Long Game 10: A Game of Shards

[vineyarddawg]

Multiple Things:

 

1. Several players have complained that there's a Threnody, but no Sel. All the players on Threnody are fine with changing the World to Sel. Would anybody mind me doing that?

 

2. Night 1 will be 48 hours long, rather than the normal 24, since I won't be home on time that Wednesday to end it at the proper time, and I won't be home at all on Saturday, so that cycle would have to be extended unless I did this.

 

3. I found out I forgot to include the Voidbringer role, so I gave that role to a random Worldhopper.

 

Didn't a WoB say that it was dangerous to enter Shadesmar on Sel?  And don't you have to enter Shadesmar to worldhop?  That's why I assumed Sel wasn't on the list.

Edited February 3, 2015 by vineyarddawg

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

Didn't a WoB say that it was dangerous to enter Shadesmar on Sel?  And don't you have to enter Shadesmar to worldhop?  That's why I assumed Sel wasn't on the list.

 

But we do know that it is possible to worldhop from Sel, so that should be reason enough.

Cuz, ya know, Galladon

[Guest]

@dawg Must you bring your petty logic here? This is AU, friend. (I think)

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

That's why I hadn't put Sel on the list, but people complained anyone. So I decided to let them enter Sel anyone. 

[Ashiok]

"Ah, Gerald, this would be your keep then?" Ash asked. "It's a bit... Small. Have you met my lovely daughter, the Lady Ashette? She's burning copper She's been begging me for a ball for a while now."

"Father, you know that's not true, I just told you we should head back to civilized, Scadrian society, where they hold nice balls." Ashette exclaimed, her brow furrowed in annoyance.

"If you say so. Ashey, remember the coin game I taught you? Where you have to shoot the other person's coin? Gerald and I made that one up. He's really smart." Ash explained, "Oi, rustbucket! You still up for a game of cointoss? First to ten wins? We'll give the nobility a show!" You can describe the game beyond that if you wish

Edited February 3, 2015 by Ashiok

[vineyarddawg]

Cool... no worries, then.  I have no objection. Was just wondering about that.  

[ostrichofevil he/him]

First of all, I'm just going to say that I don't want any Shards shattered on the first round, so think carefully before voting.  Also, not posting for the first half of the Day is not inactivity; there is something called school.  If you lynch someone for inactivity, they have a low probability of being Spiked a Champion.  Look at the AG; none of the inactives there were Spiked.  Later on, there's less reason not to kill inactives.

 

I know that this isn't the most helpful post, but there's not much evidence yet.  I'll post tommorow.

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

I'm waiting for the next cycle so that we can see the results of various actions, and then I'll draw conclusions from that.

Someone will probably die as a result, but that's the risk of this game. 

[Aonar he/him]

The weight of experience shaped me, changed me, molded me into something far different than I had been before. I lost sight of what I once valued, experimented with life and love and happiness, knowing that my actions had no consequence. I could always go back, change things, do better the next time.

 

But there was one thing I could never change.

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

The words, etched in metal, read: Kholinar, 1174. Redux…

 

It was the silence that alerted Aonar to his pursuers. The streets, usually echoing with the noise of the looters and rioters, had gone silent after the Everstorm had passed a few hours ago. Tapping tin, he heard soft footsteps coming from behind him.

Here we go again.

Ducking into an alleyway, Aonar unslung his rifle, tapping steel, zinc, electrum and chromium to steady his aim. Before long, one of the guardsmen barged around the corner.

 

The world slowed by zinc and steel, he took careful aim and shot the man in the foot. Aonar calmly set to reloading his rifle for the next of the guardsmen.

Danyn had obviously learned some caution from the crack of gunfire and his compatriot’s pained shouts. He stuck his head around the corner, and immediately pulled back, too fast for even Aonar’s Feruchemically enhanced reflexes to make the shot, if he’d been trying. The bullet embedded itself in the wall of a building, a few inches away from where his head had been.

 

If Danyn was smart, he’d rush forward now, while Aonar had to reload. While he could load a rifle faster than any unenhanced Scadrian, and more quickly than a good few of the metalborn, he was still vulnerable. But of course, he wouldn’t. Aonar knew that.

Setting down his rifle, he drew one of his Sterrions, keeping it low, and stalked forward. When the guardsman stuck his head around the corner again, Aonar waited. Gaining confidence, Danyn raised his sword. A relieved grin played about his features. “Not so dangerous without that strange fabrial, eh?”

Aonar stayed quiet. Unnerved but resolute, the guardsman feinted forwards, and then brought his sword down in a vertical slash. Sidestepping easily with the grace afforded by zinc and steel, Aonar brought his pistol up… and down again, cracking him across the temple, putting him out cold.

Turning away, he retrieved his rifle and set off at a calm walk for the meeting place, secure in the knowledge that for once, he’d done something right.

 

 

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

Aonar was standing in the ballroom, unnoticed, storing aluminium and duralumin. He walked, practically invisible, up to Lord Hobbes, ignoring the chaos as Ash, Kae and Cleo arrived. If I'd know that Wilson would start a rusting cult, I never would have saved her, he thought, shaking his head.

 

With a practiced motion, he tapped steel and placed a folded note into Lord Hobbes' pocket. With luck, he wouldn't notice until Aonar was long gone. 

 

The note read:

 

Hobbes, 

 

I can't intervene, not yet. Don't bother looking for me, I'll be gone long before you read this. I do have a plan, however....

 

 

I believe it's time for someone to come up with a brilliant plan, seeing how we've done basically nothing this cycle, and have almost no info to work with. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. So here's a mediocre one, in the mean time.

 

Assumptions: (Which have been confirmed by Joe.)

 

-Endowment knows the identity of all Shardholders, just not which Shards they have.

 

-If Odium is for some reason incapable of using his actions, then the Eliminators will be incapable of killing.

 

-Ruin-Invested Sharders can prevent Shards from using their actions.

 

Plan:

 

Alright. So there's been some debate about revealing roles, and first day lynching. While I would agree, I think I've found a better way.

 

So here's the plan. If every (or even most) Shards come forwards (with their role, as well as the fact that they're a Shard), it'll be pretty easy to tell who's who, since Endowment has a list of all of them. Worst comes to worst, we'll have a couple Inactive Shards that Odium will hide among, but true inactives will be fairly easy to differentiate from regular inactives after a cycle or two. Nothing bad so far, although it will make the Shards briefly vulnerable.

 

The key here though, is that once we've found Odium, we cannot kill him. Once we've found him, we have to keep him locked down with Ruin's Investiture, removing the Eliminator's greatest weapon, their Night Kill. Like this we can easily ferret out his Champions, without the pressure of that constant night kill.

 

Problems:

 

Ruin needs to survive for this to work. This means that Honour, or one of the Lifeless Operators will need to be protecting him. 

 

The other Shards will be vulnerable every cycle that Odium remains on the loose. Agreeing to this plan is going to put all of you at an incredible risk, as if even a few of you are inactive, it could be more than a couple cycles before we get Odium locked down. However, if the plan works, we could guarantee a win before the game even really gets going.

 

 

So, what do you think? It's not the greatest plan, and it's quite the gamble, but if we pull it off, it could decide the game here and now.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Aonar Faileas

[Guest]

Interesting plan, Aonar. Before I respond or really begin to plot, I have a couple questions about this game.

1. Can I talk about PMs I'm in without revealing specific text?

2. Can I lie IC, OOC, neither, or both?

[Ashiok]

Yes and yes

Edit: not the RP PM

Edited February 3, 2015 by Ashiok

[Guest]

Aonar,

Ruin and his Investee would have to be protected.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Snoopy

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

I like this plan

Although it has to be a fully committed effort. Any holes and it could spell disaster for the innocent Sharders. 

[Aonar he/him]

Both true, and both good points. However, Ruin's Investee only needs to be protected if he's publicly known. If they try to hit a random, non-Shard target, they're very unlikely to hit him. (Not impossible, I suppose, but highly unlikely.)

 

It will definitely have to be a committed effort. Anything less, and we'll be in a far worse place than we started.

[Clanky he/him]

Possible problems with Aonars plan: 

-Odium could claim to be a different shard (maybe one that happens to be inactive which would really screw this plan up) which would require at least one more cycle to prove which ones the true Odium. 

-if we are protecting Odium it will leave ruin and preservation open to attack from odiums invested champion

since everyone knows who they are. 

-They can then put skeletals on Ruin

 

Thats the main ones i can think of right now. 

I like the boldness of the plan but i think it needs some refinement

 

Edit because i realized one of my statements was incorrect. 

Edited February 3, 2015 by Clanky

[Guest]

Just want to say before I go any further that I am not opposed to this theory. I'm just trying to critique to improve.

With that said, how would Ruin go about picking an Investee that wasn't publicly known? I just want to hear your plan for that. Cultivation would likely have to be on board, and that could take time.

However, I think the biggest blow to your plan is simply finding Odium. Admittedly, this is my first time, so it's hard for me to get behind all this "I saw him lurking" hoodoo.

Edit: Can OCs be Bloodsealers as well? I was under the impression that only Hoid could have multiple roles.

Edit 2: Here's a quote from the Google Doc rules:

Investiture: Once per day, Ruin can invest in a Worldhopper. Once every day/night cycle, the invested player can target another player. During the day, a targeted player’s vote doesn’t count. During the night, a targeted player cannot use their ability. This does not stop a shard from investing.

Emphasis added

So Odium's Investee would still have a non-Shard kill, even if Ruin Ruined Odium.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Snoopy

[Metacognition he/him]

People seem to be getting the wrong idea of what I'm asking of Ruin, so I'll clarify one last time while answering their questions and from there, I'll leave it up to Ruin to decide. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised at the dissent to the idea. I'm beginning to wonder if there's an ulterior motive behind it, especially since some of the complaints sound similarly.... Could just be me reading too much into it though or people being afraid to be responsible for an innocent's death; even one that isn't being helpful. 

 

(Blue open) What about those people who will be inactive for a few cycles but when they come back, IF they come back instead of being Ruined, they will be an active player? Some arguments should be made for the Shards using their powers either way so the Shards may pick and chose. Except Odium, of course,because we don't want to be Odiumed. (Blue close)
EDIT: Color 

 

If they come in and let people know that they're busy and that they plan to be back, then they're not inactive, are they? They're just busy. If someone comes in and lets everyone know that they're going to be busy, obviously, they shouldn't be the initial targets. That said, it's rare that someone that says that will be able to keep up with the twists and turns that happen in their absence anyways and this seems like a very specific circumstance. You wouldn't happen to know of someone doing exactly this via the Eliminator Doc, would you?

 

Uh... yes, but if we were assuming that the inactives weren't spiked, why would we waste lynches killing them?

 

This has nothing to do with the lynches. This is about Ruin's kill ability. The idea is to do this specifically so we don't have to use our lynches on inactives later on and can focus on finding the coonections and lies that lead us to Team Rayse. The chances of us hitting a Spiked are slim; this is true. But, this way, we don't have to worry about the inactives once/if the game gets close and, as stated already, the inactives aren't helping us at all. All they're doing is providing a place for the Spiked to hide between. 

 

First of all, I'm just going to say that I don't want any Shards shattered on the first round, so think carefully before voting.  Also, not posting for the first half of the Day is not inactivity; there is something called school.  If you lynch someone for inactivity, they have a low probability of being Spiked a Champion.  Look at the AG; none of the inactives there were Spiked.  Later on, there's less reason not to kill inactives.

 

I know that this isn't the most helpful post, but there's not much evidence yet.  I'll post tommorow.

 

The Day is 48 hours long. Half of the day is a full 24 hours, but even that isn't what I'm talking about. Ruin doesn't get their kill until the Night Turn, so that means that their target would have to have been inactive for over 48 hours before they would be a likely target. 

Also, this is not a strategy for the entire game. This is a way to actually use Ruin's ability early on when they'd likely just be twiddling their thumbs. As stated earlier, once Ruin has some information and can make better guesses, I encourage them to go after them rather than the inactives. 

 

Also, let's discuss past games for a minute, especially the AG. In the past, the Eliminators have consistently tried to find that sweet spot between posting too much and too little. Too much and they get put on people's radar, which is where they don't want to be. Too little and we might kill them just for being unhelpful as the game goes on. 

 

The idea with this plan is to encourage them to have to speak up more and thus giving them more opportunities to slip up. This happened in the AG, near the end of the game, when they couldn't continue to stick to the shadows as much. If you go back through the Dead Doc, there were multiple times in which people notices posts that would've been red flags for them if they were still in the game. I'm trying to accelerate that process before we have to lose almost half of our players. 

 

 

 

Look, I get why everyone doesn't want a lynch today and why people are uneasy with this idea. No one wants to accidentally kill an innocent. Thing is, it's going to happen. We don't have a scanner role and Team Rayse has two possible kills a night! If we sit back and try to wait to find only Rayse and his Champions, we're likely going to lose. Heck, there's a chance that we could lose a Shard tonight (but at least then it's not on us, right?). 

 

That said, I'll acquiesce to the group and withdraw my vote from The Second of the Sky and start coming up with other ideas. 

 

Investiture is going to be difficult. The Shards could accidentally invest in one of the Champs, so they're going to want to be very careful about doing so. The only Shard that I think really should hold off on investing would be Devotion. Unless they're fairly certain that the person they pick is not a Champ, then I think we want to have all options for future lynches on the table. Cultivation and Dominion are iffy, as we don't really want to give Team Rayse the ability to manipulate the vote (or to get people in mini PMs where they can be more easily manipulated), but if they do manipulate the vote, then Cultivation and Dominion would know who they are at least! 

 

So that's the last word I'll say on that idea and also some thoughts for going forward. 

[Clanky he/him]

Also yes OC's can be bloodsealers or any other minor role because an OC isn't a role the same as Worldhopper isn't a role.

[Guest]

@Aonar

Here's a quote from the Google Doc rules:

Investiture: Once per day, Ruin can invest in a Worldhopper. Once every day/night cycle, the invested player can target another player. During the day, a targeted player’s vote doesn’t count. During the night, a targeted player cannot use their ability. This does not stop a shard from investing.

Emphasis added

So Odium's Investee would still have a non-Shard kill, even if Ruin Ruined Odium.

@Meta

Do you want to have a lynch? If so, who are you suggesting?

[Aonar he/him]

Snoopy:

Well, Endowment knows who every single Shard is. That narrows things down to eight people, each of whom have different, easily provable roles. Worst comes to worst, we chose one of the more unlikely/inactive Shards and roleblock them at random, forcing Odium to either not make a kill, or clear them for us.

 

The Investee not being publicly known would be tricky. Ruin would basically have to blindly trust someone, and hope. Of course, if things don't work out like they're supposed to, we'll have pegged a Champion, at least.

 

Clanky:

-Already pointed out in the plan. It's a gamble, and the longer we go without hitting Odium, the worse off we are.

-Odium's Invested Champion can't attack Shards, and after the Cycle immediately following the one where we get a lockdown on Ruin, they won't be able to attack, period.

-In this scenario, Ruin wouldn't be killing. He'd just be giving his Investiture.

 

Edit: Good catch, Snoopy. However, I still think the rewards outweigh the risks here, assuming things go to plan.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Aonar Faileas

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Meta, I disagree with your reason for lynching someone today. Just because we're eventually going to lose someone doesn't necessarily mean we have to go gung ho and just lynch someone. If we minimalize our losses early, we'll be able to achieve a more favorable late game. The chances of hitting a Spiked on Day 1 is already small (1/5) and I think we've only managed that once in MR3.

I'll colour this post later when I can get on a PC

Edited February 3, 2015 by Gamma Fiend
Colored ;)

[Clanky he/him]

If we don't use ruins kills then all kills will still be by vote. Voting will not be changed by this as all of Odiums champions would still get to vote. Maybe I'm missing this but I don't see how this would help us to catch OCs with a greater probability via the lynch vote. We would also ensure that Odiums invested never accidentally hits a shard wasting the kill. 

 

EDIT accidently said ruin when i meant odium

Edited February 3, 2015 by Clanky

[Alvron]

Bold = mine

The Day is 48 hours long. Half of the day is a full 24 hours, but even that isn't what I'm talking about. Ruin doesn't get their kill until the Night Turn, so that means that their target would have to have been inactive for over 48 hours before they would be a likely target. 

Also, this is not a strategy for the entire game. This is a way to actually use Ruin's ability early on when they'd likely just be twiddling their thumbs. As stated earlier, once Ruin has some information and can make better guesses, I encourage them to go after them rather than the inactives. 

Not quiet Meta.  Ruin can choose to attack someone during the day cycle or night.  For what it's worth, I am in favor of killing any inactives we have.

 

Quoted from Main post.

 

Order of Actions:

Day:

Devotion's Worldhopper is announced

Endowment makes a new Shard.

Normal Votes

Day Investments (Odium/Honour/Endowment/Ruin)

Dominion Targets

Ruin’s Kill

Both Devotion abilities

Dominions Vote Change

Ruin’s Vote Cancel

Lynch

 

Night:

Endowment makes a new Shard

Night Investments (Dominion, Cultivation, Preservation, Devotion)

Dominion targets.

Lashings

Ruin's kill

Devotion targets

Ruin's action cancel

Odium/Champion kill

 

 

I'm not 100% positive but it looks like we would need Ruin to kill someone if we want them to invest another with their roleblocking.  It's possible that they could invest without using thier Shard abilities but the rules post isn't clear.

The Shard must use their Invest Ability the same cycle they use their Shardic ability.

Can you clear this up Joe.  Can a Shard invest in someone without using their other ability or do they have to use both if they want to use one? or is it only that they need to invest if they want to use their main power?

[Clanky he/him]

Do sit seem like I'm too opposed to Aonars idea? I'm not trying to say it's bad I just want to promote discussion before we put all our eggs in one basket.

EDIT for spelling

Edited February 3, 2015 by Clanky

[Guest]

I agree with that plan in theory. My objections are on the table and have been answered. My final hesitation is that of cooperation and trust. Before anything can work, we must be sure that Endowment, Cultivation, and everyone else involved has the guts to come forward and follow through.

Speed is obviously going to be of the essence, as we have two killls per night.

Other Ramblings:

Joe, can a Shard say, "I want to Invest in Hoid," or do they have to name a specific player?

Also, what happens if Hoid picks up Endowment after it dies?

If Hoid is Invested by Honor, can he Lash himself?

If Hoid came forward and Honor immediately Invested him and Lashed him, Hoid would be effectively invincible. What then?