Long Game 94: The Call of the Forest of Hell

[Ashbringer he/him]

...you're playing SE on a Kindle? That's a new one. Makes it difficult to vote, unless you just use the Voice in the Crowd secret things...

Wait did you know Mat voted or did you not

This is confusing

Also happy 2500 posts TKN

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

...you're playing SE on a Kindle? That's a new one. Makes it difficult to vote, unless you just use the Voice in the Crowd secret things...

Wait did you know Mat voted or did you not

This is confusing

Also happy 2500 posts TKN

Yep but I got skillz

I could see the bold so I was 85% sure

It's very confusing 

Congrats TKN!!!

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

17 minutes ago, TheAlpha929 said:

Cuz I'm on a little Amazon Kindle xD 

*looks meaningfully at my kindle* Does anyone else now have strong urge to try that?

Also had no idea I had that many posts. I went "really?" and then looked and was like, wow.

Edit: Should we maybe agree to bold or otherwise mark all of our votes for Alpha? Like, bolding makes it easier for the GM anyways and it isn't really hard to do.

Edited April 25, 2023 by The Known Novel

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

10 minutes ago, The Known Novel said:

Edit: Should we maybe agree to bold or otherwise mark all of our votes for Alpha? Like, bolding makes it easier for the GM anyways and it isn't really hard to do.

I always bold my votes, but y'all don't have to. I rarely actually play on the kindle, but it feels like I'm only on it when it's inconvenient haha

EDIT: I really gotta go to sleep now, see y'all soon

Edited April 25, 2023 by TheAlpha929

[Mat he/him]

25 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

...you're playing SE on a Kindle? That's a new one. Makes it difficult to vote, unless you just use the Voice in the Crowd secret things...

I mean I’ve read SE threads on my Apple Watch before  Can’t post off that but you can google via Siri

[DeTess she/her]

3 hours ago, The Known Novel said:

Also had no idea I had that many posts. I went "really?" and then looked and was like, wow.

It might not be the only factor, but I've found playing SE is a good way to get your post count to balloon.

[|TJ| he/him]

3 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Ahh so bad puns = votes

I understand  

Hmmmm, can't recall if mildly passive aggressive Mat is e!Mat indicative...

[Kasimir he/him]

Early days.

Homesteaders talking, at the waystop. Mordekai had found his way there, after the sign in the dew, the sign in the morning, the darkness in the glade. Whispers of evil among them, those who sought to summon—that which could not be named, Warmmha forbid. To call that which slept back into the world.

You walked a dangerous line, in the Forests of Hell.

You knew there were things out there, things left better undisturbed. Things no man's mind could possibly comprehend. You knew they were better left alone, forgotten. You worshipped at your altars, held your struck medallions, prayed to Warmmha, that in his kindness, Warmmha would send fresh grass and warm sunlight.

And when you got older, when your knees and back ached, as Mordekai's had begun to do, you prayed for a good, kind death, when the end came. You prayed to see the face of your God.

Brief mutters among the homesteaders. Mordekai listened. Warmmha had not taken him yet, and as long as he drew breath, there was the evil of men to foil. He thought he knew a little of that, in his time. You saw things, if you got old enough. Iniquity, selfishness...worse deeds. Fell deeds. None that stuck in the mind like a sign in the dew.

No urgency, in the murmurs. A few suspicions tossed here and there, but no one currently seemed inclined to pursue anything in earnest. But that was usually the problem, either way you sliced it. Early days.

The slower start from Prey was interesting to Mordekai. It stood out. He remembered Prey being less hesitant, a little faster. But another hesitance. He liked Prey, was easily tempted to cut the man slack when he shouldn't. He kept his eyes open for Sam [OOC: Archer.] It usually paid to be—wary of witches, especially if they sought to call the Dark Powers back into the world.

[OOC: My heart wants to award TJ half a  for that opening. My heart often betrays me when it comes to TJ. Watching for now. I don't disagree about E!Mat and passive-aggressive responses to votes but don't really agree with this read/question at this juncture. The heart wants what it wants.]

Edited to add: To be clear, I dunno how long I'll keep up the RP style but will at least try with regard to the Digimon reads. Am tired and COVID is scything through my entire household atm. I'm more or less coming down myself unfortunately.

To spark some discussion - anyone here see a Village-sided usecase for VitC? IIRC QF59 (?), it can be used to make the Elims just a tad more jumpy about final vote totals and force them to draw themselves out a bit more in voting (dependent on risk appetite.) I don't treat the loss of accountability as a very big issue until near lylo because functionally weird changes will need to answer to the thread following the cycle. I'm interested in what happened on previous runs though: @Amanuensis, @Matrim's Dice, @Ashbringer, @Sart, @Araris Valerian - flagging you lot as the ones who played one iteration or another. What happened to VitC back then?

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

4 hours ago, |TJ| said:

Hmmmm, can't recall if mildly passive aggressive Mat is e!Mat indicative...

Oh lol that wasn’t meant to be passive aggressive, it was just meant to be passive xD I’m just bad at tone and am an understander of the responses puns can have

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I'm interested in what happened on previous runs though: @Amanuensis, @Matrim's Dice, @Ashbringer, @Sart, @Araris Valerian - flagging you lot as the ones who played one iteration or another. What happened to VitC back then?

I don’t remember, but that could be because it wasn’t used at all :P. I agree with it being naturally elim sided though.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Oh lol that wasn’t meant to be passive aggressive, it was just meant to be passive xD I’m just bad at tone and am an understander of the responses puns can have

I maintain that Rysntly Departed was such a good pun I am best Kas I am proud of myself :3

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I don’t remember, but that could be because it wasn’t used at all :P. I agree with it being naturally elim sided though.

Funny thing is IDK if I agree with that/how much I do. Intuitively yes, I feel it's Elim leaning, but I think about how much stress y'all caused us C1 of QF59 and I'm not really sure it is. Yes, I used it to exe Ash later on (sorry, E!me for clarity for anyone not following this) but I think I was lucky to escape coming down under too much Village pressure due to the fact it was one cycle away from lylo. Secret-voting Ash was just a bad vote I should struggle to justify.

I don't think it's naturally V leaning either, unless played cleverly. Not really making a "iT's HoW yOU UsE iT dUrrhhHH" statement here, just more a "I kind of think this feels more E leaning intuitively than it should be."

The part that also does make me think it goes E is the chance of vote loss, of course. Your vote is your superpower and all that, so losing it isn't particularly great if you Village.

@Elandera Can players use VitC to deliberately cast a no vote btw?

[Archer he/him]

8 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Delayed cause we didn’t have 11, starts with 17. Gotta love that :D.

I’ll Start here.

I remember thinking about doing a distro analysis pre write when there were less signups, and I'm glad I didn't. 17 is close to 16, so probably four elims. Maybe five because it's an outnumber wincon and I feel like with larger groups, you need to trend towards proportionately more elims. 

Being annoyed can be a Mat elim tell. 

8 hours ago, TheAlpha929 said:

Cuz I'm on a little Amazon Kindle xD 

#SponsoredPost

also whhhy

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I maintain that Rysntly Departed was such a good pun I am best Kas I am proud of myself :3

Funny thing is IDK if I agree with that/how much I do. Intuitively yes, I feel it's Elim leaning, but I think about how much stress y'all caused us C1 of QF59 and I'm not really sure it is. Yes, I used it to exe Ash later on (sorry, E!me for clarity for anyone not following this) but I think I was lucky to escape coming down under too much Village pressure due to the fact it was one cycle away from lylo. Secret-voting Ash was just a bad vote I should struggle to justify.

I don't think it's naturally V leaning either, unless played cleverly. Not really making a "iT's HoW yOU UsE iT dUrrhhHH" statement here, just more a "I kind of think this feels more E leaning intuitively than it should be."

This is an interesting deviation from your usual stance about vote manip being a neutral ability. 

*

Sam the Witch hated receiving spam letters. They scoffed as they pulled a flyer out of their mailbox.

"Cult? What ever happened to getting your magic through gardening. These pyjama priests didn't even remember to fill in the name of their devil."

Indeed, the rules document still read that 'cultist can send an action to sacrifice a player to [text].' 

[Kasimir he/him]

7 minutes ago, Archer said:

This is an interesting deviation from your usual stance about vote manip being a neutral ability. 

It's not vote manip though. It's anon voting with the twist you might lose your vote. It's also widespread in that everyone has it so I think anon voting mech games like QF59 and Ash's game are a better comparator than say, Tyrian vm.

Edited to add:

Also, I'm not sure it's much of a deviation - my thesis can be summarised in this single statement:

25 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I don't think it's naturally V leaning either, unless played cleverly. Not really making a "iT's HoW yOU UsE iT dUrrhhHH" statement here, just more a "I kind of think this feels more E leaning intuitively than it should be."

Given I don't usually have a strong stance on vote manip going one way or another (and have endorsed vote manip baiting at at least one point in SE history), I'm curious as to where your views are coming from.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kasimir
Highlighted for emphasis

[Amanuensis he/him]

I forgor this was starting today

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

To spark some discussion - anyone here see a Village-sided usecase for VitC? IIRC QF59 (?), it can be used to make the Elims just a tad more jumpy about final vote totals and force them to draw themselves out a bit more in voting (dependent on risk appetite.) I don't treat the loss of accountability as a very big issue until near lylo because functionally weird changes will need to answer to the thread following the cycle. I'm interested in what happened on previous runs though: @Amanuensis, @Matrim's Dice, @Ashbringer, @Sart, @Araris Valerian - flagging you lot as the ones who played one iteration or another. What happened to VitC back then?

Lemme get some coffee, finally read the rules, and get back to you on this one

[|TJ| he/him]

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

The slower start from Prey was interesting to Mordekai. It stood out. He remembered Prey being less hesitant, a little faster. But another hesitance. He liked Prey, was easily tempted to cut the man slack when he shouldn't. He kept his eyes open for Sam [OOC: Archer.] It usually paid to be—wary of witches, especially if they sought to call the Dark Powers back into the world.

Brother, unless I get sucked into the game big time and ignore by irl responsibilities, I'm gonna be appearing like a rare Pokemon in this game. I had some time before getting sucked into work for the day and just remembered someone mentioning e!Mat's tell as p-aggressiveness and felt it was important to mention it. 

Also, pure gut from this post - 

19 minutes ago, Archer said:

17 is close to 16, so probably four elims. Maybe five because it's an outnumber wincon and I feel like with larger groups, you need to trend towards proportionately more elims. 

Archer

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

What happened to VitC back then?

VitC hasn't been that important. It only got used twice (one elim, one villager) in the first run and neither changed the outcome (though the elim one would have had there not been a late vote shift in thread). In the more recent game, Mat tried to use VitC to save (from outright death to 50-50) an outed elim and it failed, ensuring the elims lost. It's worth looking out for this in close votes where elims can't afford to be seen supporting teammates. 20% failure chance is high enough that this is more useful to the village as a threat than for actual use.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, The Known Novel said:

*looks meaningfully at my kindle* Does anyone else now have strong urge to try that?

I frequently play on my Kindle Fire, but it's not black and white, so

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Funny thing is IDK if I agree with that/how much I do. Intuitively yes, I feel it's Elim leaning, but I think about how much stress y'all caused us C1 of QF59 and I'm not really sure it is. Yes, I used it to exe Ash later on (sorry, E!me for clarity for anyone not following this) but I think I was lucky to escape coming down under too much Village pressure due to the fact it was one cycle away from lylo. Secret-voting Ash was just a bad vote I should struggle to justify.

I don't think it's naturally V leaning either, unless played cleverly. Not really making a "iT's HoW yOU UsE iT dUrrhhHH" statement here, just more a "I kind of think this feels more E leaning intuitively than it should be."

The part that also does make me think it goes E is the chance of vote loss, of course. Your vote is your superpower and all that, so losing it isn't particularly great if you Village.

@Elandera Can players use VitC to deliberately cast a no vote btw?

TBH right now I don't see it leaning either way. From my perspective, it's a tool that we can all use for a variety of reasons with a failure rate, so whatever team it benefits most should come down to who uses it most effectively and has a bit more luck.

I, for one, am probably going to be looking for opportunities to use it myself 

[Kasimir he/him]

27 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Brother, unless I get sucked into the game big time and ignore by irl responsibilities, I'm gonna be appearing like a rare Pokemon in this game. I had some time before getting sucked into work for the day and just remembered someone mentioning e!Mat's tell as p-aggressiveness and felt it was important to mention it. 

Thing is, it's a read so I'm sort of mildly feeling positive about this response? But I'm also trying to rein back because I always wanna  read you.

27 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Also, pure gut from this post - 

Archer

Hmm. Interesting.

27 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

VitC hasn't been that important. It only got used twice (one elim, one villager) in the first run and neither changed the outcome (though the elim one would have had there not been a late vote shift in thread). In the more recent game, Mat tried to use VitC to save (from outright death to 50-50) an outed elim and it failed, ensuring the elims lost. It's worth looking out for this in close votes where elims can't afford to be seen supporting teammates. 20% failure chance is high enough that this is more useful to the village as a threat than for actual use.

Fair, thanks for the heads-up. Interesting Mat still thinks it's E!leaning despite the failure, then. Mind elaborating a bit about the highlight here?

Oooh I just got ninjaed by Aman lemme get a tea and more meds and come baaaaaack to this.

Edited to add:

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

TBH right now I don't see it leaning either way. From my perspective, it's a tool that we can all use for a variety of reasons with a failure rate, so whatever team it benefits most should come down to who uses it most effectively and has a bit more luck.

Ngl I low key want to slightly this but am aware Aman of either alignment would say this, which is...vexing >>

2 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I, for one, am probably going to be looking for opportunities to use it myself 

Wouldn't expect otherwise

K tea for real.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kasimir

[DeTess she/her]

Regarding VitC, just reading it I feel like it might be slightly more useful to groups that can pull off coordinated action which is easier for the elims, but depending on the amount of writers in this game there could be sufficient ways for villagers to talk away from the thread to put it into action as a coordinated strike as well. Plus as was mentioned earlier it could affect the elims more than the village when they can't be entirely sure about the actual vote-count.

So yeah, it's a tool useful for both sides.

Reading through the rules, there's a lot going on, but apart from VitC I don't think most of it is actually game-changing and in need of discussion? Or am I missing something?

[Archer he/him]

52 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

It's not vote manip though. It's anon voting with the twist you might lose your vote. It's also widespread in that everyone has it so I think anon voting mech games like QF59 and Ash's game are a better comparator than say, Tyrian vm.

 

I entirely misremembered what that mechanic was. Update: I hate it. A 20% chance of failure isn't enough to deter most players and it makes EoDs less effective. I'll be throwing strong shade at anyone who adjusts the outcome of a close exe unexpectedly through this. 

6 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

 

K tea for real.

This reminded me of my plans to give @The Last Fæ the nickname Tea Leaf

[Tea Leaf]

1 minute ago, Archer said:

This reminded me of my plans to give @The Last Fæ the nickname Tea Leaf

... What?

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

15 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Mind elaborating a bit about the highlight here?

If it's something like

Villager (3): A, B, C
Elim (2): D, E

The fear that villagers might use VitC can make elims try to protect their teammate with extra votes. A villager (however confident they may be) who actually wants the elim dead has greater freedom to vote in thread for the elim last minute than an elim does to vote for the villager last minute.

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, Archer said:

Being annoyed can be a Mat elim tell. 

True, but I'm not annoyed...?

56 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

In the more recent game, Mat tried to use VitC to save (from outright death to 50-50) an outed elim and it failed, ensuring the elims lost.

I have no memory of this. Why do I have no memory of this >>

[Kasimir he/him]

5 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

If it's something like

Villager (3): A, B, C
Elim (2): D, E

The fear that villagers might use VitC can make elims try to protect their teammate with extra votes. A villager (however confident they may be) who actually wants the elim dead has greater freedom to vote in thread for the elim last minute than an elim does to vote for the villager last minute.

Fair.

10 minutes ago, Archer said:

Update: I hate it. A 20% chance of failure isn't enough to deter most players and it makes EoDs less effective. I'll be throwing strong shade at anyone who adjusts the outcome of a close exe unexpectedly through this. 

In a slight twist of irony, I'm curious as to why the change of heart from:

Quote

You know what’s infuriating when you’re an elim? Randomness. Or at least, having a poor idea of how much danger you’re actually in. I suggest that everyone explicitly keep their suspicions broad and their trust lists private today so the elims can’t rely on a village-led mix to get them through to the next round.

For accountability’s sake, I expect everyone to have some reason to share tomorrow to back up their vote, but if you’re split between two or three equally suspicious options, why not list them all and tell the thread you’ll flip a coin to decide where you land? If everyone applies legitimate pressure to a number of suspects, the overlap should catch the elims somewhere and force action on their part.

Thoughts?

Because I will give you this, Archer: you guys caused me a significant amount of annoyance in QF59, over and above the annoyance of not randing Village  

31 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

TBH right now I don't see it leaning either way. From my perspective, it's a tool that we can all use for a variety of reasons with a failure rate, so whatever team it benefits most should come down to who uses it most effectively and has a bit more luck.

I will add here I don't substantively disagree with these sorts of responses but do find them to be a tad vacuous or trivially true. It's about as trivially true as saying 'technology isn;t inherently good or bad, it's how you use it.' Or 'it depends' - to which the answer usually is: 'Depends on what, potatoes?' (Yes, aware this includes DeTess.)

Some of this is probably my inner TA speaking. Some of this is me thinking aloud about the responses that have emerged. I will say for what it's worth that I'm a tad more - I don't know if suspicious is the word, but I'm squinting more at Archer and Mat at this juncture.

[Archer he/him]

13 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

... What?

Well the shortform is going to be T LF. And if you squint at the back half of your name it kinda looks like Leaf. So in my head you're going to be Tea Leaf. 

Unless you have another nickname you prefer. Fair earning though, I can't do the fancy letters so it's just be Fae. :P. 

Welcome to the game, by the way! Nice to have you aboard. 

10 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

. A villager (however confident they may be) who actually wants the elim dead has greater freedom to vote in thread for the elim last minute than an elim does to vote for the villager last minute.

I'm not sure I follow this bit. If you cast a vote on a main wagon then switch off to a vanity vote, it has no potency. If you go from vanity to main wagon, it's more impactful, but it was already a main wagon. 

Elims meanwhile could vote for a teammate, making it look like they'll die, then move their vote elsewhere to cause someone else to go. 

Just now, Kasimir said:

Fair.

In a slight twist of irony, I'm curious as to why the change of heart from:

Because I will give you this, Archer: you guys caused me a significant amount of annoyance in QF59, over and above the annoyance of not randing Village  

 

Counter point: see my stance on Rioters who lose their vote and add a vote being OP. IIRC, in the PM for the third most recent game TKN was getting approved was the last time I mentioned it. It makes bussing too easy, making it a pain to read the room. 

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

I will add here I don't substantively disagree with these sorts of responses but do find them to be a tad vacuous or trivially true. It's about as trivially true as saying 'technology isn;t inherently good or bad, it's how you use it.' Or 'it depends' - to which the answer usually is: 'Depends on what, potatoes?' (Yes, aware this includes DeTess.)

Some of this is probably my inner TA speaking. Some of this is me thinking aloud about the responses that have emerged. I will say for what it's worth that I'm a tad more - I don't know if suspicious is the word, but I'm squinting more at Archer and Mat at this juncture.

FWIW I agree is trivially true  if my response seemed vacuous, I blame the fact my coffee hadn’t yet kicked in, but I can’t really see any inherent context where it’s V!sided or E!sided; like most things, it’s going to come down to results and keeping accountability.

ED1T:

Imagine my sadness when I see there’s a Writer role and I didn’t get it >:( even RNGesus knows I slacked off yesterday smh

Edited April 25, 2023 by Amanuensis