Long Game 104: The Flame of Tar Valon

[Terrisman]

11 minutes ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

I can't think of any good BA strategies that rely on them just killing us all. 2 players leave the game per cycle. I'm leaning towards the Elims having 4 members, because the Elim Win Conditions are generally a little bit skewed towards them. This means that if they engage in perfect play, they need to remove 10 Villagers, and they're unlikely to engage in perfect play. I don't think they will ignore the Amyrlin Seat entirely.

I have paranoidly talked in the Yellow Doc about how I could see the Black Ajah going for a long term plan of Deposing the Tower Amyrlin by not having any of them become Sitters so that at the end of the game we assume that the Elevated Sitter must have been Black Ajah. My yellow-fellows pointed out that that would require a lot of thread control to pull off to get the village to repeatedly make the same mistake.

I agree that their primary goal is probably not eliminating everyone, but I don’t agree with you that it would be so hard to depose an Amyrlin. For example, if they get one Black Ajah player trusted and that person leads the Elevation of a village Sitter and then that person gets “found out” we would all be very suspicious ( I’ve never used this word so many times in my life) of that Amyrlin. We all assume that at least 1 or 2 sitters are BA so it wouldn’t be such a stretch to be able to make us doubt whomever was elevated, especially if they were going along with a BA member. So if they bussed one of their own members, they’d be well on their way. 

As far as going for the nomination, we have much more to lose than to gain. What is your hope if you win it? I don’t think reading the docs will give us much and even though you get 2 votes now, after one cycle your gone so (even if you are village) we’re down another player

 

3 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

This was when you did the FNG play and murdered pretty much all the Villagers, so good job and well done, especially on your first game!

That’s sounds interesting! Whats a FNG play?

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Terrisman said:

That’s sounds interesting! Whats a FNG play?

Freakin' New Guy. Pretend to be lost and not know how to play mafia. Murder everyone who drops their guard. A friend of mine says this about new players: you get to play the FNG card once, after that it's to exe jail with you  I'm more wary of it because my first SE game was also my first Elim game, and my team asked me to run the FNG.

[OoklaApologist She/her]

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

You...read LG101

and I was mostly looking for mech stuff. I really don’t remember

38 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I think my question is: if you read LG101, shouldn't it have jumped out to you? Both TUN being difficult to read and the fact the game did not, in fact, really find TUN?

Post facto, now that you say it, yes. I don’t remember ever observing it before

[Kasimir he/him]

I'm going to go sleep soon and I'm not going to bother to be up for rollover. If I think my vote is better off where it is, I'm leaving it there. (Undecided, but I think there's a decent amount of complacency with the tie, which makes me believe it's predominantly Village, and the ones I've no solid read on are in <Polly, Gaea.>)

I would like to see more pressure on Wiz, who has been fairly peripheral. I also would strongly recommend Stilling TUN tonight.

I also think that if the votes don't change much, and if there's anyone who V!reads two or more people in the fourway (Terris maybe?) y'all should question them for consistency tonight/tomorrow given the stability of the fourway.

Edited to add:

Rather, I kind of E!read Polly and I have Gaea as a ???, my bad.

[STINK he/him]

Hello again guys I won't roleplay waking up and going back to sleep this time but will have something more substantial to say as I'm sure you're all very excited to be graced with more posts

I don't wanna talk about my doc mates explicitly without an agreement in the doc but apparently they've developed a shyness to using docs so I'm gonna try and break them out of their eggshells by talking about food a lot so when you read my Ajah doc don't be surprised by how much food talk I'm going to be doing there everyone can talk about food we all like at least one of food

Also I'm ngl I think I can concretely say I have read all posts made this game but right now I would not be able to tell you much about them I gotta get my head in the game like a yugioh guy.

Did do my part in the election of a Sitter and I am personally quite excited to see if my candidate makes it all the way to the top because if that's not what you wanted when you voted then blame the system but someones gotta get there. 

Not voting right now but will read posts in more detail of top 5 or w/e and then come to a personal judgement call on who to vote for like everyone else does amirite but I'm still also doing the weekend of housework so yippee. 

-------------------------------------

Rasmuht was having some really weird dreams, like what's with that weird monologue some disembodied voice just went through? Yugioh? 

[Mark IV he/him]

2 hours ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

This is a pile of Crem. From a Game Master's perspective at least. We're all here to have fun, in one way or another. I'm changing my tactics. I'm going for the Amrylin Seat.

A strong and loyal Amyrlin, loyal to the Tower, would be able to close down two of the Black Ajah's roads to victory. I will heal the infection that is corrupting our tower, as is my prerogative as Sitter of the Yellow Ajah. I now believe that we should absolutely elevate an Amyrlin as soon as possible, to prevent the Black Ajah from having the time to manipulate us into making the wrong choice. The Black Ajah will be killing our best and brightest, the ones who are closest to figuring them out. So we should make the decision now, when we still have all members of the Tower present (all except one, whomever will be executed today.) Tonight, after the Execution, Cast your Amyrlin Seat Votes for A Jo in the Bush!

 

You know what, I suddenly feel an urge to gamble 

The logical path would be to wait, but election bandwagoning seems so much more fun and I do feel like it'd be a disservice to not engage with the mechanics of the game. 

Jo, I'm not gonna do anything rn. But you can count on me if you need a little boost in your campaign.

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Probably AG2, so 2015/2016 boundary. This was when you did the FNG play and murdered pretty much all the Villagers, so good job and well done, especially on your first game! I think I was sussing you but obviously, nothing a knife in my back didn't solve man  I'm not really using that as a baseline for your play, though. I'm just going with it.

Literally every single person we killed said that. Apparently Alv was about to step out of the lurking shadows and expose all of us but we killed him. On a whim XD

But yeah, I'm shocked you even recall that. To be honest though, I did genuinely have no idea what I was doing either

Worked out in the end tho

[Terrisman]

Does nobody else think we should Still BridgeBoi? It won’t work but it will level the playing field. We can still Still someone else but if we don’t get rid of his immunity to stilling that can be a problem potentially. (No offense BB)

15 minutes ago, Mark IV said:

You know what, I suddenly feel an urge to gamble 

The logical path would be to wait, but election bandwagoning seems so much more fun and I do feel like it'd be a disservice to not engage with the mechanics of the game. 

Jo, I'm not gonna do anything rn. But you can count on me if you need a little boost in your campaign.

This feels so obviously elim to me that it almost can’t be

[Steeldancer he/him]

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Freakin' New Guy. Pretend to be lost and not know how to play mafia. Murder everyone who drops their guard. A friend of mine says this about new players: you get to play the FNG card once, after that it's to exe jail with you  I'm more wary of it because my first SE game was also my first Elim game, and my team asked me to run the FNG.

Ooh I did that my very first game, an old classic

Have I mentioned I don't like ties? I really don't like ties. For all my elim ness in the last quick fix, me not liking ties was not a lie. Better to have a leading candidate. I'm voting Drake Marshall. I'll admit I don't have a super strong case or anything, but of the four candidates he is the one I trust/want more information from the least. 

[xxGaea They/Them, Fae/Faer]

4 hours ago, Mark IV said:

Reading the follow ups, I've realised I forgot to consider what happens when only two sitters remain - I had reasoned under the assumption that it was only the Hall of the Tower (the Sitters) who would be voting for Amyrlin and I forgot to reconsider once I learnt that it was all players. I can see how 2 sitters is more of a forced election now, yeah. Didn't realise the Green Ajah ability accelerates the end. 

Which makes me think - we could theoretically get off the hook with just one election by eliminating the last sitter using the Green Ajah ability. Then we'd have to decide whether to instate or depose the Amyrlin, which I guess we'll have to do anyway
-------------

I know you said you generally vote off of gut feel, so I don't necessarily expect you'll be able to answer, but I would really like to know what feels off to you in my posts. I've only made like 2 posts so far (with any substance, at least). So if there's something that's off, it's gotta be in there.

----------

^This, ironically, makes me more suspicious of Kas. The first bit of evidence was him asking in thread if the N0 turn would have a elim kill. I'd have expected an elim to ask this in the elim doc instead.

But with this line, I feel like it's just posturing to make it seem like he's less invested in the outcome, whereas an elim would be more invested in not dying. 

Maybe it's Kas playing mind games. Idk. Honestly, I think I'm overthinking it, so I'm discounting this line of reasoning for now
----------------

1. Gaea - Their posts give me an elim read on them because I generally don't like the attack of "It's a gut feel and I can't put my finger on it" cause it's an easy elim cop out later in the game. But I want to hear from them before I vote for them (if I do) given they're already under pressure in the tie
   
   That's all the people in the tie with 2 votes.

18 hours ago, Mark IV said:

On a reread, I notice that most Ajah abilities are to do with preventing or hastening stilling (White and Grey being the exceptions; Green being the only hastening ability). I'd be up for using the Green Ajah ability to still one sitter early game. Maybe N1 or N2. 

I'm essentially leaning toward dismantling both the sitter and Amyrlin mechanics, I guess, and approaching the game as a less role focused game. The important part with the factions - the Sitter nominations - is already done anyway.

Bolded the main points, but I think your initial push to use the Green Ajah ability is what felt most off--talking about ignoring the Amrlyin stuff while also advocating to hasten it with the green ability felt really weird to me. My suspicions are lessened now, since you explained in your newest post that you were acting under a lil bit of a misunderstanding. Reading your original post again, that's the only thing that super stands out to me now.

In general, I really only go off of gut-reads--that's what I did last game, too, and successfully exe'd Steeldancer on the last cycle--though he very rudely took me down with him.

I struggle to do actual, like, cohesive or understandable analysis most of the time, so it is just less overwhelming for me in general to just go off of my gut-reads, since they are often fairly accurate. I play SE the same way I go through life rip

But in general, I don't think it is a good idea to ignore the elections, since complacency feels like it would make it easier for the BA to either get a E!Sitter elected, or push us to depose a V!Sitter if we aren't careful--putting it off until it goes to a plurality feels like a bad idea for that reason.

Then again, the Night cycles are presumably going to be more focused on that aspect of the conversation, I suppose.

That is also part of what makes me weary of Kas, since being read as so village when he is leading the conversation could set us up for following his lead when it comes to stilling and elevating sitters later on--which stresses me out. I tend to air on the side of overly-suspicious, which is why thread leaders always raise my guard so much.

2 hours ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

This is a pile of Crem. From a Game Master's perspective at least. We're all here to have fun, in one way or another. I'm changing my tactics. I'm going for the Amrylin Seat.

A strong and loyal Amyrlin, loyal to the Tower, would be able to close down two of the Black Ajah's roads to victory. I will heal the infection that is corrupting our tower, as is my prerogative as Sitter of the Yellow Ajah. I now believe that we should absolutely elevate an Amyrlin as soon as possible, to prevent the Black Ajah from having the time to manipulate us into making the wrong choice. The Black Ajah will be killing our best and brightest, the ones who are closest to figuring them out. So we should make the decision now, when we still have all members of the Tower present (all except one, whomever will be executed today.) Tonight, after the Execution, Cast your Amyrlin Seat Votes for A Jo in the Bush!

Obviously I must answer the call and support my spouse in all their endeavors

 

Anyyyyway, I don't know how many more times I'll be able to check the thread before rollover, so adjusting my vote again now. Mark IV, for now I'll back off, but I still don't trust you. :squint: I could see the misunderstanding of the abilities being real, but it could just as easily be a backpedaling from people calling E!Mark out on it, so I don't know. I think of the ties currently, Kasimir and KelsierApologist are the ones I'm most e!leaning on. Given one of my docmates pointed out that regardless of Kas's alignment, he is pushing conversation and giving a lot of information makes him worthwhile to not exe D1--and I am inclined to trust my docmates. I've realized this game that by having a doc to talk with a few people 'privately' it makes me much faster to trust them rip

Just saw Steel's post--I swear this is the one time I'm not intentionally making it a tie again Steel, lol.

Vote Count:

KelsierApologist (3): The Wandering Wizard, Terrisman, xxGaea
Kasimir (2): TwinStorm, BridgeBoi
xxGaea (2): Sart, Kasimir
DrakeMarshall (3): Ashbringer, Joe, Steeldancer
TwinStorm (1): Aeternum
Ashbringer (1): ThatOneWorldhopper
STINK (1): Teldris Anuar

So far, 13/18 players have now voted.

@KelsierApologist @The Unknown Flame @DrakeMarshall @Mark IV @STINK don't forget about the inactivity filter--we gotta make sure to vote every cycle.

[Steeldancer he/him]

8 minutes ago, xxGaea said:

Just saw Steel's post--I swear this is the one time I'm not intentionally making it a tie again Steel, lol

...rubs temples

WHYYYYYY

[Terrisman]

@ThatOneWorldhopper I’m just curious, do you have a reason you voted for Ashbringer?

[Mark IV he/him]

1 hour ago, xxGaea said:

So far, 13/18 players have now voted.

@KelsierApologist @The Unknown Flame @DrakeMarshall @Mark IV @STINK don't forget about the inactivity filter--we gotta make sure to vote every cycle.

Aww Mom, do I have to?   : /

Jokes aside, I kinda forgot about the inactivity filter cause in my mind, I'm not inactive. Heh. 

I'm too tired to actually analyse and I'm not gonna be on again until after rollover, so I'm hesitant to tip the scales for the active tie. I remember I had an e!lean on TwinStorm so that's where I'm laying my vote for now - as an offical statement, I guess?

I'll go through the thread again tomorrow and try and recall why I had the read I did. I think some part of it was me agreeing with Aeternum, but I wasn't convinced enough to actually vote. We'll see

1 hour ago, Terrisman said:

This feels so obviously elim to me that it almost can’t be

You gotta put your money where your mouth is, Terrisman

 

1 hour ago, Terrisman said:

We can still Still someone else but if we don’t get rid of his immunity to stilling that can be a problem potentially.

Love the repitition

 

Also, almost forgot to mention. Have a mild E read on gaea but I don't know/remember if it made sense. Too sleepy now and I don't wanna tip the scales on the active tie for nothing. 

That's all, folks. Have a nice rollover

Edited March 23, 2025 by Mark IV
Phone typos

[Terrisman]

1 minute ago, Mark IV said:

1 hour ago, Terrisman said:

We can still Still someone else but if we don’t get rid of his immunity to stilling that can be a problem potentially.

Love the repitition

Yeah I was trying to find a way to use it

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, xxGaea said:

That is also part of what makes me weary of Kas, since being read as so village when he is leading the conversation could set us up for following his lead when it comes to stilling and elevating sitters later on--which stresses me out. I tend to air on the side of overly-suspicious, which is why thread leaders always raise my guard so much.

I'm just gonna say this.

I don't mind being exed here. However, if you are Village (kinda maybe lean this way because I feel the reactions to the 4-way tie was kinda tepid), you're gonna eventually need to stop kneejerk pushing players just because they're being vocal and pushing discussion. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's probable or the most likely option. The failure to care about probability over possibility is usually more E!indicative than anything. The job of a Villager isn't to go "this is possible", it's to look at what's possible and then decide what the most likely option is out of them all.

(And maybe you don't want to, and you want to play it your way, which is fine as well, but an Elim is gonna exploit that, and I thought I'd bring this up for the benefit of the newer players, particularly if any of them start getting FUDed during the Amrylin deposition. I feel that stage of the game or alternatively, lylo is going to be full of people litigating that this/that is possible and could be X, could be Y, and if they don't get told to prioritise, Elims probably run away with the win without resistance.) 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

2 hours ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

I'll be honest, this is something that has kinda bugged me off and on about SE. Do y'all just have like, profiles on players? or just insanely good memories? Even in my heyday of playing in almost every game, I didn't remember specifics of playstyles. I go into pretty much every game knowing nothing about every player beyond emotional associations such as "I remember people considered AAA to be a good Player." "Darn, that BBB fellow really tricked me in a previous game." Polly not knowing that Tun apparently has a reputation for being difficult to read doesn't surprise me in the least bit. This might more be a me thing because of my memory issues, but IDK.

Most people have some memories of certain tells, but yeah, Kas is a bit of an outlier.

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Mat has @ me about this before, apparently I tend to just have a pretty good memory when it comes to players and (more unusually), the numeric games they played in. I guess you can consider it more of a feat when I remember it both from the days we both started playing and more recent times.

I think my question is: if you read LG101, shouldn't it have jumped out to you? Both TUN being difficult to read and the fact the game did not, in fact, really find TUN? (They found Drake very quickly.)

I am constantly in awe that you can remember game Numbers.

I don't think that kind of thing jumps out to people. Especially from e!games. I think a v!late game with me would be what it really takes to figure out how hard it is to read me. All of the people you listed only really know what e!me is like, and that's not particularly relevant here. Beyond that though, I really doubt whether someone would think of me as categorically hard to read unless they'd been in the games where you and me discussed it.

I forgot about this post and it says 10+ new replies, so I'm going to hit send and edit more stuff in.

[STINK he/him]

I was unaware there was an inactivity filter based around voting they always get me with that one

[Terrisman]

10 minutes ago, STINK said:

I was unaware there was an inactivity filter based around voting they always get me with that one

Do you have a reason that you apparently don’t want to vote? 

[STINK he/him]

I have realised that I can say Terrisman and I am still voting alright mister filter 

[Terrisman]

2 minutes ago, STINK said:

I have realised that I can say Terrisman and I am still voting alright mister filter 

Sure. Why don’t you want to vote for someone who you can actually get out though? (How do you say that? Exe?)

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

12 minutes ago, STINK said:

I have realised that I can say Terrisman and I am still voting alright mister filter 

I don't actually know if this is true. @|TJ|?

I'm not feeling anyone in particular, so fate shall decide. 

7 is... Kasimir.

A main train, great. Well, the fates have spoken.

[Kasimir he/him]

When I flip Village, imma need y'all to do one thing. Still TUN tonight, and exe him tomorrow. Yeah, yeah confirmed good =/= confirmed right but TUN is behaving extremely off his meta and IMO, this is pretty strongly E!TUN indicative.

If, for some eldritch reason, I don't flip Village, you're welcome to ignore this. Or I guess IKYK this, up to you, not my problem, imma be watching ~Physical Theatre and yelling the spots out to TJ bhai.

Edited to add:

I'd also probably ask y'all scrutinise Gaea more as I kinda am wondering if faer 'I distrust talky people' thing is just a rusty Elim push - kind of seems to be different from faer approach in TUN's QF. I am aware pushing talky people and sussing them is more a thing in a new Elim profile, but I think Gaea being rusty could plausibly explain it.

Jo looks V to me but I wouldn't lock him in until at least C3. Probably gonna die saying this but Drake just looks V, if somehow he doesn't die, y'all really need to stop the questionable Drake pushes.

I'll let my Sitter claim me if they choose, or just not if they don't.

Good luck and all the best. Y'all have one job, and that's kill TUN. Please, manage that.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

6 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

When I flip Village, imma need y'all to do one thing. Still TUN tonight, and exe him tomorrow. Yeah, yeah confirmed good =/= confirmed right but TUN is behaving extremely off his meta and IMO, this is pretty strongly E!TUN indicative.

There's an inactivity filter, I pretty consistently vote randomly when forced to.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, The Unknown Flame said:

There's an inactivity filter, I pretty consistently vote randomly when forced to.

Sorry, not buying this remotely from the guy who always claims he can spot V!me from a mile away. Performative random voting isn't very Villagery either. You need to be stilled and voted out yesterday.

[STINK he/him]

Ok I know I'm all for weird and wacky hijinks but hopping on a train and going 'huh a train' is kinda out there for me

Q!Edit: How does someone that does that even get nominated whats going on in that doc

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Ngl bruv, while I support this and you're probably one of the players I V!read of most of the Sitters, I'm not really ready to roll the dice on you being the Seat immediately without feeling as though I can solidify my read one way or another. I'm not banking our entire wincon on a N0-D1 read and frankly I'd side-eye any player willing to do so this early in the game. I'd at least wait and see if I still feel that way by C3 or so. Regardless, you're not my lead candidate for Stilling tonight, suffice to say.

Wrong. Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.

4 hours ago, Mark IV said:

You know what, I suddenly feel an urge to gamble 

The logical path would be to wait, but election bandwagoning seems so much more fun and I do feel like it'd be a disservice to not engage with the mechanics of the game. 

Jo, I'm not gonna do anything rn. But you can count on me if you need a little boost in your campaign.

Yessssss let the votes flow!

KelsierApologist (3): The Wandering Wizard, Terrisman, xxGaea
Kasimir (3): TwinStorm, BridgeBoi, TUF
xxGaea (2): Sart, Kasimir
DrakeMarshall (3): Ashbringer, Joe, Steeldancer
TwinStorm (2): Aeternum, Mark IV
Ashbringer (1): ThatOneWorldhopper
STINK (1): Teldris Anuar

This is, uh, certainly a tie. If this is still the situation right before rollover, I will be changing my vote from DrakeMarshall to KelsierApologist. I don't like a three-way tie like this, and I don't currently view Kasimir as at all Eliminator. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I would rather keep him around. I'm about to embark on a full Reread of the game in preparation for the Night 1 Stilling vote, so hopefully I discover something in that that I find interesting.