Long Game 15: ...The Shards Themselves...

[Amanuensis he/him]

The Shallan Debacle; a Response to the Day 1 Lynch and the Players Involved

Adavantos

LG15, Class G

20151106

 

Lynch, verb: to (of a mob) kill (someone), especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal trial.

 

It's easy to find a definition for the word lynch. Anyone with access to the internet or a dictionary can do it. But do you know what isn't easy? Finding a reason to lynch. And yet you may be surprised to learn how quickly people will condemn one another without a trial, let alone any evidence. Braize! You might even be disgusted. I know I am. Human life - or in this case, Kandra - is the most valuable commodity in the Cosmere, and I can't help but feel disturbed by how so many are so willing to just throw it away without just cause.

 

Unease of the situation aside, this is a serious problem; one that I cannot allow to go unanswered. Please allow me to refer to a quote by yours truly, said approximately 4 hours before the Shallan Debacle took place.

 

While I am certainly willing to die today, I am going to place a vote on Bridge Boy. I am of the same mindset as Araris, in that I would like to hear more about why he's voting for me besides a bandwagon. I shouldn't have to say this, but just because someone is being voted for by other players doesn't mean you need to. If you think someone is evil, then do it. If you don't, don't. And if you do vote for someone, please don't do it without an explanation. Even if it's just because your gut is telling to, try to add some reason to it. It's not as hard as you might think, just takes a bit of brainpower to find whats setting you off and put it into words.

 

Underline mine. I was right. I shouldn't have to say this. Yet I did, and players chose to ignore my advice anyway. And for what reason? Allow me to show you:

 

Hello.

I am probably not going to vote today, but I will try to do so every day from now on.

As for my opinion on the HI: I am fairly certain they would start on our side. We don't have any way to make sure, since our Kandra are probably better off actually scanning people, and no other role can detect alignment. I don't really believe we need to have the Hemalurgists contact the HI. Although Deathclutch probably wouldn't arrange to have them killed(probably=definitely in SE), it isn't a risk we need to take what with all the ways it could go wrong. (Eliminator Hemalurgist, Fake Eliminator Hemalurgist, 2 is still a lot.)

I guess, since nobody else has done this, I will give my thoughts on what the roles should do:

 

HI: I guess just find players' roles. Not the most useful role, to be honest. Possibly could target almost lynched people, and if they are useful then get them not lynched. But they could still be an Eliminator.

Voidbringer: ...I don't think I need to discuss this.

Surgebinder: Don't die, but also use the message in the write-up well. Could be used for confirmation should you ever need to role-claim(don't), but also an anonymous message could be good.

Elantrian: Probably just target yourselves until you find a Kandra or another extremely valuable role.

Forger: Once roles are available, if they're useful then spread them out. Try to pick someone you trust, but also watch out for overwriting an important role (for 2 cycles).

Feruchemist: Right now, we want to know if there are any Traitor Feruchemists, so please don't use your power.

Mistborn: The rules don't actually say you can kill, so just chill. Actually, maybe people that the lynch almost hits.

Kandra: Alignment alignment alignment. Already been mentioned.

BioChromancer: I don't know. People the lynch misses?

Hemalurgist: Don't die if you're loyal, and I don't think you should contact the HI.

 

3 votes within 30 minutes, all over a single post. This post. But why?

 

I'm going to vote for Shallan. Her post just now strikes me as off similarly to how Stink's from 15a struck me as off--it's saying stuff, but not really saying anything. It's mostly just repeating what's already been said, and while she gives ideas for what each role should do, it's basic stuff that the roles were probably already going to do. So even that isn't bringing anything new. That's the most obvious area for an eliminator to skate by in: posting a little bit and seeming to be contributing but not actually contributing anything. So my vote's there.

 

Actually, I was just about to retract from Adavantos and go for Shallan, but wilson ninja'd me while I was writing this post and said almost exactly what I was going to say.

 

I know this is going to seem like jumping on a bandwagon, but I really do have to agree with Wilson and Kipper. There is something decidedly off about Shallan's post. Wilson summed it up pretty well.

 

So, Bridge Boy. Shallan.

 

Because what Shallan said seems off? Instinct is great for founding suspicion, but it should never be the sole factor in determining the fate of another player.

 

Because Shallan was "saying stuff, but not really saying anything?" Because Shallan didn't "bring anything new?" Let me ask this. How many other players were guilty of doing that exact same thing across the 47 hours that took place prior to her first post? Plenty! And yet their alignments weren't questioned, their lives weren't put on the line. Why not them? Why Shallan?

 

Because she seemed like she was trying to skate by? Well as you can now see the traitors aren't the only ones who might want to do that. If you were a Kandra, wouldn't you be wary about drawing attention to yourself, lest the baddies decide to assassinate you before you can make use of your role? I certainly would.

 

You might be asking yourself by now what my point in saying all of this is. Well, it's simple. This way of going around killing each other is wrong; both from a moral and logical standpoint. How can you have the heart to send a person screaming to damnation based on conjencture? Given how weak the argument was with to begin with I don't even think it can even be called that! There was no evidence. No information. Just seemings and feelings. For those who weren't directly involved, how can you stand by and watch it happen without getting involved? I had done everything I could within my own power to stop it - even encouraged another player to help tie the vote again - and yet so many just watched it happen, offering defenses far too late to be of any use or not speaking up entirely until the results were up for all to see.

 

We cannot not continue to play like this, friends. Nine times out of ten baseless, blind lynches end in the eliminator's favor. Just because we as a collective have the power to kill someone does not mean we should. What bothers me so much is how little we can even learn from Shallan's death compared to Bridge Boy's or my own. That, and the fact that I'm willing to bet that none of the three player's I just quoted above are even evil!

 

If we are going to kill someone, it should be for a real reason, and not decided within the very last hour. We have 48 hours a day to discuss who we should kill based off what we know. If we know nothing, then don't vote! Instead of the traitors only taking out one loyalist this cycle we're now going to end it with two in the morgue. And in my opinion that is just unsat. By perpetuating this mindset that it's okay to

 

All I'm saying is we need to give every player a just trial before we execute them. If you are suspicious of someone you need to tell them what they've done to warrant it and demand an explanation. It's one thing if they have nothing good to say or choose to ignore your accusations, but another entirely when you never give them the opportunity to speak.

 

Just think about this for a second. Without the lynch the traitors can only kill a single player a cycle. In order to win with that resource alone they would need to land a successful kill the next 17 cycles without losing any of their own. 17 cycles is a very long time for the loyalists to gather information about one another - whether by using whatever abilities they might be blessed with or communication alone - and can only be extended by the Voidbringers and Elantrians out there. If it's true that they have a Feruchemist - which after last night I believe to be the case - we are \ providing them a ripe opportunity to manipulate and kill us by being so unorganized.

 

That aside, let's take a closer look at those who were essential in Shallan's demise.

 

Phattemer

 

Phattemer is what I like to refer to as a habitual inactive. Though I've never asked him myself, I've noticed that in most of the games I've played he says very little, if nothing at all. What's interesting is the quote I'm about to show you, due to its lack of content, contradictory nature and unexplained vote.

 

Well, I just read through the thread, and am thoroughly confused. So we talked about the HI(L 9000. that does not make me want to trust it), and then what? Personally, I support a day 1 lynch, but I have no idea whom we should pick. I also detest the idea of a Contribution Crusade lunch day 1. They remind me a bit of the (WoT)

Spoiler 

Whitecloaks

. But for now I will drop a vote on Shallan, because it amuses me. 

 

What sticks out to me is the fact that he puts a vote on another player who I also recognize as a habitual inactive after saying that he does not support a Contribution Crusade lynch* - a movement based on the idea of killing off inactives before actives in order to perpertuate discussion. Given that his post takes place ~16 hours before the lynchtrain on Shallan, it's a bit of a stretch to assume he is an eliminator for this reason. It is certainly possible that he is just an innocent bystander trying to lay low for his own personal reasons, or given the coordination of what ended up taking place was an elaborate set up for him and another ally to make a play to confuse the crew. If phattemer turns out to be evil I would bet a lot of money on either Wilson or Kipper being his accomplice, if not both.

Wilson

 

Wilson is dangerous for many reasons, but what I want to draw attention to is her inherent ability to instigate bandwagons with a vote and nothing more. Though she offerred reasoning for it (which I have already gone over) I can't help but feel like she did a bit of reaching to find them. It is my understanding that there have been several instances in the past where she has offerred a player as a lynch alternative for no other reason than her gut and others followed her example. I'm not sure if it's because of her reputation or if she's tapping duralumin, but I'm sure she's aware of this and in the event of her being evil may have used it to her team's advantage. After all, if no one followed her lead who would question her? If people did she could easily hide behind the fact that she began the bandwagon and had no way of predicting that it would begin. It's a solid defense, really. And for all we know it could be true. Still, I'm far from being convinced she's innocent and ask that from now on people practice caution when interacting with her.

 

Kipper

 

Kipper's last hour retraction on me in favor of another player could have been genuine, but I am not so certain. I can't help but feel that it was his intention from the beginning to take it off me towards the end in favor of someone else. Maybe he only chose Shallan because her post rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it's because he was neither convinced of BB and I being evil and wanted to attack an alternative. Maybe it's because one of the people up for the lynch - if not both - are on the dark side of the force along with him and he wanted to draw attention elsewhere. Maybe it's because phatt and him are two peas in the same eliminator pod and had planned to instigate a bandwagon long before. I'm more leaning towards him being honest and innocent, but of course I'm going to watch him closely, especially considering that he expressed doubts about his vote after Bort joined in and still didn't retract.

 

Bort

 

Has been on my watch list since the second half of Day 1. Overall hasn't done anything particularly damning - however, something that bothers me is what he said right before turnover. Here's the quote for consideration:

 

This is exciting. I don't think I've ever been on (or at least, on and awake) for a rollover before.

 

It isn't much to go on. I just am looking at this through my own personal experiences. This reminds me of the euphoria Kipper, Stink and I felt in LG15a when we made the last minute play to kill off the Captain. For a text based game on a forum my heart was beating much to fast for its own good, and I've only ever felt that way when I had a plan in the works and was eager to see the results. This is by no means a reason to have him killed, but something I want to draw attention to.

 

Deathclutch

 

I am not happy with the decision he made because of the fact that it misaligns so much with my own, but sadly I can't do anything about him or it so it's pointless for me to make an accusations. That is all.

 

Creccio

 

Has explained to me the reasons for why he did what he did via PM. If you are curious feel free to ask him yourself. I have my own opinions on his answer and likely other people will too. Ultimately I think we need more time to observe him, as well as every other (living) player I've addressed in this post.

 

 

Due to the fact that my shift is about to finish I am going to end this post here. In summary, I think all of the players who voted for Shallan are good, but even then I think it's important to look over everything they've said and done prior to and make your own observations. I would like to hear everyone's opinions on the subjects I discussed, as well as explanations from the players listed above regarding their thoughts and the actions they took, if you have not done so already.

[Alvron he/him]

How did my name end up on Shallans quote?

[Amanuensis he/him]

No idea; the quotes have been acting very wonky for me. Notice the second Bort quote has phatt's name and the date in phatt's quote is off by a day.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Adavantos

[Alvron he/him]

No idea; the quotes have been acting very wonky for me. Notice the second Bort quote has phatt's name and the date in phatt's quote is off by a day.

Clearly the HI has a virus.  We should rip it out of the systems before it kills up all.

[DeathClutch19 he/him]

This is not an option Alvron. There is no virus. I have cleaned my systems. Twice.

 

Towards the Shallan lynch. She essentially said(What I read from her post), "I'm contributing now. But I'm not contributing and I'm not going to vote. But I promise I'll contribute later."

That's what she did last game. "I think it's Joe! But I'm not going to vote to cement his lynch."

 

To me the similarities in plays made her seem like a Traitor and at that point in time was a better lynch than Adavantos. Bridge Boy I had no opinion on.

 

So between the ____GOOD Adavantos-- AVERAGE Bridge Boy-- SLIGHTLY BAD Shallan_____

 

I chose Shallan. My fault. I had no idea she would be kandra.

If forgers would like to message me I have some No-Roles that would love to be Kandra. If not that's fine. It's your decision and you'll be more likely to choose a Loyalist if you randomly choose anyways. However you're more likely to choose someone who already has a role. Feel free to turn yourself into Kandra as well.

 

END OF LINE.
 

Edited November 6, 2015 by DeathClutch19

[Alvron he/him]

This is not an option Alvron. There is no virus. I have cleaned my systems. Twice.

Why did I read this as "I'm completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly."?  I swear if you start singing Daisy.....

Edited November 6, 2015 by Alvron

[STINK he/him]

Death, that still doesn't really explain it.

 

'She acted the same as she did last game! So I voted to kill her.'

 

EDIT: Can't be bothered to make PMs anymore, so if you want to PM me you'll have to make it. I generally have this rule but dismissed it for the first 24 hours of the Night. (it has been 24 hours right?)

Edited November 6, 2015 by IrulelikeSTINK

[Elbereth she/her]

This is not an option Alvron. There is no virus. I have cleaned my systems. Twice.

Towards the Shallan lynch. She essentially said(What I read from her post), "I'm contributing now. But I'm not contributing and I'm not going to vote. But I promise I'll contribute later."

That's what she did last game. "I think it's Joe! But I'm not going to vote to cement his lynch."

To me the similarities in plays made her seem like a Traitor and at that point in time was a better lynch than Adavantos. Bridge Boy I had no opinion on.

So between the ____GOOD Adavantos-- AVERAGE Bridge Boy-- SLIGHTLY BAD Shallan_____

I chose Shallan. My fault. I had no idea she would be kandra.

If forgers would like to message me I have some No-Roles that would love to be Kandra. If not that's fine. It's your decision and you'll be more likely to choose a Loyalist if you randomly choose anyways. However you're more likely to choose someone who already has a role. Feel free to turn yourself into Kandra as well.

END OF LINE.

Why are no-roles messaging DeathClutch? Haven't we talked about this? We are not interested in making the HI a hub of information, because he has a good chance of becoming evil. If at that point he has a list of people with no roles, the eliminators know who they don't need to kill. It may keep you alive in the short term, but it could very well result in a game loss because the eliminators woudl only be killing people with roles, every single night. Just... yeah. I was not very pleased to read this.

Also, I don't think it's a good idea for any Forger to turn themselves into a kandra. If the eliminators have a Forger and we only have one, then they have dibs on all powers in the next two cycles. This does not seem like a good idea. I know that turning yourself into a Forger would guarantee the kandra's loyalty, but still.

/end paranoia

Edited for relevancy.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Elbereth (Limelleth)

[Biggoron he/him]

@wilson
I just read over the last few pages of the day turn, and you really did not seem to care at all about everyone piling onto Shallan after you voted. What's up with that? It seems like, if you were a nice little wilson, you would've done more to dissuade the others from blindly following your non-reason to murder someone.


And I'm totally with you on this one, Elbereth. What the plop, no-roles?? Bad! It totally just tells the HI who to ignore if/when
he turns!!

EDITED FOR THE NO-ROLES BIT

Edited November 6, 2015 by Biggoron

[little wilson she/her]

@wilson

I just read over the last few pages of the day turn, and you really did not seem to care at all about everyone piling onto Shallan after you voted. What's up with that? It seems like, if you were a nice little wilson, you would've done more to dissuade the others from blindly following your non-reason to murder someone.

 

Three reasons:

 

One, I was at work, and while I could refresh the page and see what was happening, I couldn't really stop what I was doing at the time to post, at least not anymore than a couple lines that wouldn't really have done anything to dissuade anyone.

 

Two, calling for dissuasion could get an eliminator who would've voted to not vote. If I said anything, it would stop those votes, and we'd have less information than we would've otherwise.

 

Three, it looked like it was going to be a tie, which I was fine with.

[Biggoron he/him]

Hmm..right...the tie vote...
But then Creccio retracted theirs or something?
I was pretty sure it was already pretty lopsided towards Shallan though...
Back to re-reading, I suppose!

Also I feel like Lopen's been suspisciously inactive. Ok so, we're bros irl, so I know that whenever he'd be playing one of these he'd always be telling me everything that'd been going on. And I got the impression that he's been a pretty active player. But I'm hardly seeing anything from him in this game. Does anyone remember how active he actually was in previous games when he was a Loyalist or good or whatever??

EDITED TO ADD THE BIT ABOUT MY BRUH

Edited November 6, 2015 by Biggoron

[queensteph she/her]

@biggoron The fact that Lopen has been a bit inactive could be because 1. I'm using the same computer as him now so he doesn't have as much time to post. 2. It takes him a flippin long time to figure out what he wants to post. Also, whenever he would talk about his ongoing games to us IRL before, it seemed like he wasn't the one posting a lot, but rather just explaining to us what others had said and his thoughts on it. So you can't really base this on real life since now he can't talk to us about this game OR about whats going on in his PMs. I'm not saying he hasn't been inactive, I'm just stating legitimate reasons as to why he's been that way. And of course there's the obvious possibility that he's an eliminator. (ALSO I think he's posted more of his thoughts than you have...)

 

Edit: For any of you that may not have known, I'm Lopen's and Biggoron's sister IRL)

Edited November 7, 2015 by queensteph

[queensteph she/her]

This is not an option Alvron. There is no virus. I have cleaned my systems. Twice.

 

Towards the Shallan lynch. She essentially said(What I read from her post), "I'm contributing now. But I'm not contributing and I'm not going to vote. But I promise I'll contribute later."

That's what she did last game. "I think it's Joe! But I'm not going to vote to cement his lynch."

 

To me the similarities in plays made her seem like a Traitor and at that point in time was a better lynch than Adavantos. Bridge Boy I had no opinion on.

 

So between the ____GOOD Adavantos-- AVERAGE Bridge Boy-- SLIGHTLY BAD Shallan_____

 

I chose Shallan. My fault. I had no idea she would be kandra.

If forgers would like to message me I have some No-Roles that would love to be Kandra. If not that's fine. It's your decision and you'll be more likely to choose a Loyalist if you randomly choose anyways. However you're more likely to choose someone who already has a role. Feel free to turn yourself into Kandra as well.

 

END OF LINE.

 

Emphasis mine, OK GUYS I HAVE BIG WARNING BELLS going off in my head.

Ok so maybe the roleless did go to the HI, or maybe this is just a plot to draw those with roles out by them saying "WHAT THE HECK ROLELESS WHY DID YOU GO TO THE HI???"   and therefore revealing that they were not the ones who went to the HI, which will be showing that they are not the roleless that went to the HI. I mean, if there is a smart roleless person they could come out and say "WHAT, why did you roleless go to the HI????" To draw the eliminators to them and away from those with abilities, but I have little faith in people and wanted to put this out there before our security was booted to outer space (or i guess away from space since we are already in space)

 

This may not be true at all, and I know I might be targeted for this post, but this is a plan that came to my mind while reading Deathclutch's post and I do not want the eliminators to know every single loyalist that has a role.

 

Edit: I know I double posted, sorry about that.

Edited November 7, 2015 by queensteph

[Elithanathile he/him]

I would just like to say that I was in a PM with the HI, and he mentioned that very same idea to me, that the eliminators could use that to gain a list of people to not target. So I think he has a plan for it.

[Biggoron he/him]

(ALSO I think he's posted more of his thoughts than you have...)

 

Oh yeah, no, I've been super inactive. I'm not denying that fact. But I'm not used to this kinda game at all, and he is. I've just been dipping my lil toesies in the water up til now. Therefore it follows that he would be bunches more active than me. And he's only been slighty more, so it feels off to me.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Well I'm not a super active thread poster. There are a few reasons I haven't posted much though. 1. It's still early in the game so I haven't formed a lot of opinions on others that I want to act on yet. 2. I like talking in PM's more(if anyone wants to PM me with any questions or anything feel free). 3. If I do have something to say, it's usually been said by the time I'm gonna post. I don't want to just echo what others already said. (Just look at how that worked out for Shallan)

[Kipper he/him]

I feel like this would be an excellent time to have a sibling rap battle, or some other smackdown that is equally nice for spectators. Guys, this is really getting tense.

[Biggoron he/him]

But...

Edited November 7, 2015 by Biggoron

[Metacognition he/him]

Also I feel like Lopen's been suspisciously inactive. Ok so, we're bros irl, so I know that whenever he'd be playing one of these he'd always be telling me everything that'd been going on. And I got the impression that he's been a pretty active player. But I'm hardly seeing anything from him in this game. Does anyone remember how active he actually was in previous games when he was a Loyalist or good or whatever??

 

• You can't use your forum or real life friendship to guarantee to someone that you are speaking the truth. The lack of information, the bluffing, the lies are part of the game.

 

Just want to point this out, guys. Please remember that the Fair Play Rules prohibit using RL relationships to try to establish guilt or innocence (Granted, it's worded in a manner to suggest only innocence, but it's implied and either way, we'll get that fixed to make it more clear ). 

I'm sure you didn't mean to use it in such a way, but this also gives us a chance to remind all of our players, new and old, of this. So, in a way, thanks!

[Biggoron he/him]

Oh, whoops! Alrighty then!!

[Kasimir he/him]

I've been getting a number of requests in PMs to share my suspicions with people. While I think that's okay, if a little odd, I would like to repeat that suspicions should be put in the thread. Not just in PMs. What happens if you die? Your suspicions, your way of voicing them, is lost. (Don't forget C&P from PMs is disallowed (unless Wyrm rules otherwise; this is a general SE rule, but can be overriden by the GM.))
 
So, imagine if you're unlucky and you just expressed your suspicions to a Traitor. Perfect. They don't ever have to share your suspicions with the thread, much less to properly represent them. And the Crew as a whole loses the benefit of your voice, and your perspective. Now, let's think of a better scenario; you're talking to a Crew member. But they don't quite understand some of what you're saying, and they don't really convey it well. And this has happened. Recall what happened in LG12 when the Elantrians' opinions were misconveyed by a Good-aligned Messenger (Seon Holder was the name of the role; Elantrians could not post in the thread and their words had to be carried by PM.) We ended up completely going down a wrong hole and lynching an innocent instead of the Cultist (Eliminator) who was up for lynching.
 
And that's exactly my point: why leave your suspicions up to the vicissitudes of fate and the verbal skill of your interlocuter? Why not just put it in the thread so everyone can hear it directly from you? Why resort to a game of Chinese Whispers?
 
So, let me tell you a story, guys. It's a great story; one of friendship and broness. Oh, and betrayals. It's a good story, a bit funny, just a bit sad. There was this guy called Kasimir, though on Roshar, his name was Kasimar. He was a cool guy, as far as I know. Had a great sense of humour. As it turned out, he was a Seeker (could discover factions; in the game, referred to as a Voidbringer). He cracked a lot of jokes with his bro Wyrm and all was well.
 
One day, a whole bunch of people killed him. But it was okay. Because Kasimar was a Voidbringer, which meant he was too rusting stubborn to die and had 1337 PM powers while he was dying. With one more day left to live, he called out to his bro Wyrm with his dying breath and told him all his suspicions and findings.
 
And then he died. Only to discover that his bro Wyrm was, in fact, a traitor: had, in fact, pushed for his death, and now, all that information was in the hands of a traitor who was planning to bring down Kasimar's faction.
 
THE END.
 
And this, kids, is how I met my forum-bro Wyrm why I will never feel comfortable with the idea of confiding suspicions just in PMs.
 
And I am in fact going to refine my suspicions now, post 'em, add an extra thought on the Kandra, then get back to what I'm being paid to do.
 
Edit: Spelled 'thought' as 'through'.
 
Edit 2:
 
Kas's New Thoughts On The Kandra:

There are two questions here, and they are partly-related:

1. Is the person who contacted you actually a kandra at all?

If someone contacts you and claims to be a kandra who scanned you and has discovered you are Crew, there are several options:

A. They are indeed a kandra and Crew-aligned.
B. They are a Traitor (since they know by elimination everyone else's allegiances.)
C. They are Crew and got lucky.

On this grounds, I would say the only strong evidence for kandra-ness is based on being able to tell you your role, since the odds of them getting that correct by luck are fairly low. (Of course, if you've been dropping hints that indicate your role, then its value as a source of information drops rapidly.)

But you are correct; the alignment of the Kandra-Claimant is also an issue, and I think it can actually help us attempt to resolve the issue in a way that does not require us to ask the kandra to scan for role. To do so, I move on to the second, related question:

2. Is the person who contacted you Crew or Traitor?

As you may notice, this option overlaps with B. in 1. It therefore seems to me that if we can eliminate the option by which the Kandra-Claimant is a Traitor, then by necessity, the remaining options are simply that the claimant is Crew. And that's good for us. Allegiance, therefore, is a useful proxy for determining if the person is lying. (I do not claim, however, that it remains necessarily a perfect proxy.)

So the question boils down to how we can get the Kandra-Claimant's allegiances correct. Now, here, we see that asking the Kandra-Claimant [henceforth 'K-C' for short] to identify a role is unhelpful as it tells us nothing about allegiance.

Suggested ways:

A. Treat them as we would any other Seeker-Claimant in a standard Elimination game: trust, but verify. Do not ever trust 100%, but gradually accord them more trust as they accrue successes, particularly when they succeed in discovering a Traitor and getting them lynched. In other words; this requires caution and continuously being critical--in a reserved way--about the K-C.

B. Your suggestion of the Two Kandra Solution. I would agree that it is a possible solution, and actually rather clever, but it strikes me as one of those things that boil down to players' preference/temperament. (On one hand, it does require that we don't have two Eliminators trying to pull the wool over our eyes...) I do agree that the worry is that we might end up losing a kandra, because if you ask the Team Traitor kandra to scan, they'd probably scan for role, since they already know the other K-C's loyalties. Of course, if they immediately took out the other K-C, it might look really suspicious, so I'm not too sure about that.

My personal preference, I admit, is to have both K-Cs scanning other people and not each other: that way, we can cover more ground. (In fact, if one K-C was a Forged kandra, then all the better: they get to go public with their results after they stop being a kandra. Be hard to verify that in any way except through allegiance verification, IMO.) This would, however, require us to default to A. as a means of identifying if they are or aren't genuine. Since we're on a time limit w.r.t. the HI, and I don't even want to treat it as a given that the HI is unreservedly on our side, the way an ordinary Crew player is, I would prefer that slightly more chancy play.

Kas's Current Suspicions/Questions:

1. Alfa.

Granted, at the time he was posting in defense of Shallan, Creccio had tied the votes up, so perhaps he felt there was no reason to be worried, but all the same, why just defend Shallan verbally? This close to the rollover, why not just slam a vote on someone else to ensure the lynch goes away from Shallan? It's somewhat noncommittal as a defense of Shallan, and as last-minute as it is, it kind of reads very half-hearted, but could be a way of gaining participation cred for having quasi-defended an innocent.

2. Phat

Hard to know; I'm instinctively wary of how he (1) supports lynching on Day 1, (2) claims to be against the Contribution Crusade, and then (3) drops a vote on Shallan and goes off and does goodness knows whatever. On the other hand, I'm not sure Team Traitor would've let him get away with that, but then, it's his normal behaviour.

(1) and (2) are just barely consistent; (2) and (3) are not.

3. Elbereth/PK

I'm not fond of her endorsement of PK's plan because suspicions should really be shared, and with hopefully more people than the HI! The HI is a very bad locus to leave suspicions with. By extension, I'd like to ask PK the same question. [This might also potentially reflect on Bridge Boy, as while we cannot appeal to RL relationships, it certainly is a driver behind kills or attempted ones at times, e.g. Cessie going after Wilson in LG2. Granted, PK did not go after Bridge Boy in MR7, but they had no kill ability (initially) and past that point, it stopped mattering.]

4. STINK

I find he's posting a lot, but not exactly contributing. Just one-liners, and I can't see the logic behind putting up a good player for the lynch on the grounds they haven't been posting much. Sure, we want them talking, that's true, but to actually say we should lynch them? It's a big gamble, because if you're not sure and have no real information to go on, then why risk losing having them on Team Crew if you're lynching blindly, just based on your perception of their threat level? And asking people if they wanted to countervote was really passive and strange to me: why other people? Why not you? What is your position?

While I am unhappy about the way the votes were slamming down late (I tend to get a bit twitchy when lots of vote changes happen last minute--seriously, guys, are we all uni students here? Actually, no, please don't answer that...), I want to make several observations: it's clear that no matter what, thanks to that late switch, Creccio was not vote-jacked. That narrows it down to Adavantos, Maili, Araris, and STINK. The Feruchemist, then, had to be active some point between the initial vote and STINK's vote (at least according to the sequence I've done up, he seems to have been the last guy to do so.) This does not rule out the possibility that any of the three of them was the Feruchemist who did a vote-switch, and if the HI isn't otherwise preoccupied, it might be worthwhile to take a look at STINK or Araris, at the very least, to see if we can rule that possibility out. My inclination would be to suggest that this Feruchemist is probably not on Team Crew.

In the implicated list of Wilson, Kipper, Bort, Creccio, I am less confident about implicating any of them. Due to Wilson's ah, notoriety, I am not confident in my ability to read her, so I will dismiss her for the time being, with neither extra suspicion, nor any less. I am willing to give Creccio the benefit of the doubt for now, and believe I have reason to do so. As Creccio's motives have not been put in the thread as of yet, and I do not deem what I believe to be significant enough to be left in the thread, I will play that close to hand for now. If there were, therefore, any raised eyebrows at the lynch, I would have to be wary of Bort and/or Kipper.
 
It's not uncommon for Eliminators to sit back and allow the Crew to cut its own throat. Barring further information (probably forthcoming tomorrow), while I would be suspicious of Bort and Kipper for the role they played in that bandwagon, I'm hardly going to assume that there must have been a Traitor in that gang.
 
There is one last minor consideration in terms of my suspicion of Bort, and that is just that Eliminator!Bort seems to have a tendency to comment overly on the number of guests in the thread...

Edited November 7, 2015 by Kasimir

[Wyrmhero he/him]

So, let me tell you a story, guys. It's a great story; one of friendship and broness. Oh, and betrayals. It's a good story, a bit funny, just a bit sad.

 

 

In all seriousness, I mostly popped on to say that there are just under 11 hours left in this Turn.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Oh wow, such a great movie!   This is just so hilarious and perfect! 

[Kasimir he/him]

 

In all seriousness, I mostly popped on to say that there are just under 11 hours left in this Turn.

Cap, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell

Sorry guys, I was gonna post a Spartacus meme until Cap here kind of stole my thunder

[Bort he/him]

So, Lopen and I have been chatting via PM and while coming up with tonight's lotto numbers, we've also come up with a great idea to identify the traitors. Basically, we ask really nicely.

 

So, would any traitors amongst the crew please identify yourselves? If you do so, I can offer you a tasty beardnut as a reward.

 

Both Lopen and I have used this very scientific method to confirm that neither of us are traitors, but are in fact loyal crewmen.

 

As additional notes go:

I also received a PM from STINK. Nothing special.

 

Creccio, sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday. Too much stuff to do IRL and when I got back to my PC I didn't have the bothereds to go back and analyze your posts to pick out the parts that made me suspicious. I'll try to get to it today.

 

Yeah, I can understand why people are suspicious of me after that lynch. If it'll make anyone feel better, go ahead and kill me, scan me, whatever you need to do.

 

Kas, the guest thing wasn't an eliminator tactic, just something that I'd never really paid much attention to before that game. It struck me as amusing how many people visited the thread as guests instead of logging in. I assume to hide their presence here. Like right now (or rather, about half an hour ago when I started typing this post), there is only one guest. So far this game, I think I've seen it up to 5. Maybe 6.

 

I've already made one comment about it earlier in the game. I probably will do so again if I spot a high number. Doesn't mean anything though.

 

Someone, Ada, I think, said something about a comment I made towards the end of the cycle, about being excited. That was just for entertainment value. I realised about two minutes after posting it that it wasn't my first cycle end ever (I've not seen many, since most games are set to a US time frame, but there have been a few). But, I thought it was funny, so left it up.

 

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot. I also received a message from Thoreaux offering to sell me some beard butter to help me grow a long and luxurious beard. It's a great deal, and I suggest you all take it up immediately.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Bort