Anniversary Game: In the Re-Wake of the Koloss

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

Wilson. Do you actually have some sort of evidence against Ash, or is it really just suspicion?

[little wilson she/her]

Wilson. Do you actually have some sort of evidence against Ash, or is it really just suspicion?

 

Both? I just got off work, so I'm heading home, but when I get there, I'll write up a post putting all of it down. I don't know when it'll be posted. Could be in an hour. Could be in 5 hours. My roommates and I have plans, so it depends on how fast I can write it.

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

Both? I just got off work, so I'm heading home, but when I get there, I'll write up a post putting all of it down. I don't know when it'll be posted. Could be in an hour. Could be in 5 hours. My roommates and I have plans, so it depends on how fast I can write it.

 

Well, this might sound like bandwagoning, but we need to be decisive as a village to counter the vote manipulations, so I'll vote for Ash as well.

[A Joe in the Bush]

The only way to get 'Proof' is for the seeker to seek them. If we operated on Proof alone, we have a very small chance. I've been trying to do the statistics, but I'm crap at math. Could somebody run the statistics for our chances of winning if we only kill people who have been seeked?

 

Joe didn't vote for me because he actually distrusts me. He voted for me to see who was going to take the opportunity to jump on it. I was actually hoping you would, because the last time suspicion landed on me, you did it. Night 2, right after Hero accused me (wrongly) of casting the last vote. You made up evidence against me and when Kas called you out on it, you had to apologize because you realized you had nothing. And now when Joe votes for me, you jumped on it less than an hour later. If that's not being an opportunist, I don't know what is.

Speaking of which, Wilson, Ash.

 

I might explain later but right now I have to go to play practice.

Ooh! What play?

[Ashiok]

I'm just gonna sit here being apathetic.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

The only way to get 'Proof' is for the seeker to seek them. If we operated on Proof alone, we have a very small chance. I've been trying to do the statistics, but I'm crap at math. Could somebody run the statistics for our chances of winning if we only kill people who have been seeked?

 

Speaking of which, Wilson, Ash.

 

Ooh! What play?

Well, Araris only had three nights to Seek and on one of them, he died, so only two results could've been made public or shared. He might've shared these with Wilson, but even if he did, if he never found a Spiked, his results would only narrow it down, not make it absolute. I highly doubt we have another Village Seeker, but I think the Spiked do have one, so we can't rely on the Seeker, since we don't know if we even have one.

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

The only way to get 'Proof' is for the seeker to seek them. If we operated on Proof alone, we have a very small chance. 

 

I know. I'm not asking for real proof. I'm just wondering if this is pure speculation (which, no matter how experienced the person is, is basically as effective as having a troop of drunk orangutans throwing darts at a billboard with everyone's profile picture, then having a blind man interpret the results.)

 

I'm just gonna sit here being apathetic.

 

I'm starting to sympathize. 

[A Joe in the Bush]

But yeah, without proof, the best way to figure out alignment is with Circumstantial evidence, And Wilson is very good at finding That Evidence.

[little wilson she/her]

Wilson. Do you actually have some sort of evidence against Ash, or is it really just suspicion?

 

The answer to this depends on what you classify as "evidence." If you're referring to incriminating evidence that would hold up in a court of law (so, a Seeking), no, I do not. But if you're referring to a collection of signs that point toward his being Spiked, yes. Does the evidence I have mean that he must be Spiked? No. He could be a villager that has simply made a lot of mistakes. But some of his mistakes hit a little too close to the last time he was on Team Evil for them to sit well with me.

 

I'm going to take this point-by-point as I have them written in my notes.

 

Early game (approximately first cycle): 

• Gut says something is off. In a PM, I was talking about the composition of Team Evil and that it would probably be comprised of both newer and experienced players. Because of the newer players, it would be hard to figure out exactly what Team Evil is doing, since there may be gambits pulled/tried that we've never seen before. Players on Team Evil for the first time (especially new players) add an unpredictable air. To this, he responded with LG6, when he was darkfriend (Team Evil), and I was a Village-aligned Aiel-Blooded (essentially a Thug) Mayor (I'd been elected to that position). He was very unpredictable, and I ended up saving him from a lynch because I became convinced that he wasn't bad. He'd acted distraught in a PM to me and he'd voted for himself in the thread.
• When criticizing Eol about his Social Experiment, he said he would've gone to Claincy and I and told us what he was about to do. Coming to us would take a very large amount of trust, very early in the game, at a time when it's a little too early to trust the two players who have set themselves up as leaders and have not really proven themselves in the thread yet.
• Says he's not paying attention in the thread and does not want to vote for "conscience" reasons, or pull the trigger. This is not standard behavior for him. However, it also doesn't really match his LG6 evil playstyle. It is still an eliminator strategy--keeping out of the vote because you know everyone on the chopping block is innocent, and only voting for the ones who are guilty, yet also being active in discussion. (I tried this strategy in LG4).

 

Post Cycle 1 Suspicions (these are typically more solid than the early-game ones):

• After Hero said he suspected me during Night 2, he immediately jumped on that suspicion with an excuse about a PM conversation I had with him explaining how Eol is likely to be a Spiked Tineye. He then emphasized that I only told him this, and not the thread in general. While, yes, I did mention this in a PM to him, I went in far more detail and length in the thread. Additionally, when Kas asked him for more specifics about this PM--namely the timestamp, since if it happened during all the discussion about Eol being a Spiked Tineye (which, it did), there was a reason for that, Ash realized that I sent him that 30 minutes after Ren posted the theory about Eol being the Spiked Tineye. He then apologized to me. What intrigues me here is that the Spiked Tineye discussion in-thread was not a brief discussion, and Ash used it when he debated with Eol after Eol posted his explanation. And then he claims to not know that it was being talked about in the thread when I mentioned it briefly in a PM (seriously. It was one sentence. A long sentence, but one sentence nonetheless). But if he knew he wasn't paying attention to the thread, why would he put so much emphasis on the fact that the PM was only to him. How would he know that I didn't also mention it in the thread (as I did). It seems like he was trying to cast suspicion on me and hoping no one would verify his claim. And then someone did. (Interestingly, Kas also died that night).
• Tried to exchange information with me. At first, he brought nothing at all to the table (literally. He said he had "nothing" in terms of information). I find this hard to believe, as most villagers keep at least some vague sort of notes or something. He's played enough games that I'm sure he's learned that it pays to keep notes, even if they're basic. Yet he has nothing. When pressed, he comes up with the fact that Ren is inactive. Ren is never inactive. Do I know why Ren is inactive? ....That's not information. That's an observation, and then he asks for information about the observation he's made. Still, I'm feeling kind, so I asked him what information he wants from me. And he asks why Kas died. I had just explained in the thread that I didn't know this. I could not find a connection. But here he is, asking me. He has explained this in the thread, because I did bring it up. His explanation is a little flimsy, especially since the answers to his questions about if I knew anything were addressed in my post in the thread.
• In the gambit Maill and I pulled on him, he said he was not a Spiked Rioter after Maill accused him of being a Spiked Soother. I've already explained this one very recently, but just to reiterate and keep everything within this post, I'll say it again. It seems to me that his brain took Maill's mentioned of Soothing, interpreted it to be "vote manipulation role" and inserted "Rioter" into it. Similarly, when he said Rioter in his PM to me, I did not read it as Rioter, until Wyrm brought it to my attention that Ash was claiming he'd been Seeked as a Spiked Rioter. I looked closer, and noticed that that is indeed what he'd said. I even went back to my emails to verify that it hadn't been changed. I think my mind did the same thing, in reverse. I saw Rioter and read it as Soother because all I was really seeing was "vote manipulation role."
• Joe placed a vote on me early in Cycle 4, PMing me beforehand to see if I was okay with this. He wanted to see if anyone would jump on the vote. I told him to go for it, mentioning that Ash had jumped on the last suspicion of me very quickly. Less than an hour later, Ash voted for me, with fairly weak reasoning.

 

Taken separately, these aren't particularly condemning. This is why each time Ash was confronted, I wrote it off for the most part, logging it away on my notes, and not really thinking much more of it. However, taken altogether, and things start looking more shifty. A lot more shifty, in fact.

 

I want to emphasize that I am not saying that all of this means that Ash is Spiked. He could legitimately be a villager who is not paying attention to the thread at all. That would explain most of this. I think it's a little too easy of an explanation though.

 

And now that he's voting for himself, I'm wondering even more. He could be a Villager. However, like I said in my first point, he did this once before: acting like the distraught villager and voting for himself, when he was on Team Evil. He saved himself last time. He might be hoping to do it again this time. I'll feel bad if he is a Villager, but not terrible. The mystery will be solved, and that's the important thing.

 

I want to note along with this that if Ash is Spiked, Wyrm is not. During the Spiked Soother gambit, Ash was PMing Wyrm, telling him that he'd been Seeked. Ash told me what he had done, and Maill noticed that Ash was PMing someone and the only people on the PMs at the time were me and Wyrm. Wyrm has backed this up as well, independently (so, without my asking him if he received a PM from Ash), telling me that Ash was claiming to be Seeked. If they were both eliminators together, they would not be in one-on-one PM communication. They would be discussing in the doc. Therefore, Wyrm cannot be one of Ash's teammates if Ash is Spiked. Considering the suspicion surrounding Wyrm currently, I want to make that clear.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Okay, I'm back. Pardon me for the lack of activity. My Wi-Fi and laptop has been getting increasingly strangled, so I can only largely operate in the PM's (My laptop has recently developed an idiotic tendecy to shut down pages whenever I lose my Internet).

 

Seriously? No-one's bothered to make a vote tally?

 

Vote Tally: 

 

Ash: Joe, Mckee, Wilson, Pifferdoo, Ash, Jain (5)

Wilson: Joe, Ash (0)

Macen: Weiry (1)

 

I'll vote for Ash, to seal in the lynch. Voting manipulation has already hindered the game long enough.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Lightsworn Panda

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Jain, you missed my vote for Ash too.

[Peng the Just he/him]

I'm going to hop off this bandwagon. ash.

Edit:putting my vote on macen as he is the only other person with a vote and inactive.

Edit 2:color is hard

Edited January 13, 2015 by jasonpenguin

[Herowannabe he/him]

Interesting developments today. I admit that Ash wasn't really on my radar at all, and he already has a lot of heat on him at the moment, so I don't think I'll be adding to that at this time. 

 

So I'm going to go a different route. Peng. I have suspicions for you, but as was the case earlier, I'm specifically not going to say what they are. Defend yourself and convince me you're innocent, and I'll remove my vote.

[Peng the Just he/him]

@hrywynbe: if you have any specific worries about my reasoning, ask (you can PM me if you don't want it to be in the thread) for the most part I posted everything I had to say for myself in my last post other than my reason for my vote retraction, which is that I feel if ash was spiked, we would see more of a resistance for his lynching.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

I would very much like to know why people are voting for Macen. That's two votes on someone who is entirely inactive, and has shown no signs of turning up at all. There is no point voting for someone who is entirely inactive. In fact, in this case it can actually hinder us by providing the Spiked with someone else to target with the lynch. If Ashiok is indeed guilty, as I and others suspect (though I admit that I am less sure than some), then I think that I will be taking a closer look at Weiry and Peng after this. My reasoning for Ashiok being an Eliminator can be found bundled in with Wilson's other reasons, but I will add that something about his responses just seems... off to me. Surely this is the sacrifice-for-information you wanted, Ashiok?

 

Though backtracking a little, that's another point to consider. Weiry survived a Cycle. Clearly an Eliminator .

 

Edit: As an aside... BOW BEFORE YOUR KING!

Edited January 13, 2015 by Wyrmhero

[Claincy he/him]

My vote is for Ash. For the reasons Wilson outlined.

 

I've known what I was going to vote since earlier in the day but I wanted to wait as once a lot of people have voted for someone we get less information from people deciding to vote for them than when it is still reasonably likely/feasible that someone else could get lynched. I was in no hurry to get us toward that lower information state so I waited till now.

 

 

I need to go sleep shortly and I won't have time to post till after work tomorrow (which is gonna be after the cycle finishes) so this is the last thing I'll be able to do this cycle :/

[Peng the Just he/him]

Wyrm, killing an inactive is not a waste. One doesn't need to post in the thread to be spiked. It's entirely possibly to just give your kill orders and interact in the spiked doc without posting to the thread. Also, does no one notice this is a bandwagon except me?

just realized: Wyrm the king. That's amusing

Edited January 13, 2015 by jasonpenguin

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Wyrm, killing an inactive is not a waste. One doesn't need to post in the thread to be spiked. It's entirely possibly to just give your kill orders and interact in the spiked doc without posting to the thread. Also, does no one notice this is a bandwagon except me?

 

I never said that killing an inactive isn't a waste. I posted yesterday in reply to Weiry about what we should do with inactives, and that's Coinshot them for the reason you state there (that is, someone may feign inactivity and only turn up to use their Role). However, if we lynch an inactive, what do we get out of it? Pretty much a 1/5th chance of hitting a Spiked, and that's it. We gain no information on their allies or anything like that. If they haven't posted so far, then it's very unlikely they'll post just in response to a poke vote this late in the game, particularly when they're not in danger. Every day we lynch an inactive results in an active kill from the Eliminators and one day less of discussion. This is why it's a terrible idea to lynch inactives, and has historically always been something the Eliminators suggest when they're in a comfortable position and relatively in the clear.

[little wilson she/her]

One doesn't need to post in the thread to be spiked. It's entirely possibly to just give your kill orders and interact in the spiked doc without posting to the thread. 

 

Is that the way this game is going then? I wasn't sure, since I know some of the games lately have been run with the GM requiring kill orders to be made through PM. I asked Meta for clarification on that about an hour or two ago, but he hasn't been online.

 

If that is the case, I find that to be cheating. I think if you're making a game-related move, you need to at least show that you're active by logging into the site and submitting your action via PM, even if you're not going to post in the thread. To completely feign inactivity by placing orders in the doc and keeping up with the game via private modes on browsers is, I believe, against fair play, even if we have no rules stating that.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

If that is the case, I find that to be cheating. I think if you're making a game-related move, you need to at least show that you're active by logging into the site and submitting your action via PM, even if you're not going to post in the thread. To completely feign inactivity by placing orders in the doc and keeping up with the game via private modes on browsers is, I believe, against fair play, even if we have no rules stating that.

 

While I'd agree with most of that, I'd say that the whole 'keeping up via private browsers' thing would be fair play, myself. After all, we're not all logged in at all times. For that matter, it's not as if us being logged in proves that we're following the thread (though it may seem that I'm on here during all my waking hours), and I see no issue with merely reading the thread while logged out or in private browsing. You can read PMs via email, for instance. Certainly, unless some massive issue crops up on the forum, orders should be sent in via a PM to the GM, and PMs should be via the forum instead of anything else, but I think that asking everyone to be logged in when merely checking the forums is a bit too much.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Wyrmhero

[little wilson she/her]

Oh, I'm not saying viewing in private browsers would be against Fair Play. I do that a fair bit too (mostly at night when I don't have time to post or respond to PMs, so I don't want any of my PM contacts seeing I was online and being like "She didn't answer this!" so I catch up on the thread privately and then go to sleep). What I'm referring to is someone like Jasnah or Dom--someone who by all appearances is entirely inactive. But what if one of them is a Regular Spiked, so they have no role so they don't have to submit role PMs. The spiked want them to submit kill orders, via the doc. So they do. And they keep up with the thread solely in private mode, so it's showing that they haven't logged on to the site in such amount of time. That I think is cheating. For some to be active in the game on the evil side of things but to appear completely and totally inactive on the site. That's the kind of dishonesty that I think is against Fair Play.

[Peng the Just he/him]

My understanding was that spiked kill happen in the doc and uses of other actionshappen in PM. That's how its been before.

Edir: stupid autocorrect

Edit 2:

Oh, I'm not saying viewing in private browsers would be against Fair Play. I do that a fair bit too (mostly at night when I don't have time to post or respond to PMs, so I don't want any of my PM contacts seeing I was online and being like "She didn't answer this!" so I catch up on the thread privately and then go to sleep). What I'm referring to is someone like Jasnah or Dom--someone who by all appearances is entirely inactive. But what if one of them is a Regular Spiked, so they have no role so they don't have to submit role PMs. The spiked want them to submit kill orders, via the doc. So they do. And they keep up with the thread solely in private mode, so it's showing that they haven't logged on to the site in such amount of time. That I think is cheating. For some to be active in the game on the evil side of things but to appear completely and totally inactive on the site. That's the kind of dishonesty that I think is against Fair Play.

This is exactly what I'm worried about inactives doing. Edited January 13, 2015 by jasonpenguin

[Metacognition he/him]

To clarify, ALL orders have to be sent by PM, including the kill order of the Spiked. This ruling has been in place since Night 1 and is (barring some form of role shenanigans or game specific rulings that would be posted in the OP or, as Wyrm mentioned, extreme, singular circumstances) how I plan to run all of my games. In LG1, it was allowed once or twice due to certain situations if I recall correctly, but for the most part, all actions have to be sent via PM. 

 

All that said, I think you guys might be trying to rely on being able to tell inactives from lurkers. While I don't prefer the use of lurking, it is a legitimate strategy and since the Evil Factions of these games are typically already at a disadvantage in so many other areas, if we start taking away the kinds of strategies they can use, then the games will get predictable, IMO. Just putting it out there for future games and future GMs. 

 

We now return to your regularly scheduled paranoia!

[Peng the Just he/him]

Ah. I was wrong about how the kill orders are sent. Ok, inactives scare me a little less now. macen.

panda why did you hop on the ash bandwagon once his death was pretty much locked in?

Edit:fixed the playername to what I meant it to be. Man, I'm bad at posting what I meant on the first try

Edited January 13, 2015 by jasonpenguin

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

panda why did you hop on the ash bandwagon once his death was pretty much locked in?

 

Because there's some pretty powerful voting manipulation potential here, and we need to stack each lynch as much as possible.