Long Game 94: The Call of the Forest of Hell

[|TJ| he/him]

4 hours ago, Archer said:

I'll be throwing strong shade at anyone who adjusts the outcome of a close exe unexpectedly through this. 

This strong wording, the pre-emptive suspicion of any particular action, feels e!Archer indicative. I think I recall him doing something similar in a game in which he was evil. 

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Huh. Okay, I'm taking back this response. I looked again and realised I wasn't clear (my bad) that I was wrestling with a nascent, weak lean of you so I can't therefore extend you any  credit, however small, for not wanting to lean into the  lean.

Edited to add:

Sigh. More unclarity on my part. This 'you' refers to @|TJ| >>

Like the edit added any clarity xD I'm so confused, because I just read this as "I was wrestling with a weak evil lean of you so I cannot extend you any evil credit for not wanting to lean into the evil lean" which  is ????? xD but I'm just assuming this was you just going back and forth "I need to be wary of TJ" "But TJ bro, TJ good" "But TJ bro != TJ good" 

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

No. I'm using it loosely at this point, partway between a numerical system and a degree one.

= mild/weak V lean.

= normal Village read, stronger than .

Oh huh, that makes a lot more sense xD I was just thinking how that cute fluffy on-fours Jigglypuff translated to an evil read, my bad xD

Also, the stronger good guy looks like Raichu! :P. [Looks like I'll be making Pokemon references and comparisons all game now]

5 hours ago, DeTess said:

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.

Feel tiiiiiny bit off about this post. Two legs in two different boats kinda feel. We've only played like half game together, so I could be reading into this wrong and it's just the way they Rule Analyse things. Also villagers tend to underestimate village coordination whereas elims always fear of it so they overestimate it. This awareness of village coordination might be an indication of evil. One to keep an eye out for. 

[Kasimir he/him]

30 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Like the edit added any clarity xD I'm so confused, because I just read this as "I was wrestling with a weak evil lean of you so I cannot extend you any evil credit for not wanting to lean into the evil lean" which  is ????? xD but I'm just assuming this was you just going back and forth "I need to be wary of TJ" "But TJ bro, TJ good" "But TJ bro != TJ good" 

I regret to inform you I am now tempted to slightly award you a >>

Part of me feels an Elim is just more likely to assume an E read off the bat - Elim self-consciousness at work. Part of me admits it's my own damned fault for just being so unclear and never really specifying I wanted to  read very, very weakly just for getting down to business to make a solving-relevant comment in a low tempo early thread.

30 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

This strong wording, the pre-emptive suspicion of any particular action, feels e!Archer indicative. I think I recall him doing something similar in a game in which he was evil. 

See, my negative skew on Archer does come from something in that ballpark, but a different direction, and I dunno how to feel about the fact I might agree with you in destination if not in journey.

I don't wanna say too much but I commented OOG when speccing another game to certain players that sometimes when you agree with a player you can go either way. It's the one guy's modus ponens is another guy's modus tollens thing in philosophy - I can take it to loosely imply I should probably have a better read on the player in question for mindmeld reasons or I can take it to seriously doubt my read and IDK right now.

30 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Feel tiiiiiny bit off about this post. Two legs in two different boats kinda feel. We've only played like half game together, so I could be reading into this wrong and it's just the way they Rule Analyse things. Also villagers tend to underestimate village coordination whereas elims always fear of it so they overestimate it. This awareness of village coordination might be an indication of evil. One to keep an eye out for. 

Want to know why you have this reaction to DeTess but not to Aman also fence-sitting?

I award myself one disgruntled Patamon:

Spoiler

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kasimir
Removed extra space

[Mat he/him]

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

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.

I'll point out that my stance is complete one to be taken at face-value, as that's the level I made it when thinking about it. Sure, there are village uses for it, but most of the time I can see it being helpful for elims closer to the endgame. That's the most obvious usage point to me, at least.

Then again, you could make the argument that it's similar to reaction tests, so idk. This could have more consequences than a reaction test though.

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

That being said, I'm slightly re-evaluating downwards on Mat at this point, in a direction. For other reasons I'd prefer not to currently talk about without more thread presence from others.

You've neeeever done this before  

3 hours ago, The Known Novel said:

Who are you voting?

I see you're not reading the thread very closely 

I was going to call out TKN for voting early when he always insists that's not his MO, but that seems to have resolved itself.

 

[Amanuensis he/him]

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Want to know why you have this reaction to DeTess but not to Aman also fence-sitting?

The slander >:(

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I see you're not reading the thread very closely 

I was going to call out TKN for voting early when he always insists that's not his MO, but that seems to have resolved itself.

 

I should note that comment was ninja'd by a vote count (or pre dated it, I can't remember), and I did not connect Hawaiian Hello to Alpha.

Honestly, I mostly unvoted because I knew one of you would call me out despite joke votes being well within my playstyle, and I didn't feel like getting exed for a dumb reason this game.

[Alvron]

5 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Long time no see, @Alvron. How’ve you been? What’s your planned approach for this game?

Indeed, it's been awhile.  Hopefully I remember enough of your playstyle not too fall for too many of your tricks. I've been busy which is sadly why I haven't been able to play more often but that's life.  You don't really expect me to answer that at this stage do you?

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

@Alvron?

Way too early for me to be trying to tie things up just yet.   Don't you worry though, I should be online before rollover so there's always a Chance. 

[Kasimir he/him]

36 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I'll point out that my stance is complete one to be taken at face-value, as that's the level I made it when thinking about it. Sure, there are village uses for it, but most of the time I can see it being helpful for elims closer to the endgame. That's the most obvious usage point to me, at least.

Then again, you could make the argument that it's similar to reaction tests, so idk. This could have more consequences than a reaction test though.

You'll be happy to know I am taking it at face value

37 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You've neeeever done this before  

The woes of being present in thread at an hour where the NAs don't wish to appear

36 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

The slander >:(

I feel like it's a fair question to be asking when he has at least in part singled out DeTess for reasons that IMO can be just as readily applied to you. There are definitely rejoinders TJ can make to that point, but I don't care to provide them for him when the point is to understand what he's thinking.  And what sort of mindset that emerges from.

40 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I was going to call out TKN for voting early when he always insists that's not his MO, but that seems to have resolved itself.

Hmm.

13 minutes ago, Alvron said:

Way too early for me to be trying to tie things up just yet.   Don't you worry though, I should be online before rollover so there's always a Chance. 

I just felt one can't mention ties without invoking you, good sir  

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

2 hours ago, Archer said:

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.

 

The main reason a villager would use VitC (making the elims overcommit to protecting at-risk teammates for fear of secret votes) can be accomplished without the failure chance by switching your vote last-minute in thread. The elim reason to use VitC (vote for villagers or remove votes from elims) can't be replaced by changing their vote in thread last-minute since that leaves a permanent identifiable record.

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

1. Doubling votes increases pressure.

Did you see that Alpha already had two votes on them by the time you voted? It seems justifiable though since Alpha didn't respond to TKN or Aman's votes and only cared about yours, and TKN unvoted shortly afterwards. Although TKN says he didn't notice that you and Aman were voting for the same player he was.

29 minutes ago, The Known Novel said:

I didn't feel like getting exed for a dumb reason this game.

Would you be willing to be exed for a good reason?

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Did you see that Alpha already had two votes on them by the time you voted? It seems justifiable though since Alpha didn't respond to TKN or Aman's votes and only cared about yours, and TKN unvoted shortly afterwards. Although TKN says he didn't notice that you and Aman were voting for the same player he was.

Nope. I saw Aman vote for a player I was feeling ??? about and figured I should just go for it. I do also think there's a certain psychological effect to watching two votes go down in rapid succession that's worth just watching for in the thread.

I don't really expect this to work on every player but had wondered if I could elicit more of a response from a player as new as Aloha.

[Ashbringer he/him]

I've gotten hit by surprising large vote trains before, as either Good or Evil. I think E!Ash gets more upset at them (with one example in particular). But I tend to play defensively if I'm active and Village anyway, and Inactive!Ash can just end up demoralized and become more Inactive / Dingo!Ash. That's sort of what happened LG93.

Either way, not exactly a fun time, but something you can sometimes get info out of. 

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

57 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Nope. I saw Aman vote for a player I was feeling ??? about and figured I should just go for it. I do also think there's a certain psychological effect to watching two votes go down in rapid succession that's worth just watching for in the thread.

I don't really expect this to work on every player but had wondered if I could elicit more of a response from a player as new as Aloha.

Well did you get the response you wanted  

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Apologies for my lack of contribution thus far, I'll vote on somebody before I go to bed tonight.

[Archer he/him]

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Two things: you made a mech clear comment there rather than anything to do with your views on anon voting mech, and I checked both TKN's approval PMs. As a side-note, I'd like us to go one game without bringing that up because while it's technically game views, it's not that publicly accessible and feels kind of wrong to be drawing too much on it as a result. Second thing, care to elaborate that stance for me? Still sick, don't want to dig through everything for it, sorry about it in the way that's apparently common between Singaporeans and Canadians

I thought my not getting it was just RNGesus judging me for having nine writing projects and zero progress on any of them </3

Grrrr. Why must you make me slightly question my thoughts on you >:( It's only p2 for Gomamon's sake.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Essentially a Rioter who voted for Person A publicly can drop their vote and move a vote from A to B, causing a three vote shift. I see that as overpowered in games with as close margins as we tend to have. I'll note though that in this game, it's less of a shift since it's only your own vote that moves

1 hour ago, The Known Novel said:

I should note that comment was ninja'd by a vote count (or pre dated it, I can't remember), and I did not connect Hawaiian Hello to Alpha.

Honestly, I mostly unvoted because I knew one of you would call me out despite joke votes being well within my playstyle, and I didn't feel like getting exed for a dumb reason this game.

TKN Mat

38 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I've gotten hit by surprising large vote trains before, as either Good or Evil. I think E!Ash gets more upset at them (with one example in particular). But I tend to play defensively if I'm active and Village anyway, and Inactive!Ash can just end up demoralized and become more Inactive / Dingo!Ash. That's sort of what happened LG93.

Either way, not exactly a fun time, but something you can sometimes get info out of. 

Why is your text so small? Even the one liner was, so it's probably not c/p from the elim doc

15 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Apologies for my lack of contribution thus far, I'll vote on somebody before I go to bed tonight.

Publicly? :P. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

11 minutes ago, Archer said:

Why is your text so small? Even the one liner was, so it's probably not c/p from the elim doc

I'm whispering.

We're in the Forests, you see. You should whisper too. So that they can't hear you.

...

Although apparently you can't whisper using a mobile device so that's fun and doesn't ruin my plans whatsoever

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

6 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I'm whispering.

We're in the Forests, you see. You should whisper too. So that they can't hear you.

...

Although apparently you can't whisper using a mobile device so that's fun and doesn't ruin my plans whatsoever

What if I just use a light color? Does that work?

EDIT: it’s also silver, and they don’t like that 

Edited April 25, 2023 by TheAlpha929

[The Paradoxical Phenomenon he/him]

Also, did anyone else see Telrao’s post saying she had to leave the Shard for a while, and that she can only post about once a week? So she is not going to be able to post in this game.

EDIT: Tea Leaf also has to leave:( 

Edited April 25, 2023 by TheAlpha929

[Elandera she/her]

10 hours ago, Kasimir said:

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

I can't remember if I responded to this yet. But no, it cannot be used to cast a no-vote, as that is instead its consequence.

[Sart he/him]

In terms of the whole Voice in the Crowd debate, I think it benefits the Elims more than the Village. Vote analysis is the quickest way for villagers to get a feel for where arguments have been going and how to analyze the game. With that analysis seriously in question, due to literally everyone having untraceable vote manipulation, it's much more difficult to get a feel for the thread by reading the thread. Yes, it can be used in gambits, but those are generally the province of PM Spiders, which I am generally not one of. All in all, it's an interesting gimmick, but not one I think benefits the Village all that much.

However, I want to transition from the mechanical discussion to more actionable discussion. It's all well and good to analyze mechanics. Trust me, I can do that for ages. However, we must analyze the analysts themselves, in order to see who is coming at the discussion from a biased point of view. In that regard, what immediately stuck out to me was this post.

10 hours ago, DeTess said:

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?

Her post just parroted what was already in the thread. It's just completely blasé. And to top it off, she also says that the rest of the rules aren't worth worrying about! Rules are always worth worrying about. How will we know how the elims might try to fool us, or how we can sus them out. I'm especially interested in the possibility of insanity, and how that can bound the kill potential of the elims.

For that reason, I'll throw a vote on DeTess. I haven't played with you in forever, and this is my way of welcoming you back.

[Amanuensis he/him]

1 hour ago, TheAlpha929 said:

Also, did anyone else see Telrao’s post saying she had to leave the Shard for a while, and that she can only post about once a week? So she is not going to be able to post in this game.

EDIT: Tea Leaf also has to leave:( 

Sad

[Ashbringer he/him]

Oh no 

[Archer he/him]

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I'm whispering.

XD. 

What was up with that self analysis? I saw someone mentioned vote avalanches have happened on you before, but you really ran with that topic to make some points about v!, e!you that didn't seem relevant. 

2 hours ago, TheAlpha929 said:

Also, did anyone else see Telrao’s post saying she had to leave the Shard for a while, and that she can only post about once a week? So she is not going to be able to post in this game.

EDIT: Tea Leaf also has to leave:( 

Ah

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

1 hour ago, Sart said:

In terms of the whole Voice in the Crowd debate, I think it benefits the Elims more than the Village. Vote analysis is the quickest way for villagers to get a feel for where arguments have been going and how to analyze the game. With that analysis seriously in question, due to literally everyone having untraceable vote manipulation, it's much more difficult to get a feel for the thread by reading the thread. Yes, it can be used in gambits, but those are generally the province of PM Spiders, which I am generally not one of. All in all, it's an interesting gimmick, but not one I think benefits the Village all that much.

However, I want to transition from the mechanical discussion to more actionable discussion. It's all well and good to analyze mechanics. Trust me, I can do that for ages. However, we must analyze the analysts themselves, in order to see who is coming at the discussion from a biased point of view. In that regard, what immediately stuck out to me was this post.

Her post just parroted what was already in the thread. It's just completely blasé. And to top it off, she also says that the rest of the rules aren't worth worrying about! Rules are always worth worrying about. How will we know how the elims might try to fool us, or how we can sus them out. I'm especially interested in the possibility of insanity, and how that can bound the kill potential of the elims.

For that reason, I'll throw a vote on DeTess. I haven't played with you in forever, and this is my way of welcoming you back.

If this isn't a villager, I'll eat my witch's hat. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

6 minutes ago, Archer said:

XD. 

What was up with that self analysis? I saw someone mentioned vote avalanches have happened on you before, but you really ran with that topic to make some points about v!, e!you that didn't seem relevant. 

Idk if someone else mentioned them happening to me, but someone mentioned what response they were trying to get out of Alpha and/or how it would be useful. I just tried to give an example of how it might be helpful or might be NAI. And also how regardless they could be frustrating at times.

Plus I'd prefer to stay somewhat on topic of analysis instead of just posting nothings. Even if I should really get to that presentation I need to do for Bio.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

4 hours ago, Archer said:

Publicly? :P. 

Yeah. Archer. This is mostly me agreeing with TJ's early vote on you; discussion of elim numbers isn't really substantive, and I didn't see anything else to  sway me back.

As for the Voice discussion, I think the ability is mostly useful for elims, but has a limited use case even for them. Consequently, I think that everyone should publicly vote, because secret votes are definitely more of a factor than the fact that voting is useful for solving the game.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

6 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

 

The main reason a villager would use VitC (making the elims overcommit to protecting at-risk teammates for fear of secret votes) can be accomplished without the failure chance by switching your vote last-minute in thread. The elim reason to use VitC (vote for villagers or remove votes from elims) can't be replaced by changing their vote in thread last-minute since that leaves a permanent identifiable record.

Did you see that Alpha already had two votes on them by the time you voted? It seems justifiable though since Alpha didn't respond to TKN or Aman's votes and only cared about yours, and TKN unvoted shortly afterwards. Although TKN says he didn't notice that you and Aman were voting for the same player he was.

Would you be willing to be exed for a good reason?

Nobody was voting Alpha when I first voted, and I realized who they were voting when I saw a vote count after I posted.

Well, it wouldn't be ideal. 

[|TJ| he/him]

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Part of me feels an Elim is just more likely to assume an E read off the bat - Elim self-consciousness at work. Part of me admits it's my own damned fault for just being so unclear and never really specifying I wanted to  read very, very weakly just for getting down to business to make a solving-relevant comment in a low tempo early thread.

Nah, it's my theory that I (or anyone else tbh) carry over residual suspicion from recently concluded good evil games. Villagers subconsciously extra wary of players who had a good evil game recently so I assumed that was the case here and thought it was an evil read. 

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Want to know why you have this reaction to DeTess but not to Aman also fence-sitting?

Aman's wordings comes off as general speak whereas deTess goes into hypotheticals.

Aman's post imo doesn't feel like fence-sitting, it's just matter-of-fact "whoever uses the mechanism better benefits from it the most". deTess explores situations - "Helps evil players, but if villagers do this, it's harmful to evil players" and concludes that it helps both which is an obvious point. 

"Helps whoever uses it better" VERSUS "Helps both" is the distinction. 

7 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

The main reason a villager would use VitC (making the elims overcommit to protecting at-risk teammates for fear of secret votes) can be accomplished without the failure chance by switching your vote last-minute in thread. The elim reason to use VitC (vote for villagers or remove votes from elims) can't be replaced by changing their vote in thread last-minute since that leaves a permanent identifiable record.

Village points for this, because they're right. Unless someone is doing some reverse-pocketing and/or it's endgame stage, the function of VitC can be replicated by a final minute vote-shift. And there's no reason why a villager should prefer VitC to it, other than the circumstances I have mentioned above.