Long Game 101: The Edge of Empire

[CadCom he/him]

10 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

And what makes you think I will shoot myself? 

You've probably played better than the village here.

Undoubtedly. Village lynched a V! Whistleblower. But I do think RBM made the right call in outing Drake, and Coffee made the right call outing drake and them as the Lieut's Doc mates. We just couldn't capitalize. 

@xinoehp512, seeing as I don't forsee any way to actually get TUO or Drake to self target, I do want to congratulate you on a game well played, and offer honorary 2nd place, on behalf of all the village. I totally have the authority to do so as the station captain. 

But then again, maybe I should reconsider. Pushing the game to another day cycle was a masterful stroke of genius, taking advantage of Drakes desire to Roleplay. @DrakeMarshall @The Unknown Order, don't you believe that should be rewarded? 

[xinoehp512 he/him]

4 minutes ago, CadCom said:

Undoubtedly. Village lynched a V! Whistleblower. But I do think RBM made the right call in outing Drake, and Coffee made the right call outing drake and them as the Lieut's Doc mates. We just couldn't capitalize. 

@xinoehp512, seeing as I don't forsee any way to actually get TUO or Drake to self target, I do want to congratulate you on a game well played, and offer honorary 2nd place, on behalf of all the village. I totally have the authority to do so as the station captain. 

But then again, maybe I should reconsider. Pushing the game to another day cycle was a masterful stroke of genius, taking advantage of Drakes desire to Roleplay. @DrakeMarshall @The Unknown Order, don't you believe that should be rewarded? 

Quote

Oh no... 

CadCom, say "platypus" if you aren't being controlled by an evil Intelligencer Officer.

Edited July 30, 2024 by xinoehp512

[CadCom he/him]

Platitudes. Plates and Cutlery. Ruffians, Thugs, The Plaaaague. 
 

Quote

My mouth seems to be broken.

Spoiler

Just Kidding. Platypus. 

 

No, seriously. Do you see any legitimate path for the village to win? I'm still considering switching my vote, I just want to vote in line with the team that I think deserves to win. My last act as a Station captain for my crew and my ship. Whoever takes over my beauty must be deserving.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

1 minute ago, CadCom said:

Platitudes. Plates and Cutlery. Ruffians, Thugs, The Plaaaague. 
 

No, seriously. Do you see any legitimate path for the village to win? I'm still considering switching my vote, I just want to vote in line with the team that I think deserves to win. My last act as a Station captain for my crew and my ship. Whoever takes over my beauty must be deserving.

Quote

The only way I see for you to win is for us to exe an elim today. It's a slim chance- the elims have the choice of whether or not to kill themselves to give you the win- but, I mean, it's a chance. Technically speaking, it's more than you had last night. 

And think of it this way. If you side your votes with the elims today, it will be just another elim victory in a long line of elim victories. My crazy, maybe-shouldn't-have-worked plan will have meant nothing.

But, if you side against the elims, it means that I will have successfully talked the elims out of winning. Maybe for the first time ever. We could make history here!  Plus, there is still the chance you win. Drake said that you had nothing to lose by siding with elims, but that's not exactly true, is it?

 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

Wait!

Don't switch your vote I have one final argument, I'll edit it in!

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2024 by The Unknown Order

[CadCom he/him]

20 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

The only way I see for you to win is for us to exe an elim today. It's a slim chance- the elims have the choice of whether or not to kill themselves to give you the win- but, I mean, it's a chance. Technically speaking, it's more than you had last night. 

And think of it this way. If you side your votes with the elims today, it will be just another elim victory in a long line of elim victories. My crazy, maybe-shouldn't-have-worked plan will have meant nothing.

But, if you side against the elims, it means that I will have successfully talked the elims out of winning. Maybe for the first time ever. We could make history here!  Plus, there is still the chance you win. Drake said that you had nothing to lose by siding with elims, but that's not exactly true, is it?

That's a good point. Make the Elims the Kingmakers.

I also watch the show Survivor And In that show, the person that plays the best often wins. That's probably you. But that person doesn't always win. 

Ashbringer. 

I see TUO is going to add in one last argument. 

If I vote with the Elims, I'll vote Ash. 

If I vote with Ash/Xino, I'll vote TUO to find out what he was before the game ends. 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

I think that was after rollover?

Did Kas not shorten this cycle?

Boo

[xinoehp512 he/him]

1 minute ago, The Unknown Order said:

I think that was after rollover?

Quote

...TUO...

...hate to break it to you, but...

On 7/29/2024 at 11:46 AM, Kasimir said:

The Day has begun and will end in 48 hours at 2330hrs SGT (GMT+8) on the 31st July!

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

That would have been such a good finale

Just now, xinoehp512 said:

 

You think I can do timezone conversions? I'm on the other side of the world, figured it was a day ahead.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

2 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

You think I can do timezone conversions? I'm on the other side of the world, figured it was a day ahead.

Quote

I sympathize

Here's a helpful tip though! You can look at the posting time.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

My only hope is that @CadComwas still convinced by my amazing arguments. 

[CadCom he/him]

@Kasimir can the elims self target with their elim kill? 

Also, canonically (not mechanically, but based on the actual story you've been building, what happens if the 4th Bridge/vs/elims win? (Basing my choice on what story I like better seems like a great idea)

 The irony is that the Drake initially pointed out that the village are now Kingmakers. But Xino now shows a route to make the elims Kingmakers. I think Ash caught on to this early on. But I've been dense this cycle. While other cycles I was more astute, like a bishop.  or rook, this cycle I've definitely been a pawn.

Now I'm stuck in a position trying to feel least like a pawn. 

TUO

 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

2 minutes ago, CadCom said:

@Kasimir can the elims self target with their elim kill? 

Also, canonically (not mechanically, but based on the actual story you've been building, what happens if the 4th Bridge/vs/elims win? (Basing my choice on what story I like better seems like a great idea)

 The irony is that the Drake initially pointed out that the village are now Kingmakers. But Xino now shows a route to make the elims Kingmakers. I think Ash caught on to this early on. But I've been dense this cycle. While other cycles I was more astute, like a bishop.  or rook, this cycle I've definitely been a pawn.

Now I'm stuck in a position trying to feel least like a pawn. 

TUO

 

To be completely forthright, my vote will be for Xino to win. Drake might disagree but I want you to understand you're choosing between 4B and elims, not elims and maybe village.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

17 minutes ago, CadCom said:

Also, canonically (not mechanically, but based on the actual story you've been building, what happens if the 4th Bridge/vs/elims win? (Basing my choice on what story I like better seems like a great idea)

Quote

An idea I had for the victory condition of the Fourth Bridge is the ship fully taking control of its systems, rendering most crew members obsolete.

Drake TUO

@Ashbringer

[Ashbringer he/him]

My idea had been Cadmium-trapping everyone until the ship got back to Roshar...

Drake TUO

[CadCom he/him]

15 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

My idea had been Cadmium-trapping everyone until the ship got back to Roshar...

Drake TUO

Oh I'm very good at Cadmium trapping, seeing as I'm a Cadmium Compounder 

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Order said:

Did Kas not shorten this cycle?

As I mentioned right below the rollover announcement, I'm declining to shorten this cycle for reasons that have to do with the gamestate.

57 minutes ago, CadCom said:

@Kasimir can the elims self target with their elim kill? 

Yes.

58 minutes ago, CadCom said:

Also, canonically (not mechanically, but based on the actual story you've been building, what happens if the 4th Bridge/vs/elims win? (Basing my choice on what story I like better seems like a great idea)

Don't take my response here to be endorsement or being against this course of action as I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this as a GM and am slightly concerned that responding here could be taken as endorsement. The official, proper GM answer is I run with what you all give me.

The non-official answer is that my plans for the Elim win is more or less a complete wipe of the Fourth Bridge along with some explosions. I would take into account any requests the Elims have here. I understand one Elim had requested a bit of a drop where we find out the Fourth Bridge, contrary to expectations, is not named after Bridge Four but because it's the fourth such installation - the others keep getting destroyed by Scadrians. (I'm not especially sold on making this Elim end exclusive and I think this could be woven into another write-up, e.g. if the Village wins.)

My plans for a Village win is to essentially write a story about the crew rallying and taking back their ship in a comeback. No explosions for this one.

My plans for a Fourth Bridge win (this neither confirms nor denies the existence of a Fourth Bridge) would be the breadcrumbs I've been dropping about 4B seemingly being more sentient or involved than people think (well people just aren't expecting much from a shipspren.) This would take into account requests Xino has for Jacks (I think none currently applicable? IDK he's mostly sent me death requests which is realistic but also a bit pessimistic for his position but I've written insane amounts of analysis in the dead doc wondering why everyone is tripping ok putting professional GM hat back on.) Essentially the Fourth Bridge throws a combination of the Cosmere's biggest temper tantrum and No One Dies Today and takes charge, locking down the ship and sectioning everyone off until they behave. I lampshade the fact SE canonically expects people to be willing to murder and find evil people by random mob violence, and the 4B has decided everyone is going to talk out their differences like reasonable beings rather than killing each other to the last person. We have a glimpse of what Scadrian and Rosharan negotiations might look like.

1 hour ago, The Unknown Order said:

To be completely forthright, my vote will be for Xino to win. Drake might disagree but I want you to understand you're choosing between 4B and elims, not elims and maybe village.

Siiiiiigh.

Ok I am probably getting ninjaed by CadCom here, and I think Araris miiiiiight yell at me because this is going to break GM impartiality ( @Araris Valerian ), but seeing as you guys are now negotiating by preferred outcome, I need to point out a couple of things here, and this will involve maybe tilting the GM hat on my head at a jaunty angle:

1. @xinoehp512 Right I forgot sorry in answer to your question directed at me about whether CadCom is being forced to vote, I stand by my answer that I cannot offer you GM confirmation or denial of an IO action but would also remind you that I have already clarified that a player being IO compelled cannot change their vote after the IO contacts them. Simply put, if an IO had told CadCom who to vote for, I expect CadCom to change his vote to the designated target and to stay put. That is what the clarification means. (I did forget he can't tell you whether he's being compelled, but basically I expect a reasonable analysis to recognise CadCom's behaviour, according to the clarifications I've issued, is not legally compatible with being compelled.)

2. I @ TUO's quote because Drake's analysis is probably personally-motivated to some extent, but CadCom is kind of swallowing the spin and that's incompatible with the outcome you guys want. Fundamentally, no one is recognising the entire cycle, which I cannot confirm nor deny is connected to my reasons for refusing to shorten, is a Mexican standoff.

The 4B, the Village, and the Elims all cannot win. What you can do is to decide who loses. This leads to a bit of a collective action problem.

• For the Village to win, an Elim must be voted today, and then the second Elim must choose to kill the 4B at Night. The Village then exes the Elim the next Day. This entails that the Village cannot control their wincon: they're at the mercy of what the Elims do. (If the Village votes the 4B today, they lose due to the Elims making a kill at Night to achieve parity.) On this line of analysis, the Elims are kingmakers.
   
• For the Elims to win, the Village must vote the 4B today, and then the Elim makes the parity kill at Night. On this line of analysis, the Elims cannot actually fully control their wincon either: they're at the mercy of what the Village does as they can't control the exe. On this line of analysis, the Village is the kingmaker.
   
• For the 4B to win, the Village must vote an Elim today, and the last Elim must not self-shoot at Night. I note that historically, Elims don't tend to decide to self-shoot to spite the neutral in favour of the Village (whom they've been playing against all game!) so I don't really know what Xino's analysis is smoking here. Anyway bracketing that - the point is that on this line of analysis, the 4B's wincon lies in the hands of the Village, and to some extent, the strategic preferences of the Elims.

Since this is out in the open now and y'all are sort of making your decision on this basis, I'll say I'm happy to sort of skip/speedrun the Night if you all are trying to make a decision about endgame here and now, but I'm not shortening rollover as everyone needs to offer input. I've considered if it would be easier to just ask everyone to publicly vote on who they want to win (am willing to listen to player input here if you prefer this as a way of resolving the issue more directly), but my preferred way forwards due to the multiple kingmaker issue is to ask the Elims and 4B to submit their orders during the Day and we just speedrun the Night and I do the final rollover at the usual time today (it's 2AM + for me now so rollover is officially later today.)

Y'all and your firsts

Can we make this an SE first where the GM is forced to systematically do outcome analysis for you

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

Okay, I just got a really important clarification. Drake's kill failed. A protect does not cause a fail message (when I attacked the protected RBM, it was a success), therefore Xino RBed Drake.

@Ashbringer, @CadCom

Xino didn't participate in our duel, he didn't play the protect game, he bypassed the fair competition. By all rights, the elim team won. We chose the most fun outcome with roleplay and a battle of wits, forfeiting a certain victory for a protect v. attack battle. Xino bypassed that with a roleblock. 

Why should Xino get the win for cheating our duel?

[CadCom he/him]

Guys, I think we (I) poked a sleeping bear. 

Sorry Kas, for breaking the game. But is it really a great game if the players don't try to break it? 

Alright. I think I'm going to finalize my vote by doing what would be best case scenario for the village, which is following the only path to victory, albeit however small and unlikely that path may be. 

Sorry Drake if you're silently judging me now, but I've decided, largely independently of Kas's rant, that in the spirit of the game, I need to do what I believe gives my team the best odds at victory. Even if the elim team truly played the best game. (IMO) 

9 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

Why should Xino get the win for cheating our duel?

Probably getting merged here, but just want to say while I empathize with the frustration, and feel the move was outside the normal scope of moves done in SE, when I saw Xinos request for a duel, I imagined it entirely as an RP duel, not to affect actions submitted behind the scenes. 

I do think you've rightfully played better than the village, as did the potential 4b, and I'm not handing over the victory because I think the 4b deserves it necessarily(not saying they don't), but because it's in the best interest of the village, assuming normal information levels. 

[Kasimir he/him]

9 minutes ago, CadCom said:

Sorry Kas, for breaking the game. But is it really a great game if the players don't try to break it? 

My official answer in the dead doc is some variant of "I have learned from MR7 that trying to tell players not to do a thing just doesn't work, potentially forces them on the basis of GM preferences, and often it will creep back into their decision-making anyway, so it is best to just make sure they are well-informed when doing it, since they are going to have to deal with the consequences."

It's probably a bit more laissez-faire than the official GM position but people who feel this way have never had to come into a game on C2 and ban players from doing megafaction repeatedly >> Involving a lot of yelling, sitting on them, and stuff, and in the end, it didn't work.

tldr; dwai I'm not mad or traumatised, I'm just being pragmatic  

[xinoehp512 he/him]

27 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

Okay, I just got a really important clarification. Drake's kill failed. A protect does not cause a fail message (when I attacked the protected RBM, it was a success), therefore Xino RBed Drake.

@Ashbringer, @CadCom

Xino didn't participate in our duel, he didn't play the protect game, he bypassed the fair competition. By all rights, the elim team won. We chose the most fun outcome with roleplay and a battle of wits, forfeiting a certain victory for a protect v. attack battle. Xino bypassed that with a roleblock. 

Why should Xino get the win for cheating our duel?

Quote

I mean, I didn't roleblock Drake because he was the one who engaged in the duel RP. I submitted my order before I even asked.

If Drake had said that you had submitted the kill, I would have left my order as is. It was still a 50/50 for me.

And, to be frank, I was desperate :P.

Edit:

Quote

I'm happy with skipping through the day at this point.

@Kasimir

Edited July 30, 2024 by xinoehp512

[Kasimir he/him]

10 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Quote

I'm happy with skipping through the day at this point.

 

I hope you mean Night because I am not remotely prepared to do a rollover until 2330hrs tomorrow, just in terms of personal time  

[Ashbringer he/him]

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

We have a glimpse of what Scadrian and Rosharan negotiations might look like.

Is this referring to the bar that's currently slightly on fire? 

Yeah this is the complicated result of factional games, sometimes.

 

FWIW, one piece of the logic I can tend to use is "what is closest to my actual wincon". Currently my wincon is to eliminate the Elims. (Do I always go closest? No, as evidenced by Shadowblaze and other things, but it is a consideration.)

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Okay, I have things to say.

@xinoehp512

Do I think it's fair game to trick me into not using all of my mechanical powers on the pretext of a fair duel, and then use a roleblock to guarantee a win? Fundamentally, 100% yes. This is a game significantly about lying, and you lied to gain an advantage. I don't dispute the process or the outcome, well played, you should probably win this if I can't convince the village to side with me over you.

Do I think that going out of my way to have a duel was a pretty fun thing to do last night? Yes.

Do I think I'd ever do it again, given how it turned out? Pretty unlikely.

Reconcile that however you like.

Somehow, it matters to me that you aren't village, and didn't just win fair-and-square. If that happened, well, I assumed that risk in accepting a duel when I thought the cards were on the table and I had the upper hand. If that's what happened, I wouldn't regret doing it, I don't think. But if the moral of the story here is that it was a misplay to go out of my way to be sporting when I have the upper hand, because others generally won't do the same, I think I can learn that lesson. I know this is partly a playstyle thing, but different playstyles have different tradeoffs, and I'd put it to you that your tradeoff here is getting a win today versus living in a world where duels like that can happen.

...I admit that part of why I agreed to do a duel was because Kas kept insisting that yes, he'd totally keep the game running even if there was nothing to actually do, and I just didn't think there could be a Fourth Bridge as that would mean 4 non-villagers in a 9-player game. I don't do very well when I'm left to my own devices

@Ashbringer

I didn't stab you in the back bro

Coffee was the one who fired a shot.

I didn't even know for sure if Coffee was a coinshot, or would be shooting that night.

And I'm quite sure coinshot!Coffee would be shooting at me. It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with self-defense.

...is what I would say, if Kas hadn't point-blank told us with GM knowledge that Coffee had actually been trying to shoot Xino.

I'm still thrown by that fact, honestly. I really did think Coffee would always shoot me there. And I really did try my best to make you win.

If I screwed you over, I screwed myself over equally as much that night, so saying I stabbed you in the back is sort of just fake news.

Not trying to convince you of anything, just. Saying my piece.

@CadCom

Xino is definitely the fourth bridge.

There's what I already said:

23 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Evidence:

• Xino tied the vote D2 which significantly prolonged the game.
• Xino has blocked multiple kills at this point (N2, N3). The Medical Officer has a limited-shot protect ability. The Fourth Bridge on the other hand has infinite uses and their pick between protects and roleblocks. You do the math.
• Xino claimed how many shots he had left with his ability without much prompting. Honestly, I feel like a real Medical Officer would be more cagey and paranoid about sharing the limitations of their ability, and the Fourth Bridge would be more tryhard about proving they're a bona fide Medical Officer.
• The above is especially true since Xino never even claimed Medical Officer in the first place, it was me who guessed Xino was the Medical Officer yesterday and Xino just went with it.
• I'm not sure if I actually believe Kas would give Xino 3 shots in a game of this size, which is what Xino is claiming. At that point, why even have a limited number of shots? That's going to cover most or all of the game even if you survive a long time.
• This is like, the third time I've gone "wow Kas is reluctant to call the game early when any reasonable person would." I'm sure Kas will protest that he'd do it no matter what but he's obligated to say that >:P

But there's also a bunch of new reasons that came up this cycle:

• When I accused Xino of being the Fourth Bridge, Ash was like "well yeah, obviously, I knew that." If you don't trust my maybe biased take then add Ashbringer's to that.
• Xino posted after that and was just fully going along with Ashbringer without denying it. If that's not a tacit admission to Ash that he's the 4B, I don't what is.
• Xino only started even trying to pretend to be village after you posted and sided against him. I think a villager would definitely argue that they're village before that point, for it's own sake, because it was true, and that's a sufficient reason. This is not that. This is calculated and reactive lobbying.
• At the same time, Xino was like "well, I convinced Drake not to win, that counts for something right?" This is an individual argument of Xino's merit and why he deserves to win. That would be entirely irrelevant if Xino were a villager. Village!Xino shouldn't be trying to convince anyone why he, specifically, deserves to win, because he doesn't win as an individual. If he's village, then your own victory is on the line too, and the correct path to victory is convincing people he's village, not convincing people he's worthy of winning. An argument like this only matters for the Fourth Bridge to make.
• Apparently, there's mechanical proof that Xino roleblocked me, because my action "failed" and that doesn't happen from a protect. I didn't even know this was a thing. Anyways, villagers don't have roleblocking powers. Only the 4B can do that.
• Apparently, none of the above matters, because Kas just outright told us in his GM soapbox that Xino is the Fourth Bridge.

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

My plans for a Fourth Bridge win (this neither confirms nor denies the existence of a Fourth Bridge) would be the breadcrumbs I've been dropping about 4B seemingly being more sentient or involved than people think (well people just aren't expecting much from a shipspren.) This would take into account requests Xino has for Jacks (I think none currently applicable? IDK he's mostly sent me death requests which is realistic but also a bit pessimistic for his position but I've written insane amounts of analysis in the dead doc wondering why everyone is tripping ok putting professional GM hat back on.) Essentially the Fourth Bridge throws a combination of the Cosmere's biggest temper tantrum and No One Dies Today and takes charge, locking down the ship and sectioning everyone off until they behave. I lampshade the fact SE canonically expects people to be willing to murder and find evil people by random mob violence, and the 4B has decided everyone is going to talk out their differences like reasonable beings rather than killing each other to the last person. We have a glimpse of what Scadrian and Rosharan negotiations might look like.

@CadCom (2, electric boogaloo)

Why would the elims kill themselves though?

Let's do some numbers.

There are 5 players alive right now: 2 elims, 2 villagers, 1 fourth bridge.

The elims win at parity:

Quote

• The Scadrian Saboteurs win when they reach parity with the Station Crew and any other living factions on board the Fourth Bridge.

This means that if 1 non-elim dies, there are as many elims as there are other kinds of player. The game is over and we win.

This will happen if we vote out any non-elim today. It will also happen if we don't vote out anyone today, because then there's a night turn, and we still have a poisoning and an unblockable kill.

On the other hand, the Fourth Bridge wins at the beginning of D5.

The reason I'm suggesting that the village play kingmaker, giving up on winning and deciding whether you want the Fourth Bridge or the Elims to win, is because as far as I can see it, that's the situation you're in. If everyone plays the game at face value and doesn't deliberately self-sabotage, the village can't win. The elims can. We are not the same.jpg  Honestly, the option for the elims to suicide just to spite the 4B didn't occur to me.

I do see what you're suggesting now. Mostly because Kas explained it in detail Thanks, Kas

If you want to doom the elims and make us technically kingmakers, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I'd contend that's not where we're at right now. You have to make a choice first in order for that to happen. You're the kingmakers as of right now. And if it were the elims, I find it highly questionable how you think we'd ever side with you right after you went out of your way to side against us, no offense.

I'm not trying to shade the village, but I think it says something that the only path to victory for you here involves another faction not just giving up on winning but actually using their own mechanical powers to speedrun their losscon and kill themselves. I guess it's somewhat subjective, I guess there is a choice on some level, but I do think the village is mechanically worse off than the other two factions in a way that's meaningful, and that your PtV is a harder sell. And because it's subjective, my subjective opinion about it as one of the players happens to matter. You're assuming we would burn ourselves to the ground just to give you a win on a silver platter, and I think TUO and I are in accord in saying this isn't something the elims particularly have appetite for.

@Kasimir

There's a common thread throughout all of the above mentions.

All roads lead back to Kas.

Kas is the mastermind who's been orchestrating the conflict between Scadrial and Roshar.

Kas was plotting to take over.

Kas is the illuminati conspiracy.

Okay, but seriously, I'm actually a little bit miffed right now.

Only a little. It's still been a fun game, and honestly CadCom saying I played well is all the validation I need <3. You know me, I'm not really one to stay angry.

But on multiple counts you've slipped GM knowledge that we shouldn't know about, and I think credibly some of it might've mattered.

What's more, you made a big analysis post for the village, and in it you're literally saying things like this:

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Drake's analysis is probably personally-motivated to some extent, but CadCom is kind of swallowing the spin and that's incompatible with the outcome you guys want.

Bro I'm sorry, but I protest, I don't think it's remotely appropriate for GMs to be coming down from on high and saying crem like that.

Whether it's true or not is besides the point. If I'm supposed to try to play the game normally and try to win, then I have a reasonable expectation that the GM isn't going to call out from the sidelines and essentially say "Drake is manipulating you don't listen to him it's not in your best interest."

Either it's false and you shouldn't be saying it, or it's true and I'm playing to win, and people buying my spin and potentially being mislead is an acceptable outcome of the game, not something you need to step in and course correct.

(The truth is a little in both columns, inasmuch as I genuinely believed the village was unambiguously a kingmaker that couldn't win and wasn't intentionally misleading anyone over that, but I was trying to argue as best as I could and win people over to my side... which is something I should have every right to do, if we're still trying to play out the game organically.)

Sure, maybe you just want to make sure everyone understands the gamestate, but. Did you spell it out for me the times I was getting it wrong, like when I didn't realize the "your action failed" message meant I must've been roleblocked and there was definitely a Fourth Bridge? I'm not saying I think you should've, but I am highlighting that 1) once you start doing things like this, it isn't clear where to draw the line and 2) that's a relatively low-impact thing that you could've done that would've conceivably helped the elims a little bit, and here you're doing a generally higher-impact thing on behalf of the village, which makes it difficult to see your activity as overall impartial, even if we ignore that part where you point-blank state that "listening to Drake isn't in line with the outcome you want."

It feelsbad because I'm sure you were trying to fix the course of the game, as you saw it. I'm sure you were doing what you thought was pragmatically the best thing for the game and everybody's fun. But I don't agree with the praxis.

I think the game was okay before, I think we might've figured out some of the stuff you said on our own, or if we didn't I think that wouldn't have invalidated the game.

I think your commentary did not succeed at being unbiased, and you knowingly prefaced your comments as violating GM impartiality.

I'm not sure that even if your commentary had succeeded at unbiased, you stepping in and laying down the facts of the gamestate on us ignorant masses of players would have actually increased my willingness to engage and play through that gamestate properly.

Logically, I think a participant of this game is an eligible person to vote for, and to the extent that you're stepping down off your GM perch to yell at us, I deem you an eligible person to vote for.  This is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I don't really have anything else to do with my vote rn, seeing as everyone's voting TUO, so. Kasimir.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Further discussion of Kas’s post should be withheld until after the game has ended (I have my own thoughts which I’ll share at that time as well). If you have anything pressing to say, shoot me a PM (or a DM on discord). It’s always rough when the mechanics/playercount of a game lead to situations where some folks can’t realistically win, so please be patient with each other in the meantime.

And now, back to your regularly-scheduled murder party.