Mid-Range Game 9: The Steel Ministry

[Alfa he/him]

Well, if we do not have a smoking gun (or a bloody knife or whatever), which seldom seems to be the case, we can only get lead by our instinct. A short recapitulation of the involved dead people shows us, that

1) Alvron, Creccio and Joe voted for ripple

2) Ripple, Adavantos and myself voted for Phatt; which, without the error would have lead to a tie.

3) Mailliw voted for Lopen

 

What can we read out of it?

Not much, as anybody who played SE or something similar knows very well. Still, I have some thoughts on it.

I am not very familiar with SE history - first game - but grudge kills or something like that could be part of it. Does anybody know if anybody had a grudge on mailiw?

Also, Lopen is of course suspicious, because mailiw voted for him.  Also of course the kill could be intended to put the suspicion on Lopen. Also it could be that the skaa killed mailiw to make us think that mailiw was killed to put supicion on lopen and so on...

As for phattmer: In fact i was just accusing a random silent bystander, as i was accused by Adavantos before, that it lead him to the top of the list was not intended. Either way, with a lynch our chances to get a skaa this round increase. Also to notice, that Adavantos said, he voted for him to make sure that ripple won't be lynched. That, I believe, is more an inquisitor-like behaviour. If he is a skaa, he would have tried to get an inquisitor lynched and not to reach an killvote equilibrium without a lynch.

So, i assume Adavantos to be innocent.

More is difficult to say for now. Any opinions on that semi-analysis?

Edited October 21, 2015 by Alfa

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Thwre are several people who could have grudge killed mailliw after his survival shenanigans in Lg14. Other than that I mainly agree with your analysis.

[Clanky he/him]

Because we do to much anaylsis of eliminator kills in these games. The safest option is always to kill the most experianced players, unless you learn of a powerful role. That's why I fhink mailliw was a fear kill.

And I said it was illogic, not logic, that made me want to vote for mailliw. Plus I added that if he was a inquisitor, I was the GM. I'm actually Gamma fiend!

 

Yes I know that is the safe thing for an eliminator to do. But what is different this time is the fact that maill had suspicion on him by others. Normally you don't target someone who is potentially going to get lynched. There are plenty of other options for a fear-kill that don't have any suspicion on them, Kas, Wyrm, Alv... Why not kill one of them and hope Mail gets lynched?

Edited October 21, 2015 by Clanky

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Because killing mailliw makes everyone suspicious of Kas, Wyrm and Alv who are experianced and weren't killed? I don't know. I've never correctly anticipated a day 1 kill before, nor correctly gotten the reasoning behind it. So I choose to analysie votes and lynches instead.

[Clanky he/him]

OK I have removed my vote from you. I still think that this kill has more analytical value then most cycle 1 eliminator kills. 

[STINK he/him]

Y'know whats worrying me? This discussion. 

 

Wyrm. You placed a few votes last cycle.

Edited October 22, 2015 by IrulelikeSTINK

[Guest]

I would hesitate to call Mailliw's death a fearkill. The way my thought process would have run is this (I suppose this assumes that Joe is good, but it can be read either way):

1. I should kill Wyrm, Alvron, Joe, Kas, or Mailliw simply as a matter of course. Everyone expects it, so they won't read too much into it. They'll go "fearkill" and that will be it.

2. But If I pick the right person, I can manufacture some extra suspicions based off of the death.

3. Joe brought up the plan, so someone will likely target him. Can't run the risk of him being protected, especially on Night One.

4. Mailliw has been active in thread; active to the point that not only have quite a few people given a read on him, but some people have even made if/then statements about his alignment.

5. If I kill Mailliw, it will cause maximum confusion, and I won't run as much risk of him being Lurched.

6. *stabs Mailliw*

How did the hipster burn himself?

That's about it. Mailliw was a good target in terms of confusion. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think that this early in the game, we can simply chalk up Mailliw's death to a combination of fearkill, desire to cause confusion, and expectedness. Most players expect more experienced players to die. I feel like there’s almost a subconscious reaction to that (my use of the word “subconscious” should not be misconstrued as a reference to the Ripple Debacle). For example, people are more likely to say, “If Action x happens,” (x in this case being Mailliw’s death) Player Y is evil. So a wise Eliminator can simply kill an experienced player (obviously not himself) and skate by.

 

It has long been my wish that we could all simply not talk about issues like this, by some unspoken agreement. The act of discussing things in D1 that really do not matter the game as a whole gives the Eliminators quite an easy path to follow. Discussing whether or not we should do D1 lynches eliminates the threat of a lynch. Asking whether or not we should discuss D1 lynches removes all the teeth of a lynch.

He drank his coffee before it was cool!

HAHAHAHAHAHA

@Adavantos The flaw that I was referring to can be illustrated this way. Suppose I want to pick a child to give a million dollars to. I confront a crowd of children, composed of all ages. I say, “Alright, I’m going to put a blindfold over my eyes. When I say ‘GO,’ the first child to reach me will get the million dollars. No matter who reaches me first, I will give them a million dollars. But I only want 14 year olds to try. Only 14 year olds.” Guess who will come forward. All of the children. What’s to stop them? They know they’ll get the million dollars if they touch him first, so who cares? Maybe an 8 year old will do it. Or maybe a really bad 14 year old, a vandal.

Blindfold = Joe’s tin.

14 year olds = Lurchers

Bad 14 year old = Skaa Lurcher

Other children = anybody with a metal action

Million dollars = Joe defending somebody in a lynch

 

For putting forth a clearly flawed plan, my vote goes on Joe. The counter-argument that he wasn't giving out the whole plan doesn't really hold water, methinks. Why not reveal the whole plan, if you did anyway in the end? What was the harm? I think he was trying to sniff out some Lurchers to kill. I also don’t like how he’s setting himself up as a town leader.
Full disclosure: I’m not opposed to town leaders in general. There’s just something that doesn’t feel right about the way Joe is doing it.

[polkinghornbd he/him]

I'll vote on Stink.  

 

Y'know whats worrying me? This discussion. 

 

What's worrying you?  People discussing reasons for the round's kills?

Edit: undoing vote

Edited October 22, 2015 by polkinghornbd

[STINK he/him]

The lack of discussion, mostly. (And I do sound really rude here) As when most people were posting 'Sorry Ripple' for most of this topic, we need to discuss something else, as well as the fact that there hadn't been a post in here for a while so I felt that I needed to start a discussion, so the vote on Wyrm was placed as he made posts that analysed things well, and he hasn't done one yet!

[Clanky he/him]

I don't think the problem is the discussion but more the lack of variety amongst the players doing the discussion. We have had 10(I think) people post this cycle out of 24 left alive and we still have some people who haven't posted all game. 

 

I will be putting my vote on Araris. You put the second vote on an inactive newbie. Why meandbooks? Phat has played a few games and has also not showed up. What are your thoughts on the game?

[polkinghornbd he/him]

Thanks, Stink.  The way I read it it sounded like you didn't like what discussion we had had.  Based on Joe's illogic, I should vote for him, because if he is supposed to be opposite Mailliw and he wasn't evil, Joe should be.  But I don't distrust Joe even with because of his failed plan.  It just doesn't seem logical to make a pretend plan with a flaw, then reveal it when no one else had realized it.

[Alfa he/him]

Remember to make the original vote green, too, or it will be counted.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Alfa

[Wyrmhero he/him]

The lack of discussion, mostly. (And I do sound really rude here) As when most people were posting 'Sorry Ripple' for most of this topic, we need to discuss something else, as well as the fact that there hadn't been a post in here for a while so I felt that I needed to start a discussion, so the vote on Wyrm was placed as he made posts that analysed things well, and he hasn't done one yet!

 

Give me a chance, I've quite literally been at work for 14 hours. I wasn't kidding when I said today would be busy for me >>. And you're not going to be getting much today either, since it's half 11 and I have to be up again in 7 hours.

 

...Having said that, I then went and wrong some stuff anyway. Oh well.

 

3. Wyrm confirmed for holder of Death Note. Chief, can you please do me a favour and never use me in your examples of who might die? >> (Be interested in what you have to say about it, though.)

 

...The morale of the story is that our Lurcher(s) should listen to me?

 

Seriously, Mailliw's death basically tells us nothing, for reasons already stated. Searching for meaning in the first kill was always going to be a waste of time - I stated this last Cycle, and this is why I said a lynch is necessary to gain information. The first kill is always an experienced player and all it has done is made us go 'Oh, Mailliw was innocent. Maybe this means something,' without being able to say what. There are so many reasons that Mailliw could have been killed (experience/familiarity/misdirection/false confirmation of his thoughts) that the actual reason is probably impossible to decipher.

 

I am concerned by Alvron and Joe both taking part in the lynch of a new player for a very minor mistake. They are both experienced players who should know better than to jump on the mistakes of a new player. And also there's the fact that the lynch basically told us nothing on its own. I find it interesting that Joe ignores the fact that Mailliw's death implicates him too - Particularly considering how well Mailliw claimed to understand Joe. Consider that killing Mailliw after he says 'Joe is innocent, I can feel it' might make us believe Mailliw because he's innocent.

 

Now, I'm not going to vote for Joe here. I'm going to vote for Alvron. The reason for this is basically because Joe has said something so far, and Alvron has not. I want to know why this vote was placed there, and what exactly he hoped to get out of it.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Important Notice: Due to my error with the lynch tally, and the incorrect lynch on Ripple, she will now be fulfilling the role of a Pinch-Hitter. So first player who notifies me that they want to drop out of the game for inactivity issues, Ripple will take that character's place, role, info, and all. Please do not abuse it, as there is only one Pinch-Hitter position available, so really only consider it if you really believe you can't continue the game otherwise. 

And with that, back to your regularly scheduled slaughter!
 

[Orlok Tsubodai]

Winter, I explained what I did this morning (17 hours ago for timezone clarity). I noted that a mistake had been made, deemed it worthy of being brought to people's attention, and thought that the most effective way of doing so was through a vote. I absolutely did not expect it to lead to a lynch - I attempted, unsuccessfully, to divert the lynch train this morning.

Yes, I could have removed my vote from Ripple before I went to sleep past night. But given there seemed no overwhelming threat of her lynch, I thought it more sensible to leave it be, where it could continue to put pressure on her - people always act in more interesting ways when there is a threat of a lynch.

I would, though, like to reiterate, that Ripple, I really am very, very sorry for instigating your lynch over it, and causing you the distress you indicated.

[Meandbooks she/her]

Okay, I'm here at last. Due to an impressive level of derp on my part (basically I was subscribed to the wrong thread and didn't find the right one until it was too late) and timezones I haven't been able to post.

 

I'm also feeling distrustful of Joe, but beyond what has been speculated already I can't say it's more than just a gut feeling. On the one hand, his plan does seem like something a skaa would do, but it also seems unlikely that a skaa would do something so obviously suspicious. In addition, several of his posts regarding his plan and what he intended to do seem to have severely flawed logic.

 

And then it comes to the fact that his plan is indeed flawed. There are two possible reasons for this flaw - either it was a mistake on his part, or it was intentional.

 

If it was a mistake, that could mean he is not a skaa and he just didn't think through his plan well enough. Or it could mean that he is in fact a skaa and that mistake reveals that the true purpose of his plan is to find people to kill.

 

If the flaw was intentional...I'm not really sure why it would be intentional, but I think the idea is worth considering. Having missed most of the last round, I'm not familiar enough with the plan to analyze it in this light. Perhaps someone else could take a stab at it?

 

 

I think the Araris situation is more complicated than that. There were two good reasons for voting for me last round - one is to encourage inactive members to be active, like he said. The other one follows this logic: newbie members who are skaa might choose not to post because they are wary of discovery or don't know how to act innocent. There are flaws with that, but it could be what he was thinking.

 

However, if his goal truly is to get inactive members involved, well, if they get lynched on the first day, they can't really be involved after that, so voting for them could backfire.

 

Even so, I doubt he is a skaa. If he were skaa, why try to get an inactive member, who isn't a threat at all, lynched? (Other than for the easy kill.) It also has clearly cast suspicion on him.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Well, thank you Meandbooks, for your valiant defense of my actions. I was assuming that nobody would make a mistake like the one you made, and was wrong. This is SE though, and we are supposed to be a bit bloodthirsty. I'm glad that you are still alive in your first game, considering that you weren't intentionally inactive But I don't think Kasimir was really trying to address whether or not we should lynch you. He was getting on me for sliding by without contributing much to the conversation, which I admit I am guilty of.

 

So the one person that seems like a hot topic to me is Joe. He had a plan that never was intended to work (as I understand it now), but it was presented like it should have worked. Then it turns out Joe misinterpreted the rules and it wouldn't have worked anyway. I was ok with his plan because it seemed like something that would both generate discussion and have the possibility of accomplishing something, although looking back it is hard to see exactly what. I would say that it is partly thanks to Joe that we had 8 or so pages of discussion last cycle. The end result of his plan is a bit suspicious, since lurchers would presumably be wasting charges that could be spent elsewhere better. This does seem a bit in line with what he tried last game though. I guess the line for me is that the plan was never intended to work, so the potential to waste protection roles leads me to suspect Joe more than I did before. But I'll leave him to respond to the vote that has already been placed, and try and add a bit more analysis tomorrow.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

@Wyrm, Alvron's vote on Ripple wasn't because of her typo. He said it was a gut feeling based on her first post(s). 

 

I can't decide if I'm suspicious of Joe or not. While his proposed plan turned out to be a simple misread of the rules, I was willing to go with it simply because I think we should try to use our abilities as a whole. It's going to be extremely difficult to do that without some type of plan. I couldn't see what Joe was trying to do with his plan, but I thought, 'hey, if I can't figure it out, maybe that means the Skaa won't be able to either.' Joe also assured us that he had worked out any flaws in it. While I still thought it might be a gamble(which, even if he was right about the rules, it would've been), I'd rather take a risk than simply sit back and everyone just uses their abilities with no particular aim. I think his vote on Ripple is more suspicious than his plan, but even that doesn't seem very suspicious to me. It seems like a majority of people were for a lynch rather than against it, so I don't really see a problem with it. I guess I'd say I'm not particularly suspicious of Joe. I don't trust him mind you, it's just that his actions so far seem villageish.

 

I'm not sure what to make of the kill and lynch, so I'm gonna put a vote on Phattemer for now. You were called out a few times last cycle, and yet you still haven't posted anything. I would still like to hear from Deathclutch, Honey Badger, and Shallan as well, because, as Kasimir pointed out, they haven't given us much information regarding their thoughts or opinions yet. And that is going to be the primary way to catch the Skaa.

 

One thing that I would like to ask the more experienced players about the roles. Do you think it would be a good idea to give some advice on how to generally use our abilities? We can't really make effective plans without PM's, but I think it would help to give an idea of what situations or what reasons we would use certain abilities. As it is right now, it seems like we would have to just get really lucky to catch an eliminator with our roles. Some roles just don't seem particularly useful. Any ideas?

 

Here's my basic thoughts:

 

Coinshot: Use your own gut feelings. 

Lurcher: Hard to say, don't want the Skaa to know who would most likely be protected

Gold person user guy: Depends on what roles everyone thinks the Skaa has. Like, if we think they have a Rioter, then if you get rioted, there's a good chance that person is evil. Especially now that a villager rioter is down.

Seekre(Bronze): I don't know, same as Gold I guess.

Rioter: Not sure how to use this either.

Soother: Yeah, nothing really comes to mind.

Copper: If you have a feeling someone is a lurcher or Coinshot, would be a good idea to copper than to protect from Skaa messing with them.

Pewter: Use your gut I guess. If you think you've made yourself a target, better safe than sorry.

Atium: If your out there, please be careful.

 

One thing I would like to warn people of is that we should not give out or even hint at our roles. I probably don't even have to say anything, but again, better safe than sorry.

[Sart he/him]

Mar was annoyed. He had finally dragged Ailyth into the discussion, only to find it had become a tangled mess. Most of the discussion was centered around Joel's cockeyed scheme. The Tineye didn't even understand basic allomancy. How was he even Inquisitorial material? Perhaps, it was because he was actually a skaa. It would explain his stupidity, but his downtrodden expression appeared genuine.

 

What they needed was more information. The skaa had killed a Rioter, but it appeared as though the kill was random. The general consensus was that Milon was someone to be feared, and so he had been struck down preemptively. It made sense, though it would imply familiarity with his reputation. That line of inquiry was pointless. With the exception of a few mysterious outliers, most of the trainees gathered were familiar with him.

 

An interesting point had been brought up in the discussion though. The skaa would be too cowardly to participate in the voting. While one or two of them would most likely be trying to guide the group, the remainder would be trying to lay low, waiting for the right time to strike. However, they would not want to be completely absent from discussion. If their co-conspirator was in danger, or if a juicy target was to be lynched, they would jump at the opportunity.

 

One person in particular had stood out to him: Lan (Clanky). First and foremost, he had dared to put a vote on Mar. He should know better. Secondly, he tried to analyze Milon's kill, throwing suspicion at nearly everyone. Mar had expected the skaa to do something like that. He firmly believed they would attack several active players verbally, and then lynch whichever one the trainees became suspicious of. In addition, he was a stark detractor of Joe's plan. He was constantly arguing against it, even when he did not know the details of the plan. That seemed like something a skaa would do.

 

"Lan, it's time to have a reckoning. I name you as skaa. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Edited October 22, 2015 by Sart

[phattemer]

It appears I have missed a bit. So I was going to be lynched but not enough people switched, and now Mailliw(who didn't like Joe's plan) is dead and so is Ripple(who though skaa were people too). I probably won't place a vote this cycle because I don't think I am qualified to what with the amount of catching up I need to do.

[Clanky he/him]

Mar was annoyed. He had finally dragged Ailyth into the discussion, only to find it had become a tangled mess. Most of the discussion was centered around Joel's cockeyed scheme. The Tineye didn't even understand basic allomancy. How was he even Inquisitorial material? Perhaps, it was because he was actually a skaa. It would explain his stupidity, but his downtrodden expression appeared genuine.

 

What they needed was more information. The skaa had killed a Rioter, but it appeared as though the kill was random. The general consensus was that Milon was someone to be feared, and so he had been struck down preemptively. It made sense, though it would imply familiarity with his reputation. That line of inquiry was pointless. With the exception of a few mysterious outliers, most of the trainees gathered were familiar with him.

 

An interesting point had been brought up in the discussion though. The skaa would be too cowardly to participate in the voting. While one or two of them would most likely be trying to guide the group, the remainder would be trying to lay low, waiting for the right time to strike. However, they would not want to be completely absent from discussion. If their co-conspirator was in danger, or if a juicy target was to be lynched, they would jump at the opportunity.

 

One person in particular had stood out to him: Lan (Clanky). First and foremost, he had dared to put a vote on Mar. He should know better. Secondly, he tried to analyze Milon's kill, throwing suspicion at nearly everyone. Mar had expected the skaa to do something like that. He firmly believed they would attack several active players verbally, and then lynch whichever one the trainees became suspicious of. In addition, he was a stark detractor of Joe's plan. He was constantly arguing against it, even when he did not know the details of the plan. That seemed like something a skaa would do.

 

"Lan, it's time to have a reckoning. I name you as skaa. What do you have to say for yourself?"

 

"Me a Skaaa!?!? I am to be the greatest Inquisitor of all time! A Skaaa, you jest."

 

-----

 

So I am a Skaa because I pointed out problems with a plan that involved the wasting of inquisitor lurching metal vials? The plan ended up being flawed anyways but I am just supposed to accept it? Whenever someone proposes a plan we should just accept it and let it happen no matter what I guess. The main porpoise of any plan even more than the plan itself is to generate discussion. How can you generate discussion without voicing your disagreements? I feel like this vote was because I voted on Sart and he just looked for reasons after that.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

I'm going to start off by asking the Lurchers to NOT target me. The amount of discussion I'm inspiring is good, but useless. I'm an inquisitor. I've explained my plan, why I did what I did, and how I found out I had a flawed understanding of bronze. There's nothing else I can say on the subject. So I'd rather people focus on more important things, but I know that isn't going to happen while I'm alive. So to any coinshots out there, if you suspect me, and you have more than 2 charges, just kill me. Otherwise let's focus on other things.

Sart, why is clanky's analysis suspicious? That happens literally every game, by both eliminators and villagers. Surviving Experienced players aleays come under suspicion.

I'm inclined to think that meanderbrook is a inquisitor. His explanation matches up with what we saw, and since was online last cycle he would have received the pm with a link to his doc if he were a skaa. He probably would have posted to get suspicion off him.

Lastly, inquisitors with emotional allomancy should save their allomancy until.later, so we don't run the risk of acidently hijacking a coinshot or soothing a seeker.

[Alvron]

Now, I'm not going to vote for Joe here. I'm going to vote for Alvron. The reason for this is basically because Joe has said something so far, and Alvron has not. I want to know why this vote was placed there, and what exactly he hoped to get out of it.

I hadn't said anything as I hadn't been online until just now.    I have had a busy day and have work in 90 mins so I'm still not going to say anything.  My vote was placed on Ripple because of a gut feeling I had.  I kept it there as I felt I really need to follow up on my gut feeling rather than just ignore them.  I could've removed it after the others started voting on Ripple for a simple mistake but chose not to.  My gut feeling had only gotten stronger as I felt Ripple was being a little too defensive in their posts.

[Creccio he/him]

Before I start spouting non-sense, can someone give me a tl;dr of Mail's action on LG14? I saw them on here and I was wondering if someone could let me in?

[Kasimir he/him]

Well, thank you Araris (yes, I have greened you out in my original post as well, won’t be making that same mistake again). As I have a paper due somewhere in the hazy boundary between tonight and tomorrow afternoon (gotta love extensions), I’m probably not going to be able to come back on and do more analysis. So I’m going to try and bring up some issues that I think are relevant; quality over quantity, and all that.

1. Joe: I think your assumption that you were visited by an inquisitor is unwarranted. The skaa knew Maili wasn’t one of them, but I don’t think your preferred conclusion, that they concluded you were honest necessarily follows from that premise. Innocent players have been wrong all the time. Storms, how many times have any of us blundered in previous games and trusted someone we shouldn’t have or overstated our claims? (Yes, Wyrm, I’m looking right at you.)

The knowledge that Maili was innocent implies that Maili had no reason to lie. It does not entail that you were not lying to begin with, or that Maili could not be mistaken. In fact, the only way we could perhaps reach the conclusion you want us to draw is if we add the additional premise that Maili knows you too well. You have claimed this, and I have alluded to this, but do the skaa buy that? Remember, you have a reputation as an ‘experienced player’, and presumably, for craftiness. (I use scare-quotes as I am starting to feel very uncomfortable with how the term has come to be employed in SE.) I don’t think it’s clear, and so I don’t think we’re entitled to this assumption.

The upshot is that I’m asking you don’t reveal their name to us (I doubt you were going to anyway) but that you keep a close eye on them. Wait and see, in other words.

At this point, I am slightly inclined to think you’re on Team Good. On the one hand, I think your reasoning about Meandbooks makes sense, and it’s certainly been in your style in Village play to continuously come up with the (if I dare say; wackiest) plans. That’s consistent at least. I don’t really see you having any reasoning to lie either about having been visited, if only because if you have to name a name (though to be fair, it’s unlikely to happen) and you’ve lied about it, that would be incredibly awkward. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can reason from Meandbooks (likely) not being skaa to any conclusion about those people involved in the last-minute voting, since there was no real bandwagon.

We know that Ripple and (likely) Books are non-skaa, but we can’t exactly conclude that there was no skaa involvement in the lynch, simply because the people who were are Orlok, Adavantos, and Ripple. We don’t need to talk about Ripple. As I’ve previously mentioned, I argued that distancing himself from the lynch would be perfectly consistent with Orlok’s being skaa. (It could, of course, also be due to Orlok being a rather decent sort, which I would say he is.) However, it does incline me to think somewhat more positively about Adavantos, as he threw a vote onto Phat to make it a tie in order to save Ripple. I think a skaa would prefer to cement a lynch, and even that would be rather risky, as people tend to look askance at last-minute voters who cause a mislynch. [My point being that if he felt it was too risky to force a lynch, he seems to have no reason to even intervene, although one could argue that he counted on the vote being past the time limit and not valid.] I’m more convinced by the former than the latter.

2. Creccio: Thanks for replying. I must admit that I in part wanted to see how you would react; as I’ve mentioned, words like ‘this argument doesn’t roll for me’ are quite vague, and it’s often worth the effort to press someone to say a little more about them, lest they end up being about as useful as instinct. While you’re puzzlingly defensive about this, especially since you previously invited us to interrogate everyone who voted for Ripple—yourself included, I am not inclined at this point to further press the issue. (To be fair, I was more concerned with arguing for the claim that instinct does play a role, rather than immediately condemning you solely on the grounds of having appealed to reasoning as opaque as instinct; apodictic evidence is so rarely obtained in SE that we’re better off not sitting around and waiting for it.)

3. Winter: I mean I am disagreeing with you.

4. Clanky: Any reason why you stacked a second vote on Araris, when he already had one on him? Could this be a convenient way to push someone for the lynch?

Clanky already has one vote on him, so I don’t really want to be a hypocrite by stacking a second on him.

5. Maili’s death: it’s obvious, folks! Wyrm killed him! Wyrm has the Death Note! We’re doomed!

Okay, more seriously: while I like to keep an open mind, I’m also a fan of the principle of parsimony. It seems to me that the most parsimonious explanation is in fact that it’s a fear kill. Let me put this in perspective: say Meta was in this game. He dies on Day 1. Would any of us really find this surprising or seek further explanations?

No. He’s a dangerous player. He’s the kind of player you kill ASAP because you don’t want him sticking around to give you more problems later on. So I think the reason we keep digging for an extra explanation on why Maili died has to be phrased contrastively: why Maili? Why not

1. ?

Well, my understanding is that Maili has been doing pretty well in previous games of late. In particular, I suspect his success at manipulating everyone and just generally being a real pain in the pula probably scared a number of people who saw LG14. It’s just the same as how Wilson started getting attacked more after some of her landmark games. This sort of thing just happens: you play well, and you get boosted in terms of people’s threat perception, particularly if that watershed game was a recent one. And I think in Maili’s case, it was. And since I don’t find it surprising that Maili died in light of his recent achievements, (just as I don’t find it surprising that Alv is our resident Dodo, nor that Meta gets killed early, nor that Wilson attracts her own share of kills), I don’t see the need to further apply a contrast/foil “Why Maili and not X?” and search for more explanations.

In fact, Clanky, I think your argument further supports my contention that it was a fear kill. If you are correct in your claim that “normally you don't target someone who is potentially going to get lynched”, (i.e. that it would not be the rational decision to target someone with suspicion on them for the kill), then that precisely indicates to me that our skaa were not thinking rationally but were strongly motivated by fear. And as I’ve argued, I do think Maili’s recent shenanigans supports that.

Actually, scratch that. I am in fact going to slap down a second vote on Clanky. Why do you keep trying to running over Maili’s death again and again and turning it into the Mystery of the Cycle? Could it be that you are in fact a skaa trying to subtly connect Joe, Wyrm or myself to Maili’s death, thereby casting suspicion on us?

Edited because link was not showing up. Also, long post is long. Sorry guys. I'll try to be more concise next time :/

Edited October 23, 2015 by Kasimir