworm she/her]

21 minutes ago, dannnnnnex said:

I'd like to believe you, but you're my best guess for who the conversion was. 

Also, a shield wouldn't help me survive this cycle, only the next one. 

If you aren’t killed this round you will have the shield that I made and also the proof that I’m Feanor. 

I don’t know if this will change anything or make you more suspicious of me, but I wasn’t converted. That means either no one was converted or someone else was. You all might not trust me on this, but... right now as I’m willing to craft items for people I’m more useful alive then dead. 

@Conquestor After I make danex the shield, I’ll see if I can make you a Fell Sword. Giving danex a shield should prove that i’m Feanor. And as for what I’m going to do with the sword... I honestly don’t know, but having a weapon can help me actually do something other than wandering around giving other people stuff. And in the end you can’t trust anyone but yourself in these games, so... I’m going to arm myself first before other people. 

Spoiler

So yeah to sum it all up please don’t kill me because I’m helpful

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by SymphonianBookworm
Ninja’d again....

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Just a heads up, Tuesday and Thursday are busy days for me, it will be another ~2 hours before I can start getting caught up on the thread.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

2 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

@Fifth Scholar does Melkor have a doc to talk to his converted friend in?

Yes, Melkor and the Corrupted have a doc.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Fifth Scholar

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

TUN claiming Finwe doesn't read as a joke. Kas had already made it pretty clear he was claiming Finwe so I'm not sure what TUN was doing. Dannex likely isn't converted because he could have died, Symph easily could have been and there's no real way for us to tell without killing Melkor. I dislike that Dannex chose Mat and Araris since that doesn't seem like a high percentage shot but the chances of Melkor converting a messenger are low enough that I'll give him another chance. Noble doesn't seem too powerful for Melkor to have although it would let him win 2-1 with no other manipulation.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

4 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Busy or no Araris has flown under the radar more than normal

I’m not sure that this is possible, given that I have a significant reputation of having done just that repeatedly.

I am also a messenger, and spied on Mat/Danex. I’d be happy to provide any details about said PM that are requested, without directly copy+pasting. The last thing Mat said was related to PMing and Finwe. Danex also approved of Mat’s convention for voting on him.

I also don’t have a PM with Mat, though I think one could be forgiven for guessing that we had one.

I think that it would be rather unlikely that Danex or myself would opt to not convert C1, assuming we were Melkor. Risking the game on how the last-minute voting on C1 plays out definitely is way beyond my risk tolerance. 

Some of Kas’s takes this cycle made me uncomfortable, until he backed off super hard on them and joke-voted himself. There’s technically some room for Kas to be fake-claiming as well, but it seems odd that he’d challenge TUN on the matter. I also doubt his self-control to abstain from PMs .

I’m sympathetic (again) to the suspicion on TUN. The way the discussion was moving, it seems reasonable for Melkor to soft-claim a role, and then double-down or back off, depending on the response.

I agree with Kas’s take on Noble!Melkor, that seems like too much resilience from the exe, so Conquestor probably was clean last turn.

Melkor!Archer basically committed to never converting, which seems odd. Archer is a solid player though, so I wouldn’t discount it entirely, but he gets a village read at least.

So I guess I’m left with something like TUN, Mat, and Devo for my suspicions, at least for a Melkor that used a conversion. I think Devo or Mat would have been more likely to be converted than TUN based on C1, but TUN is more likely to be Melkor based on the fake-claim. Unfortunately, I probably won’t be around to post again this cycle, so I’ll vote Mat and call it a day.

[Shining Silhouette he/him]

Well, I haven't had much time to go back and analyze today, but I thought I'd write out a couple thoughts. 

TUN - Right now, I'm not getting anything too suspicious from TUN. The rules analysis did seem like a ploy to step out of conversation initially, but now it's here, so I don't have issues with them. I liked their comments in the rules analysis- I hadn't realized that shields are 100% effective against Fell swords, so if Feanor or a Son of Feanor gets corrupted we can use shields for free protection for the village. Slight v lean, by the way.

Araris - has been very inactive this game. I don't want to jump on the Araris train though- I don't think they're avoiding the thread intentionally. Not much to go off of, two posts C1 and one explanation this cycle. Neutral.

Mat - I liked Mat's first post this cycle. I do kinda understand the progression argument, but with me being someone who changed votes last cycle after rereading and rereading without really documenting my progression, it makes sense. Slight v lean

JNV- I'm split here. Something felt off to me about their first post yesterday, but I can't put my finger on it. They have a good tone to their posts that I like, but it feels a little forced to me. Slight e lean

Conq- I liked his point about how Melkor could've "smithed something and gave it to someone to gain their trust". Did anyone receive any items last night? Conq feels natural, and a lot like his vil self last game. Vil lean

Danex- I was thinking about a potential Bookworm conversion before EoD, and I realized that Melkor might consider converting someone other than Bookworm and using the backlash against Bookworm to remove a "potential" conversion in thread. So the vote against Bookworm seems suspicious to me as well as some odd things from yesterday. Elim lean

Devo- I don't know what's going on with Devo. Looking in thread, it seems other people feel the same. I'll put her in neutral for now, maybe I'll try to do some analysis later

Bookworm- I definitely believe that Bookworm's Feanor. I'm tempted to put her in my Vil lean list, but then on the off chance she's converted? Hmmmm... I guess I'll put her in neutral because there's a lot of risk in that area right now.

Archer- Possible Village role, which I think has been proven (?). Again, Orator is a compelling choice for corruption. Their post this cycle seems genuine, but easy to fake. I'll put them in vil lean, though, because I've been getting good vibes from them.

Kas - I voted on them yesterday because I felt like their posts had a lot of words with few new things in them. Though that could just be me misunderstanding the game . At this point, slight e lean, subject to change however

Well, huh, I don't have much to go off of here, I thought I'd come up with more. Dannex is my highest suspicion right now but even that isn't very strong. I'm not too confident in my (mostly gut) reads, so I'll wait until later in the cycle to vote.   

As of right now, it stands:

Vil lean - Conq
Slight vil - Mat, TUN, Archer
Neutral - Araris, Bookworm, Devo
Slight elim - JNV, Kas
Elim lean - Dannex

[dannnex male]

24 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I am also a messenger, and spied on Mat/Danex.

Simply not true. 

Quote

Each cycle, the Messenger may target two players and read their PM conversation, if one exists. Doing so will alert them that they were spied upon

I have not been alerted of any such thing.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 minute ago, dannnnnnex said:

Simply not true. 

I have not been alerted of any such thing.

I was under the impression that the alert was flavor, explaining why further spying would be impossible. Regardless, I have a copy of your PM, and can rely any details about it that you so desire.

[dannnex male]

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

I was under the impression that the alert was flavor, explaining why further spying would be impossible.

None of the other roles have any flavor text, and if it was i'd expect it to be worded something like 

Quote

Messenger: While this role is alive, PMs are open. Each cycle, the Messenger may target two players and read their PM conversation, if one exists. Doing so will alert them that they were spied upon, thus rendering any of their future communication unreadable.

or something like that.

@Fifth Scholar can you clear this up?

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Regardless, I have a copy of your PM, and can rely any details about it that you so desire.

What was the 5th word I said in my first message. Also, who started the PM.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 minute ago, dannnnnnex said:

None of the other roles have any flavor text, and if it was i'd expect it to be worded something like 

or something like that.

@Fifth Scholar can you clear this up?

What was the 5th word I said in my first message. Also, who started the PM.

You started the PM and the 5th word was "village".

[dannnex male]

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

You started the PM and the 5th word was "village".

This is all accurate.

so we have 2 possibilities

Araris/Mat  e/e.
or the alert line was just flavor text. 

Edit: or Melkor!Messenger!Araris
also a possibility. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by dannnnnnex

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

The alert line is flavour text. The idea is that, if you’re a messenger opening letters, it’s hard to do discreetly for any length of time  

[Kasimir he/him]

5 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

@Kasimir-- your initial self vote was because you wanted to confirm Conq's claim to be a Son of Feanor, or something else? If your implied claim is true that saves me the trouble of trying to solve you so this is more just to pique my curiosity and clear things up. I do think TUN saying that it'd be not allowed for him to send you a PM could be him misunderstanding the Finwe rules (though it certainly doesn't look like that from his rule analysis) but just to be clear:

It's because I started to feel very strongly that it was just better to get the Silmarils out and see what the extent of the Sons are, and to check Conq, yeah, though giving Conq a Fell Sword would do the same thing. My C1 approach was to try to blend in and keep the Silmarils locked for as long as I can since Finwe also can't be protected, but I'm skewing heavily towards forcing Melkor to kill me and unlocking the Silmarils now.

If it's possible to get one Silmaril into the hands of a Son of Finwe, we should get a sense of how broadly they are distributed. (Also because that's a number of one shot kills floating around.) My theory is that they're a popular secondary role, but the only way to know is to see how big that anon doc is.

5 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

maybe I just still don't understand Kas' vote philosophy

I can confirm this as it hasn't changed

5 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

but the unvote doesn't make sense from me trying to be in Kas' PoV

I explained why in my post - Finwe is a possible claim from Melkor but why counterclaim Finwe falsely? I'm divided because I obviously know that it is a false counterclaim, but then take it one step further and suppose you're Melkor: you claimed Finwe falsely. Suppose further you win the thunderdome, which is absolutely possible. Good job, you waste a Village lynch doing the work you want it to do (hi Silmarils!), but you expose yourself and die the next cycle. You could just NK Finwe since Finwe can't be protected. You basically get yourself killed making an unnecessary counterclaim, when Finwe isn't even a power role. So I reflex voted but then thought through it and while it's hinky, I can't see the fakeclaim itself making sense from Melkor's perspective.

And if I don't think that fakeclaim makes sense for Melkor...then what the blazes is my vote doing there?

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Some of Kas’s takes this cycle made me uncomfortable, until he backed off super hard on them and joke-voted himself. There’s technically some room for Kas to be fake-claiming as well, but it seems odd that he’d challenge TUN on the matter. I also doubt his self-control to abstain from PMs .

The PM I wanted but could not have  

@Archer - If you want a PM you'll have to make one yourself, I'm not allowed to even if I'd want one, GM's orders >>

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Melkor!Archer basically committed to never converting, which seems odd. Archer is a solid player though, so I wouldn’t discount it entirely, but he gets a village read at least.

This is a fair point.

@dannnnnnex - PMed @Fifth Scholar, he confirmed it's flavour.

I'm still catching up.

Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Hesitated to say this as I think Conq's claim makes sense, but he's also AFAIK the only known double. That's an oddity, and so I really wanted that made sense of.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Kasimir

[dannnex male]

@Conquestor you claimed Son of Feanor right?

Mind telling us how many of you there are?
What's going on in that doc of yours?

Edited September 6, 2022 by dannnnnnex

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, dannnnnnex said:

@Conquestor you claimed Son of Feanor right?

Mind telling us how many of you there are?
What's going on in that doc of yours?

Bro. Sons of Feanor don't get a doc until:

1. I die

2. One of them gets a Silmaril  

[dannnex male]

Just now, Kasimir said:

Bro. Sons of Feanor don't get a doc until:

1. I die

2. One of them gets a Silmaril  

riiiiiiight

forgot about that

[Kasimir he/him]

Ignoring the role doubling issue:

These are the people we have claims from:

Danex (Messenger) - Corroborated by Mat, Araris
Araris (Messenger) - Corroborated by Danex
Conq (Noble) - Corroborated by Kas, mech
Shining (Noble) - Corroborated by JNV, mech
Archer (Orator) - Corroborated by mech
Kas (Finwe) - No corroboration but also PM sads, no sustained counterclaim
Symph (Feanor) - No corroboration, but no counterclaim
Wiz (Galadriel) - Confirmed by Mandos

Who are we left with? <Mat, TUN, Devo, JNV>

What does this say of the distro so far? Doubled Messengers, likely for PM security, I am not terribly surprised by the doubled Nobles and the Orator as I expect that we need some vote resilience due to the Silmarils potentially creating an insanely high vote majority. I do wonder if it is possible Fingolfin doesn't exist, and it's true the game wouldn't suffer too hard from losing Fingolfin since Fingolfin loses efficacy the moment Melkor successfully converts.

Jewel bribes can nullify Silmarils, and we have three Trinket maker roles. Are they all represented? No idea. But potentially one more Smith for extra padding in case of a ML or a Kinslaying bloodbath where the Sons go stab-happy?

Nothing particularly much at the moment here. 

Bah what am I even doing >>

Araris, Devo - not going off the role doubling reasoning, but I did like Araris's last post, and my votes for this cycle have generally been in the pool of people I don't feel positively on.

Edited to add:

@SymphonianBookworm - TBH, if you think Conq is Village, you could make Conq a Fell Sword instead of making @dannnnnnex a shield. A shield only has a 40% chance of protecting from the Corrupted kill, and only Feanor can make a Fell Sword, so that is just as good evidence.

Though I will say I have higher Village credences in Danex next to Conq, but that's my own judgement, and you should use yours.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Kasimir

[Conquestor he/him]

Hmmm, now I'm unsure about Araris but I honestly don't know who else to go for exactly. 

I do think that since 2/3 of players have already claimed and since we already have a Feanor and a Finwe claim, along with Galadriel revealed, there really isn't anyone we need to hide. I am of the belief that JNV, Mat, TUN, and Devo should just go ahead and claim. I mean, is there any real reason not to? There could be but I'm not seeing any convincing reasons.  

For that purpose and for reasons stated earlier... JNV. Araris, I'm still unsure about you, but I think this is a better use of vote power and time. 

[Mat he/him]

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

TUN claiming Finwe doesn't read as a joke. Kas had already made it pretty clear he was claiming Finwe so I'm not sure what TUN was doing.

I actually disagree with this-- I'll be the first to admit that I didn't catch it at first either, but I think that it being clear what Kas was doing is more evidence for it being a joke on TUN's part, not less. And Kas caught onto it pretty quickly. If it isn't a joke, then what is it? I don't think Melkor!TUN tries to get away with a legitimate Finwe counterclaim, though I could see Melkor!TUN still making that joke.

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I’m not sure that this is possible, given that I have a significant reputation of having done just that repeatedly.

You were pretty active last game, active enough for most of the player list to correctly read you village. It's enough of a change that it got my attention, though I'm still more interested in who you're pushing/why.

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Some of Kas’s takes this cycle made me uncomfortable, until he backed off super hard on them and joke-voted himself. There’s technically some room for Kas to be fake-claiming as well, but it seems odd that he’d challenge TUN on the matter. I also doubt his self-control to abstain from PMs .

I don't see the world of Finwe!TUN and Melkor!Kas as a possibility, personally, because I think TUN wouldn't have backed off if that were the case. Maybe someone else as Finwe, but the silence doesn't really make sense. So yeah, I'm pretty committed to v!Kas atm unless something really weird happens later.

So... you're voting me why?

1 hour ago, Shining Silhouette said:

Kas - I voted on them yesterday because I felt like their posts had a lot of words with few new things in them. Though that could just be me misunderstanding the game . At this point, slight e lean, subject to change however

What do you think of Kas' claim to be Finwe?

Ok, here's my current problem with Dannex:

18 hours ago, dannnnnnex said:

this might be suicide to say, but if i was GMing this game, I'd probably set up Messenger!Melkor
That way if melkor is the first of 2 elims to die, the village gets a handicap of no longer having PMs while hunting down the remaining (converted) elim. 

If we find a second messenger i am putting a lot of suspicion on them.

Then Araris claimed, and guess what? No reaction from dannex. Calm questioning, yes, but no reaction. So here's a crack theory:

• Melkor!Araris converts dannex yesterday, whether taking the risk or doing it at a time when he's not in danger and then leaving, I don't know.
• Together they decide to have Araris fake claim Messenger (having Dannex supply the necessary details for the claim to be believable) and then bam, instant NotMelkor claim, and distancing as a bonus.

It kind of seems outlandish but like it would explain

• Dannex's vote on the Feanor claim (since I still don't like his reasoning, at least for C2)
• Why dannex was unfazed by Araris claiming the role he said hours before he'd place immediate and strong suspicion on if it was claimed.
• Dannex picking me and Araris for a PM scan and only saying it after the cycle had resolved-- He'd know beforehand that we didn't, since Araris converted him.

And with nothing in Araris' post being a standout for me, plus him casting a relatively unexplained vote on the person voting him, I think I'll keep my vote where it is. There could very well just be double Messengers, but I've had enough absolute failed distro guesses to not want to change a theory or suspicion based on that.

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Hesitated to say this as I think Conq's claim makes sense, but he's also AFAIK the only known double. That's an oddity, and so I really wanted that made sense of.

I think you're right that Son of Feanor makes sense as a double, and that the other ones are probably just staying quiet. You can say it's an oddity if he's really the only known double but right now I don't think we know enough to say that.

47 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Araris, Devo - not going off the role doubling reasoning, but I did like Araris's last post, and my votes for this cycle have generally been in the pool of people I don't feel positively on.

I thought you were village reading Devo, though. Did you mention that progression in thread, or did Finwe just do the exact thing he voted me for earlier in the day? :P.

I might consolidate to JNV closer to rollover (which I... should be around for today [he says hesitantly]) but I do want to test my theory. So we'll see :P.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

7 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I actually disagree with this-- I'll be the first to admit that I didn't catch it at first either, but I think that it being clear what Kas was doing is more evidence for it being a joke on TUN's part, not less. And Kas caught onto it pretty quickly. If it isn't a joke, then what is it? I don't think Melkor!TUN tries to get away with a legitimate Finwe counterclaim, though I could see Melkor!TUN still making that joke.

And with nothing in Araris' post being a standout for me, plus him casting a relatively unexplained vote on the person voting him, I think I'll keep my vote where it is. There could very well just be double Messengers, but I've had enough absolute failed distro guesses to not want to change a theory or suspicion based on that.

I don't know. Seeing what happened maybe, being seen as claiming something and then backing off. It's worth it to ask for a real claim from @The Unknown Novel.

We can test by having Danex and Araris read the PMs of people that aren't either of them.

It's not helpful since apparently Sons of Feanor can have other roles, but I have just that one role.

[Mat he/him]

Just now, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

We can test by having Danex and Araris read the PMs of people that aren't either of them.

Oh. That probably makes more sense than just killing Araris or Dannex :P. But it is weird that they happened to scan PMs with each other and that neither of them seem to be concerned about the other's existence. This heightens the possibility that I switch to JNV, but I'll stay for now still.

Let me keep my pet read ;-;

[dannnex male]

19 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Why dannex was unfazed by Araris claiming the role he said hours before he'd place immediate and strong suspicion on if it was claimed.

i do have immediate and strong suspicion of araris
just didn't explicitly say so   Edit: well i kinda did say so, i pointed out messenger!melkor!araris as a possibility
didn't feel it was necessary, as I had already stated that i'd find another messenger suspicious

i'm still debating switching my vote to them.
i like my symph vote but the fact that we still have no feanor counterclaim is a pretty big weakness in the Melkor!Symph theory
but the Converted!symph theory also has merit

Edited September 7, 2022 by dannnnnnex

[JNV]

Hi Im a smith son of feanor I was goin to give Kasimir a shield but fi theyre Finwe that wont really help so who wants it also I know two isnt enough to actually do regression but maybe double roles are just sons of feanor psosibly perhaps if so thatd make me feel better about life the univrse and everyrthing cause Im already at the point where I want everyone dead except me and thats usually the point I get at when its late game honestly I think I overestimated both my brains ability to think and my lifes ability to give me chunks of time to use my brains limited thinking juice so yeah

The issue Im running into right now is most of the people pinging my evildar dont make sense as Melkor or even as evil honestly and I dont trust anyone enough to really say I wont vote them and I dont really suspect anyone enough to really say I will and maybe its the conversion bit of it but I really dont know and of the people who havent calimed anything really Id say Matrims more likely to be Melkor just by ostensibly seeming normal but thats also a horrible reason to vote someone so if you want to vote me out go ahead just who wants the shield 

[dannnex male]

VC:
Araris (1): Mat
Symph (1): Danex
TUN (1): Symph
Mat (1): Araris,
Devo (1): Kas
JNV (1): Conq

75 Minutes left.

Vote manip is going to completely control this if we don't consolidate.

[Shining Silhouette he/him]

25 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

What do you think of Kas' claim to be Finwe?

Honestly, I somehow missed it entirely

This changes my reads list a bit, but not too drastically. Since there isn't a counterclaim I should probably put Kas in my Vil reads, I think. 

2 hours ago, Shining Silhouette said:

Conq mentioned earlier that Melkor could've "smithed something and given it to someone to gain their trust". Did anyone receive any items last night?

Following up on this