LG 106 - Aftermath: A Ruinous Wrath

[|TJ| he/him]

17 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Shoutout to @|TJ|, @StrikerEZ, and @The Unknown Order. One day we'll get our Elim game together but I must absolutely insist you call the game and be Punk to my Cena. I ain't got the energy to call, I just want to chill and slack off  

What Striker said, it shall be glorious!

Thanks for running the game, Araris! For once, I could actually (sorta) RP till the end . 

I do think we should have some form of blocking a kill. Giving us a Lurcher/Thug could have been an option but also to make Soother being able to block Spike kills as well. I know it is pretty damning if there's no Spike kill in a cycle but figuring out who are Spiked and who among them could be submitting the kill is a skill that is hard to come by and should be rewarded I think. Congrats to the Spiked, y'all had the upperhand on the village for pretty much the entire game!

[Aeoryi she/her]

19 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

@Aeoryi Hey what do you mean me signing up to play was unremarkable? Lmao

I thought you were in a deep sleeping state.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

4 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

I thought you were in a deep sleeping state.

...why would my reappearance be unremarkable then? Wouldn't it just be remarkable?

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

Tin Rinrin arrived at headquarters. "I'm here to see Tin Capone. He's expecting me."

The guard nodded, opening the door to let Rinrin in. He walked through the mansion with purpose. He was Tin Capone's chief scout, and he had walked these halls many times.

He knocked on Tin Capone's door, not loudly, but not softly either. He knocked with the confidence of an servant so trustworthy he was nearly a friend. Nearly.

"Come in," Tin Capone called from inside.

Rinrin opened the door and stepped through. Tin Capone, who sat reclined into his chair, smiled at Rinrin. "Welcome back. How was Blackkeep? The people, so welcoming there."

"It was burning, sir. The koloss had swept through and trashed it. You were wise to leave when you did." Rinrin told Tin Capone. 

He nodded thoughfully. "There were Spiked there, servants of the late Lord Ruler. Copper Copper saved me, but I thought it best to find a different town to expand into. I suppose a reward is in order for him."

Rinrin nodded along. He was accustomed to the man's ramblings. 

"And you too of course. I commend your skills once again."

Tin Capone will return.

~

Thank you to @Araris Valerian for running this game and especially for making Capone and Copper's deaths ambiguous. I enjoyed roleplaying as them, and I look forward to them again.

Congratulations to the elims, and especially @Kasimir, who is proving that he's better at elim than he let's himself think. Or maybe we're just that bad at solving. Hmmm.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 minute ago, The Unknown Order said:

Or maybe we're just that bad at solving. Hmmm.

Or maybe I'm too much of an elim at heart to be able to balance a village team.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

10 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Or maybe I'm too much of an elim at heart to be able to balance a village team.

That’s what I struggle with when running games. I have a hard time making sure the village has a chance lol

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Or maybe I'm too much of an elim at heart to be able to balance a village team.

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

That’s what I struggle with when running games. I have a hard time making sure the village has a chance lol

I really wish there was a way to simulate running a game with different role distributions. I try every time, and I've never found a good way to do it. It's always going to be a struggle.

[Kasimir he/him]

2 hours ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

I really wish there was a way to simulate running a game with different role distributions. I try every time, and I've never found a good way to do it. It's always going to be a struggle.

@DrakeMarshall does some decent simulations IIRC.

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

@Kasimir how did you do the Riot Self-kill, by the way? Your team didn’t have any seekers. Except Josha? But that was the first time I used my Coinshot kill.

TELL ME HOW

I am deeply frustrated and begrudgingly impressed.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

1 hour ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir how did you do the Riot Self-kill, by the way? Your team didn’t have any seekers. Except Josha? But that was the first time I used my Coinshot kill.

TELL ME HOW

I am deeply frustrated and begrudgingly impressed.

He's just that good.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

3 hours ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir how did you do the Riot Self-kill, by the way? Your team didn’t have any seekers. Except Josha? But that was the first time I used my Coinshot kill.

TELL ME HOW

I am deeply frustrated and begrudgingly impressed.

Kas was just Rioting people we thought might have a role to themselves. If you're a Seeker, you don't Seek anyone, if you're a Coinshot, you're dead. Also if you're a Lurcher no one who should die is saved.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

On 6/25/2025 at 12:55 AM, Kasimir said:

@DrakeMarshall does some decent simulations IIRC.

I do have my ways

feel free to message me on the Shard or on Discord if you ever want help with running simulations for distro

simulation isn't an exact science but it is a tool

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 hour ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

Kas was just Rioting people we thought might have a role to themselves. If you're a Seeker, you don't Seek anyone, if you're a Coinshot, you're dead. Also if you're a Lurcher no one who should die is saved.

Yeah, the next iteration of these rules will have some restrictions on Rioting a player to targeting themselves so that this isn't quite as obvious of a good play.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

5 hours ago, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir how did you do the Riot Self-kill, by the way? Your team didn’t have any seekers. Except Josha? But that was the first time I used my Coinshot kill.

TELL ME HOW

I am deeply frustrated and begrudgingly impressed.

That reminds me, why did you try to kill me? I gave you bread!

[BigBadBagsworth He/him/his]

@A Jo in the Bush

If you haven’t noticed by now I have NO IDEA what I’m doing.

Everyone was saying that any coinshot should use their kill, which I agreed with (kills tell you the role of the victim; especially if they’re village, you can probably guess that one of the people who started the train was an Elim. For example, last game, when TJ started a  Ksohs train, which ended up to him getting exed (eventually)), and you were everyone’s biggest suspicion. I almost killed someone else - Josha, I think - because I was so on the fence as to who to kill. I was split between what I thought and what others thought, but I think I ended up getting bamboozled by an Elim-started train. Sorry!

[Kasimir he/him]

On 6/27/2025 at 1:23 AM, BigBadBagsworth said:

@Kasimir how did you do the Riot Self-kill, by the way? Your team didn’t have any seekers. Except Josha? But that was the first time I used my Coinshot kill.

TELL ME HOW

I am deeply frustrated and begrudgingly impressed.

Process of elimination, just an Evil version of it.

If Joe, Striker, TJ, or Bip were Coinshot, someone'd have died N1, period. (Joe disputes this, and fair, but regardless, we scanned him as a regular Villager N1 so we knew it couldn't be him.) These guys reliably send in orders (good work!)

So the pool left: <Triple B, Hoid, Spirit, Polly, TOW.>

IIRC, Hoid claimed Tineye at this point. So we were left with <Triple B, Spirit, Polly, TOW.>

With Spirit and Polly having been too inactive, I decided they probably would've not sent in an order worth hijacking regardless. So let's pre-emptively remove them.

<Triple B, TOW.> I then flipped the Sacred Coin to decide who to Riot, and it told me to Riot you.

The Sacred Coin has led me astray before, but it also got me to exe the one correct Elim at lylo (in a conversion game where exeing any other Elim would've gotten us killed), it got me to exe an Elim at lylo which led to Ash killing the other Elim the same cycle, and Drake and I finally converging on the last Elim, in another game, had I heeded it, it would've got me to shoot an Elim deepwolf that was leading the Village badly astray, and I just came off a game where I flipped the Sacred Coin and it told me to shoot an Elim N1. (In the end, someone else took the shot but this was for Reasons, and I'd've shot her if it wasn't for those considerations.)

tldr; I do have a healthy respect for PoE-guided RNG, and the art is narrowing the pool down. Once it was a cointoss between you and TOW, the odds of getting the actual Coinshot aren't bad. 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

49 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

If Joe, Striker, TJ, or Bip were Coinshot, someone'd have died N1, period.

Damn right they would have

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

I'm almost tempted to start asking for volunteer. Who here would be genuinely upset to be night killed, either by villagers or eliminators, on Night 1? That's part of my struggle with SE as an Elim, is I generally don't like killing people. It feels rude.

 

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

38 minutes ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

I'm almost tempted to start asking for volunteer. Who here would be genuinely upset to be night killed, either by villagers or eliminators, on Night 1? That's part of my struggle with SE as an Elim, is I generally don't like killing people. It feels rude.

Kas volunteers.

edit: on a more serious note, I've been noticing this a bit lately.

Historically, at least as long as I've been playing SE, we've been avoiding:

New players (threeish games I think I've heard floated around)

Returning players (one, maybe two games after a long absence)

People who've been killed early a lot recently (just vibes tbh, but more than two d1s in the last few games they played seemed common)

And that used to work. It would generally still leave one or two low infos, two or three active players, and a few in between. 

Now, at best you get two players without even considering recent d1 deaths. Pretty much none if you do.

I remember there being some question about me killing a new player recently, and this is pretty much why. When everybody's safe, nobody can be.

@Kasimir probably has the most to say on this as he's one of the few that still follows this I think, and he explicitly killed me because of it.

Edited June 28, 2025 by The Unknown Order

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 hour ago, A Jo in the Bush said:

I'm almost tempted to start asking for volunteer. Who here would be genuinely upset to be night killed, either by villagers or eliminators, on Night 1? That's part of my struggle with SE as an Elim, is I generally don't like killing people. It feels rude.

Murder is the highest form of compliment around here .

More seriously though, I'm always a bit disappointed when I get hit with the NK (or when Stick balefires me N1), but it's just part of the game. I think I'd feel bad if the elim team lost after a decision to not kill me early since I'd been away for a while. My take (partly as a mod) is that strategy should be the first consideration when making the NK (including during N1), and all the metagame stuff should be secondary (within reason). If Kas hasn't played a game in 2 years but his solving is clearly the highest priority threat, then you kill him. That's part of why we have dead docs; so players who get killed off early don't miss out on everything. I think N1 kills generally have quite a few viable strategic options, so that leaves room to consider first-timers and folks that had short games recently.

The thing to keep in mind is that we are a community centered around a game. If we give up the strategic elements of the game too much for the sake of being "nice" to the community, or if we lean too seriously into playing just to win, we'll end up worse off in both regards.

[Kasimir he/him]

15 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

@Kasimir probably has the most to say on this as he's one of the few that still follows this I think, and he explicitly killed me because of it.

I think it's interesting that Drake and I both said nothing to tip the scales, and M&M had individually adopted similar kill policies prior to us. I'm curious what @Stick.'s journeys in other communities shows. There's a level on which it should be an exclamation point if different, non-overlapping communities are evolving similar policies or internal principles, which shows they were all responding to the similar needs during their growth.

My main thoughts:

1. It's about doing what's practicable, not doing the impossible. If the game is entirely full of new players, then obviously you don't have a choice. I take it to be a bad faith argument to claim that this policy fails in a game of new players.

2. The opposite extreme* is that when you keep killing the same new players because they're chaotic af and don't do standard play because they're new, or the same returning players get fearkilled ten games in a row, then you either tell them to live with it and go full MU "be proud" which you can ask Meta how well it worked for him when he was telling me and Hael that back then (we told him the polite equivalent of f-ing off even though we've come around to that same point of view now - the fact that it elicits this reaction from the player in that position says a lot about.)

So question for everyone: where's Teldrin now? (The player everyone is talking about as the correct tactical kill in the White Tower game.) Is he a regular member of the community? He said he'd come back, where is he? I agree we can't really adjudicate on this because there are multiple reasons why retention fails, but we can probably at least assert that "getting to play and form bonds with the community rather than waiting five games for this to happen" is probably playing on moderate mode rather than hardcore mode.

*You can say "well, clearly I'm not advocating repeat fearkills" but if it's a natural outgrowth of your policy, then you may as well have the intellectual honesty to own it, because "use your best judgement" isn't a panacea. The fact an Elim player can argue individually in good faith across ten games that this was tactically the correct decision on their best judgement immediately implies the policy is fundamentally okay with this.

IDK. Not feeling the arguments here because I think they're failing Chesterton's Fence.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Oh never change Kas. I love your philosophical posts

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

IDK. Not feeling the arguments here because I think they're failing Chesterton's Fence.

That was a fascinating read. I like it.

I'm glad I asked this question, and the responses are very interesting. I definitely lean towards agreeing with Kas here, I'd rather people get a change to experience the game and community then not get to. I think we should keep the norm of not killing new players or first game returners.

[Ashbringer he/him]

It was a long time before AraRaash resurfaced in the ruins of Blackkeep. Partially because he wanted to stay far away from those who had wanted poor John Doe to die a second time. Partially because, even for an individual as powerful as he was, being buried under a few tons of newly-formed rock was very annoying.

But, he couldn't sense anything else living or deifiing around, and for some reason he was still here.

And if his schedule on Scadrial's timeline was correct, he really, really shouldn't be. The Catecendre was right around the corner, and he couldn't leave without Faleast... but had he mentioned being buried under tons of rock was annoying?

Well. He ought to do something about that. Either this world had diverged much more than it would seem, or Faleast was still here, as this world's native AraRaash hadn't forcibly ejected him from paradoxical existence, so he just had to...

AraRaash. You need to get out of there. Come to the mountain.

"I... Faleast? What?"

I had to hide. Ruin was searching for me; I'm not sure how he caught a glimpse or if he's just afraid Endowment will interfere with Preservation. 

"Are... did you hide in the mountain? Because of Identity? Mount Faleast, I don't know if I should..."

Oh. Oh no. Ruin's going to use the mountain to destroy the city. I need to leave. We need to leave now.

Something went cold in AraRaash's bones.

"Faleast, that was weeks ago.."

I know you're working on something. I'm sorry.

AraRaash felt the familiar pull of the Lifeline - now Strifeline - dragging him out.

"But Faleast, that already happened-"

[Kasimir he/him]

On 6/30/2025 at 6:01 AM, A Jo in the Bush said:

I'm glad I asked this question, and the responses are very interesting. I definitely lean towards agreeing with Kas here, I'd rather people get a change to experience the game and community then not get to. I think we should keep the norm of not killing new players or first game returners.

I think the norm is definitely weaker, and I don't know if it is a good or a bad thing. I do think SE is at the stage where we need to fix the growth stuff. Whether these policies help, hinder, or are neutral is worth asking. I was compiling/writing the final report but my deployment and back injury derailed it and I'm getting back to it. Half the issue where these policies are concerned is it's difficult asking a guy who played one to two games and then dropped off why he dropped off. Some of the answers I'm getting are in the region of "well, honestly I tried but it's not my thing, the game's too hard/too different from IRL werewolf." On the other hand, I remember some responses on people who stayed point to early positive game experiences that made them want to come back. So there's no real direct causal link. I think at most we can do propensity. 

IDK if advertising got us more people. I'd like to think kind of. I did Reddit, but mixed results - TJ got a response, I didn't. But being heard in more places probably helps.

Minimally I just think it did really surprise me M&M hit it for similar reasons (same old players getting fearkilled repeatedly, same new players getting LHFed repeatedly) as us, which is why I was wondering if Stick's experiences had shown how other communities react. We could say (pace TUN) there are tactical reason to avoid this, but it's also probably worth understanding why this existed. Then we can ask if the same factors it's responding to are still here, and whether it's still necessary.

My actual two clips is that it's a norm I feel worth keeping intact while I can. But in general I also just feel bad about the extent I push to win these days (e.g. asking KSauce to hang back since some of his posts felt like they were attracting unnecessary sus, e.g. "let me vote to kill a Villager so everyone knows I'm Village") so I'm a fan of trying to keep to small things that keep me from over-optimising.

Edited July 1, 2025 by Kasimir