Mid-Range Game 10: Divided Loyalties

[Kynedath]

This right here folks, is the problem when it comes to me and playing SE. I can't tell if I believe Lopen because of sound logic or a high charisma level.

[Paranoid King]

Okay, might as well reveal this now. I was hesitant to earlier because I'm struggling to understand why PK would do what he did, but I figure I better just reveal it so we can discuss things. I scanned Clanky as a Diagrammist Surgeon. I don't believe that scan though, especially now that Ada has been protected again, and PK just lied about his scan of Clanky. I don't know why PK lied about it, maybe he's trying to draw a lynch on himself or something? Or try to mess with our heads so we don't lynch Twei for some reason? I have no idea, but in my mind, it's pretty damning evidence against him. PK, anything to say in your defense?

 

Kynedath, I'll try to get back with you very soon on lynching Ada.

Hum. Now that's interesting. I have never had this pulled on me before. Only one of us is telling the truth, and I don't know how to convince people. Lopen's better liked, he's made more contributions, and Adavantos backs him. Let me see what evidence I can pull up that Clanky is innocent:

 

1. Both of us scanned Clanky as a surgeon, diagrammist or not. Unless both of us are diagrammists, Clanky was a surgeon.
2. A surgeon has been protecting Adavantos for several cycles, and people thought it was Clanky.
3. After Clanky died, Adavantos was still protected.
4. This means that either the diagrammists have two surgeons, or that Clanky was not the diagrammist surgeon.

If the diagrammists had two surgeons to start out with, we're doomed.

If Clanky was not the diagrammist surgeon, I don't know where Lopen got his scan from.

[Elbereth]

The problem with this is that for all we know the scan was messed with by an Elsecaller. So one of you is lying, obviously, but lying about your scan results, not about the actual alignment of Clanky. That's the problem. Just because you scanned him as Loyal, PK, doesn't mean he actually was. I think it makes more sense if he was Loyal, but that doesn't mean I necessarily trust you more than Lopen.

[TheMightyLopen]

Could we get some more votes on Twei please? I don't want the eliminators to swoop in and tie the lynch or overpower it, and it's pretty much agreed that Twei is the Diagrammist protection right? So to those who have yet to vote, or who've not voted on Twei, please do so now. Venture(could you change your vote over to Twei because Ada can't be lynched). Also, Feligon, if you are innocent, mind putting another vote on Twei?

 

PK, I feel like I've already answered everything that you bring into question in your post. I believe that Clanky was innocent too, and that my scan of him being a Diagrammist was messed with by an Elsecaller. As you say, it doesn't seem like it would make sense for the Diagrammists to have started with 2 lynch protective abilities, so by that logic, Clanky could not be a Diagrammist since Ada was protected.

[Feligon]

First off, Ada, how'd you figure it out?  was it lopen's post?

 

Second, Seonid.  We appreciate you taking the time to fill out the all the questions of the "are they using a doc?" test.  Thank you for your cooperation.

[TheMightyLopen]

Feligon, we need to kill the Diagrammist protection before we move on to other targets. So unless you believe that Seonid is the Diagrammist protection, you need to change your vote to someone else who is most likely the Diagrammist protection. I believe it's Twei. Kynedath saw her targeting Ada when he was protected from his first lynch, and she claimed Assassin and gave unprovable scans as proof of her role.

 

Edit: So here's my thoughts in case I die.

 

Village: Lopen(Scholar), Kynedath(Assassin), polking(Surgeon), Venture(Runner), Tony Shark(Artifabrian), Seonid(Lightweaver), Feligon/Elbereth(???/Assassin), Feligon/Elbereth (haha, confusing I know, but if we've killed a Ghostblood Diagrammist already, then I think they're both innocent, but if we haven't, I believe one of them is a Diagrammist and I'm having trouble deciding which one I think it is.)

 

Diagrammists: Adavantos(Cook), Twei(Edgedancer), PK(Scholar), Aonar(Elsecaller), Feligon/Elbereth(???/Assassin)

 

I'm almost 100% sure about the first four of those Diagrammists. This is the order that I personally would lynch them. 

 

This Cycle: Twei(of course, because then we can lynch the others without fear of getting blocked)

Cycle 12: Ada(to take away their 2nd kill ability)

Cycle 13: Aonar(to take away his protection from Seonids ability to redirect their kills. So if Seonid is dead at this point, I wouldn't care if you lynched PK or Aonar)

Cycle 14: PK

Cycle 15: Feligon/Elbereth

 

What I find suspicious about Elbereth is that if you look back at her posts with the facts that Ada, Mailliw and PK are Diagrammists, and the facts of what the Diagrammist team seems to be made of rolewise, it seems that Elbereth has been voicing opinions about those players and roles that would benefit the Diagrammists more than the Village. I will number the posts in which she did so for each separate fact.

 

Post #149: Elbereth responds to Hellscythes suggestion that Cooks use their ability on the lynch to insure that, if there is a Diagrammist protection from the lynch, the Cooks ability will overpower the protection. Elbereth tries to discredit this suggestion. Possibly because she knows that the Diagrammists have protection from the lynch, and doesn't want it to be nullified.

 

Post #327: Elbereth states that she doubts the Diagrammists have a Cook because it would be too OP. We know that the Diagrammists have a Cook. (more on this in a bit)

 

Post #354: Elbereth again states doubt that the Diagrammists have a Cook. But she also goes on to say that she thinks it's possible for the Diagrammists to have a Surgeon/Edgedancer, and that the Edgedancer in particular would be useful because of it's other ability(maybe she was plotting how to use it's abilities, if Twei is in fact an Edgedancer?  )

 

Post #412: Elbereth straight up defends Mailliw, stating that his list and him phishing for factions is something that makes her suspect him less, not more. Also in this post she states that Hellscythe's reasoning about Venture being innocent is making her think the attack and subsequent protection of Venture on Cycle 1 was a WGG more rather than less. It's almost fact that it was not a WGG.

 

Post #425: Elbereth says she thinks that it's very possible that there is a Diagrammist Cook(which is completely opposite of what she said earlier. She explains to me later when I asked her about it.) tries to decipher who the Diagrammist Cook could be if there is one. Conclusion is that the Cook who killed Arraenae is the most likely one(Zas claimed that kill based on faction. So no, it was not the Dia one. Not really evidence she's evil though, since I didn't know who it could be either, and it might just have been a incorrect guess.)

 

Post #476: Elbereth defends PK against Kynedath. She says she wasn't defending PK so much as saying, your argument against him is flawed(this is only evidence against her if you believe that I am telling the truth about my scan, so PK is lying about his, and so is a Diagrammist.) Also responds to me pointing out her change of opinion about there being an Diagrammist Cook or not. Explains that the main reason she changed her mind was because it became evident that there were 4 Cooks, and not 2 like she initially thought there would be. Which, to her, made it seem much more likely that there would in fact be a Diagrammist Cook. (Not bad reasoning, but I still find it suspicious.) Also, in her defense of PK, she states that she still thinks it's very possible that Ventures protected attack was a WGG.

 

Post #564: Elbereth suggests the possibility that the attack on Ada was a WGG. She kinda half heartedly defends Ada in her post though. Well, to me it seems that way. But I'm beginning to think she's a Diagrammist more and more.

 

Post #577: Elbereth again suggests that the Cook who killed Arraenae(and who she thinks killed Mace Windu, which she was correct about. Which could possibly mean she had more information than us as to who the other Cooks had killed(mainly Adavantos) is the Diagrammist Cook. (Those last 4 words were edited in because I forgot to finish my sentence after the stuff in parentheses.)

 

Post #611: Elbereth agrees with Ada that the attack on Mail on Cycle 1 may have been a WGG. (I believe it was not, even though I believe that Mail was a Diagrammist, I also believe that polking is good because we know the Diagrammist have protection and it could not be polking because of recent inactivity on his part)

 

Post #701: Elbereth thanks Ada for revealing. She's thanking a Diagrammist! Lynch her! 

 

Post #761: Elbereth votes on polking because he is inactive and Ada killed Shallan instead of listening to Clankys advice to kill polking. (Which, seeing as I believe polking to be innocent, makes me believe the Diagrammists were actively trying to frame polking, and get him lynched. PK also puts a vote on polking as well. Diagrammist plot?  I certainly think so.)

 

Post #777: Elbereth states she does not trust Ada revealing that Mail was a Diagrammist, and suggests that Ada was trying to cast suspicion on Mail, and that Mail was actually good. 

 

Post #781: Elbereth again votes on polking.

 

Post #838: Elbereth hints that she might be an Assasin, but gives the possibility that she is just in contact with one. Votes on Twei, but says that she will not get on again for 2 days, and that if more information about Twei comes out she will not be able to remove her vote but hopes that others will and hers won't matter(foreshadowing Twei's reveal of Assassin?  ) If she had hard-claimed Assassin right here, I may have pushed for Twei's death over Clankys. Instead, she allowed Twei to claim Assassin and make us waste 2 Cycles. (They did give separate scans though, and Twei did not claim to be Elbereths Assassin contact, so I should have thought through that situation better. I blame myself a little for letting Clanky get lynched, and then lynching Ada this last Cycle. It would have been a better idea to just lynch Twei last Cycle, and then lynch Ada this Cycle. That way we would have taken out the Dia protection for sure before we wasted a lynch on Ada again. (Italicized words in this paragraph were edited in after I posted this because parentheses were sidetracking me  )

 

And that brings us to this Cycle(in which she seems to be trying to cast suspicion on me ). So, all in all, I think that's a pretty convincing case against Elbereth. Her voting against Twei and giving different scan results than Twei gave threw me off track, but with the new evidence that PK is a Diagrammist(evidence for me at least, I realize it's my word against his here), I'm pretty sure that Elbereth is one as well. 

 

Feligon has just been a suspicion of mine for a while, so it was hard for me to change my mind about him. It still is, which is why I still have him listed as a suspicion.

Edited January 6, 2016 by TheMightyLopen

[Paranoid King]

That's some good evidence, Lopen. Elbereth is definitely an eliminator.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Paranoid King

[Aonar]

You've figured out a lot, Lopen, but there are still some things you have very, very wrong...

 

Seonid.

[polkinghornbd]

Seonid

[Kynedath]

Vote tally:

 

(1) Adavantos: Anamaximder

(4) Twelthrootoftwo: Seonid, Kynedath, Elbereth, Lopen

(3) Seonid: Feligion: Aonar, Polking

(1) Elbereth: Paranoid King

 

Quick question, Why are we voting for Seonid? Did I miss something uber-damning? I don't see the reasoning.

[Paranoid King]

Yeah, Seonid's pretty awful.

[Amanuensis]

Vote tally:

 

(1) Adavantos: Anamaximder

(4) Twelthrootoftwo: Seonid, Kynedath, Elbereth, Lopen

(3) Seonid: Feligion: Aonar, Polking

(1) Elbereth: Paranoid King

 

Quick question, Why are we voting for Seonid? Did I miss something uber-damning? I don't see the reasoning.

 

Unfortunately, Kynedath, it's because the Diagrammists now have the numbers necessary to control the lynch, too.

 

Seonid.

[twelfthrootoftwo]

I like this idea! Seonid

[little wilson]

Time's up!

[little wilson]

Cycle Twelve: According To Plan

The surviving faction members gathered discreetly in a room that Deadeye had secured. Still, Lopen swept the room, suspiciously, his drawn knife in hand, before he grunted and slammed it back into its scabbard. “Nothing I can see,” he said, to his companion. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t planning to kill us.”

“If I’d wanted to kill you,” Deadeye said, contemptuously, “You’d already be dead. Count yourself lucky today, Ghostblood.”

Lopen stiffened at this remark, and opened his mouth to make a biting reply when his companion placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Today,” Sheon Idris said, “We are neither Ghostbloods nor Sons of Honor. We face a common foe; one who has eluded death far too many times. Remember that. We do not have time for this.”

Reluctantly, Lopen nodded.

Now, Sheon addressed Deadeye. “And you,” he said, coldly, “May consider yourself fortunate that we are currently concerned by other affairs, Son of Honour.”

They exchanged between them a glance that mingled respect as well as a weighing of the other. Finally, Deadeye inclined his head and the pair moved on.

Next to come was Elba, her own crossbow slung across her back. “You don’t look like you’ve been getting enough rest,” she commented. “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself too hard.”

“Speak for yourself,” Deadeye retorted. “You look like you’ve been wrung through a Highstorm, woman.”

One by one, they streamed into the room, eyeing each other with the wary distance of the hunted, all carrying weapons and various means of self-defence. Finally, Slalassalas strode in, his sword belted on at his side, and said, “There’s no one else,” and closed the door. He stood in front of it, drawing his sword and grounding the point against the stone floor, and then assumed a position of watchful ease.

“What’s he doing here?” Lopen demanded. He began to rise, but Sheon Idris calmly held him down.

“Well, then,” Deadeye said, ignoring Lopen’s interruption. He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve called all of you here because I mean to hunt down every last Diagrammist in Urithiru, and we’re going to do it now.”

“What do you think we’ve been doing for the last few days?” Torren wanted to know.

Deadeye rolled his eyes. “And how successful you lot have been. Just look at you: Agrigar Leiken is still breathing and still in Urithiru, and his colleagues are still operating among us.”

Sheon Idris said, “I’m not the man who failed to kill him.”

“No,” Deadeye said, angrily, “You went and made a storming deal with him, man! What were you thinking?”

“Enough,” Elba said. While her voice was not loud, it was firm, and it carried in the room. “If we keep deciding who is to blame, we will be dead and the Diagrammists will win. Deadeye. What is your plan?”

“Slalassalas has kindly agreed to stand guard for us,” Deadeye said. “He’s supposed to be a more than competent swordsman. No one leaves this room until the Diagrammists are dead. I mean to get all of them at once, in one fell swoop.”

“Except for Agrigar,” Lopen said.

Deadeye scowled at him. “We’ll deal with him later,” he said.

Lopen was going to make a snide comment about that, when Sheon tapped his arm, lightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sheon’s fingers flicking gracefully through the motions of the Ghostblood silent code. Ask him about Agrigar, Sheon signed. We must talk them out of killing him--I think Torren is suspicious enough, don’t you?

Careful not to stare, Lopen glanced discreetly at Torren. He didn’t trust Slalassalas, he thought. The man had claimed to be another scholar--as if anyone could simply do that!--and had proceeded to produce dissenting research, involving controversial interpretations of certain pieces of key evidence, in support of the claim that Cla had been a Son of Honor.

Ridiculous. The truth was objective, Lopen thought. And if there were two disagreeing voices, then it only indicated that one of them was wrong--or that both were.

Torren, on the other hand: he had been at the window when Agrigar had escaped, Lopen thought. Why hadn’t he thrown a knife at the man? Why had he been content to chase the man? It had been Torren who claimed that Agrigar had slipped down a rope and disappeared. And again, the second time, it had been Torren who had claimed to have seen Cla with Agrigar, just as Deadeye had mentioned seeing Torren with Agrigar.

Who to believe?

He signed, Acknowledged, to Sheon, and said, “We need to deal with him now. The more we leave him to later, the more dangerous he becomes.”

Deadeye sighed. “Look,” he said, irritably. “We’ve tried to kill him. Several times. D’you want to try again and then just have him laugh off the attempt? I’ll tell you what we need to do: someone saved him. Someone’s saved his life each time we tried to kill him, and as far as I’m concerned, that person’s Torren.”

Torren said nothing.

“Well?” Deadeye prodded. “What do you have to say in your defense, Torren?”

His hands were already reaching for the nocked crossbow slung across his back when Torren’s hands swept up from under the table in a blur of motion.

Deadeye felt something sharp embed itself in his throat, and then he keeled over, dead.

“Idos Domi!” Sheon Idris swore, as he stood up. A slender Shardblade coalesced instantly in his hand, the tip beading with water. “Elba! Lopen! To me!”

But Elba, too, was collapsing. Walter Kysley stood over her, the knives in his hand dripping with blood. To his side, Yallah had produced a glowing fabrial but made no move to assist her.

“Treachery!” Maximilianos Sebarial gasped, as he tried to duck under the table, but a crossbow bolt ripped straight through his throat and he fell, limp, onto the stone ground.

Gold Frank prodded him with the toe of his boot and let out a satisfied grunt. He grinned at Lopen and Sheon, already reloading his weapon.

Slalassalas stepped aside from the door, to let in Agrigar Leiken. The erstwhile Cook carried a massive Shardblade, still gleaming wetly from a recent summoning, and he acknowledged both of them with a brief nod. “Sheon Idris. Lopen. I had, of course, expected you to survive this.”

“Was he one of yours?” Lopen demanded. “Did you plan this together?” For, he knew, this meeting had been a trap. A most elaborate, cunningly-planned trap, meant to get the survivors into one small room and then to turn the room into a charnel house.

Agrigar shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “It was entirely Deadeye’s idea. Unfortunately for him, he believed that Slalassalas was not one of us.”

Slalassalas said nothing. He did not even raise his sword and assume a guard stance. He was perfectly relaxed. After all, Lopen thought, his blood running cold, they had lost. There was nowhere to run.

“And?”

“And nothing,” Agrigar shrugged. “You’ll both have to die, of course. As much as I respect how you’ve played the game, you have lost after all. It was inevitable; exactly as the Diagram predicted.” His eyes flicked from Lopen to Sheon. “And of course, if we let a Knight Radiant walk out of this room alive, it’d ruin our plans.” He shrugged apologetically. “You’ll find that none of us are carrying Stormlight, Sheon. I’m afraid we’re well prepared for this.”

In a deceptively lazy motion, Sheon Idris, the former King of Arelon, raised his Shardblade, part in challenge, part in salute.

“Have you heard an old saying about rats?” he wanted to know.

Agrigar looked politely confused. “What about them?”

“Never put a rat in a corner,” Sheon Idris snarled, “Because a cornered rat will fight--to the very end.” He gave Agrigar a cold nod. “To the death, Leiken.”

They fought.
 

---

Sheon Idris (6) : Frank Au Faliu, Agrigar Leiken, Arran Faenel, Torren, Walter Kysley, Slalassalas
Torren (3) : Sheon Idris, Deadeye, Elba
Agrigar Leiken (1) : Maximilianos Sebarial

Sheon Idris (Seonid) was lynched!
Deadeye (Kynedath) was killed by the Diagrammists!
Maximilianos Sebarial was poisoned!

The game is over, and the Diagrammists win!

Game Links:
Master Spreadsheet
The Diagram
The Tranquiline Halls

Thanks a bunch to Kas for helping me so much with this (the writeups were almost entirely his), and I’ll post my closing thoughts later today. Thanks for playing, everyone!

Player List:

 

Seixa (Phattemer) - Regular Son of Honor Explorer
John Doe (Stink) - Regular Son of Honor Runner
Locke Tekiel (Orlok) - Thaidakar, Ghostblood Ardent
Agrigar Leiken (Adavantos) - Diagrammist Cook, Regular “Son of Honor”
Aleral (Araris) - Regular Ghostblood Artifabrian
Kholak Bagar (Honey Badger) - Regular Ghostblood Ardent
Alycia Kavdar (RippleGylf) - Regular Ghostblood Surgeon
Walter Kysley (polking) - Diagrammist Edgedancer, Regular “Ghostblood”
Krippe (Kipper) - Commander, Son of Honor Scholar
Malarn (Maill) - Diagrammist Assassin, “Son of Honor” Captain
Sheon Idris (Seonid) - Commander, Ghostblood Lightweaver
Baheal Edr (Hael) - Commander, Ghostblood Assassin
Yallah (Tony Shark) - Diagrammist Artifabrian, “Son of Honor” Captain
Arran Faenel (Aonar) - Diagrammist Elsecaller, Regular “Son of Honor”
Hellscythe (Hellscythe) - Regular Ghostblood Explorer
Deadeye (Kynedath) - Regular Son of Honor Assassin
Slalassalas (Paranoid King) - Diagrammist Scholar, Regular “Ghostblood”
Kael of the Forge (Elkanah) - Regular Son of Honor Edgedancer
Frank "Gold Frank" Au Faliu (Feligon) Diagrammist Runner, Regular “Ghostblood”
Starri (Starry Smite) - Regular Son of Honor Cook
Citona Vinid (Shallan) - Captain, Ghostblood Runner
Arina (Arraenae) - Regular Son of Honor Surgeon
Torren (Twei) - Diagrammist Surgeon, “Ghostblood” Captain
Inor Haze (Creccio) - Restares, Son of Honor Lightweaver
Maximilianos Sebarial (Venture) - Captain, Son of Honor Runner
Lopen (The Mighty Lopen) - Regular Ghostblood Scholar
Jain (Lightsworn Panda) - Regular Son of Honor Ardent
Moros (DeathClutch) - Commander, Son of Honor Ardent
Edurams (Sart) - Regular Son of Honor Scholar
Bort (Bort) - Regular Ghostblood Cook
Mace (Mace Windu) - Regular Ghostblood Bondsmith
Ashei Ghetti (Burnt Spaghetti) - Regular Son of Honor Edgedancer
Cla (Clanky) - Captain, Son of Honor Surgeon
Elba (Elbereth) - Captain, Ghostblood Assassin
Zas (Zas) - Regular Ghostblood Cook
Lorna (Alvron) - Captain, Ghostblood Elsecaller

Edited November 2, 2016 by Alvron

[Feligon]

I lied: no pm with seonid.  Sorry.

[Elbereth]

Superbly well done, Diagrammists. That was a very impressive showing.

Also, Lopen, that was actually some pretty damning evidence. Too bad I wasn't actually a Diagrammist. Though I was actually lowkey protecting PK, actually, because he was one of four people at that point who I actually knew was a Ghostblood. (He was under my command.)

[Mailliw73]

Thanks Wilson for GMing and Kas for helping out! I have some comments, but I know that they're what Wilson wants to say, so I'll let her say them.

Wow, when I first saw our Diagrammist team, I thought we had this in the bag and it seemed way too overpowered. But, as the game wore on, about half our team was inactive at one point, probably more. You guys almost came back. You were quite close and after I died, I began to worry. You all played a great game!

Lopen, these last couple games, you've figured everything out, you're just not able to get all the support you need. You've definitely moved up a couple threat levels. Great job!

[Curious Anamaximder]

Awesome game! I had so much fun!

[Kynedath]

Wow. Gruff Deadeye is gruff. Amazing game. Fantastic for a first experience. Loved how Deadeye turned out.

 

Nicely played diagrammists. Good game.

[Kipper]

I still don't understand why Adavantos wasn't lynched. ><

[Mailliw73]

Wow. Gruff Deadeye is gruff. Amazing game. Fantastic for a first experience. Loved how Deadeye turned out.

Nicely played diagrammists. Good game.

Congrats yourself! You did very, very well, especially for a first time player. We commented on that several times in the doc and was one reason why Ada wanted to leave you alive.

[Kynedath]

Congrats yourself! You did very, very well, especially for a first time player. We commented on that several times in the doc and was one reason why Ada wanted to leave you alive.

Awww, thanks guys. I really appreciate the sentiment.

[little wilson]

Final Thoughts of the GM

There are a number of things I want to comment on. Some of these are to explain why I did certain things (with the role distribution) and others are to explain my take on certain issues and how these can be fixed (if they need to be).

The Diagrammist Team

In order to have both teams (other than the Diagrammists) start with an equal chance of winning, I needed the Diagrammists split equally between the teams. So an even number. With 36 players, that meant 6 or 8, since I judge things on a percentage level, with the eliminator team somewhere between 15-25% of the total players. Out of 36 players, 6 players is 16.6% and 8 is 22.2%. I went with 8 because of a comment Phatt made in the last game, about how he’d never seen a team bigger than 6, so therefore a team bigger than 6 probably would never happen. Well, I make it a point to mix things up when I see comments like that. Do things people don’t expect. If the players expect 6, I’ll do 8. And 22.2% isn’t a bad percentage.

That said, I knew with 8 players, it would be a strong team. Especially when the role distributor I was using came up with which 8 they were. But Kas and I were curious what an Aonar/Maill/Twei/Ada team would do, and we decided to run with it. When the role distributor then gave them a Cook, a Surgeon, an Elsecaller, and an Edgedancer, I was a lot more concerned, but then I realized that Polking went entirely inactive in the only other game he’s played. While that’s not a guarantee that he would go inactive in this game, I was strongly betting on his going inactive, and since he was the Edgedancer, that helped balance things out a bit. It meant that one of the two KR roles--and one of the protective roles at that--would not be around, and that would leave the Diagrammists open a bit. I was counting on at least one other player on the team going inactive as well, and one did--Tony.

The last thing I distributed was the ranks, and when Kas and I decided to run with the role distribution, I said right off that the Diagrammists won’t have anything higher than Captain, because they already have power in their player numbers and roles/abilities. They don’t get the information factor of knowing who is on which faction. They had 3 Captains, and 5 Regulars. The 2 SoH Captains even ended up under the same Commander so they wouldn’t start out knowing both SoH Commanders.

Lynch Protection

Lopen made multiple comments about how there was no way the Diagrammists would have 2 lynch protection roles. Yet they did. The reason for this was that those roles weren’t inherently lynch protection roles. They simply protected from one kill attempt. The lynch counts as a kill attempt, so it can protect from a lynch. However, those roles cannot self-target, and with 3 Cooks, double-tapping (or even triple-tapping) is a simple matter, and would negate the protection the person would get from the lynch. I was expecting people to be double-tapped here, with so many kill roles, and the knowledge that the Surgeon and Edgedancer can protect from the lynch.

Even with the two lynch protections, though, there was a full 2 cycles where the Diagrammmists didn’t have any protection whatsoever, because both Polking and Twei were inactive. Ada revealed himself right at the start of this period. Had he been lynched when he revealed, he would’ve died. Even if he’d been lynched the cycle after (when it was a tie between himself and Tony), he would’ve died.

Another reason why they had lynch protection was because they had no vote manipulation abilities. There were 4 Ardents in the game and 2 Lightweavers, so 6 possible vote manipulations, and the eliminators didn’t have anything. Outside of their numbers, they couldn’t do anything to affect the lynch.

The Faction Game

This is an interesting issue, because I made it definitive to clear up the issues LG4 had, where the two factions worked together to take out the evil team, but the GM had balanced the game assuming they would attack each other as well, so the evil team wasn’t set to handle two teams going against them. I figured if I made it more clearcut, that that wouldn’t happen. It would split the focus a bit. However, there was still a chance that the teams could win together.

At one point, early in the game, Orlok (Thaidakar) asked what would happen if all the KR’s died. I was ecstatic that he asked that, because it meant that he--the leader of his faction--was thinking about working together with the Sons of Honor, and I knew they needed to in order to stand a chance against the Diagrammists.

See, I balanced the two teams with the Sons of Honor having more protection abilities (5 out of 8), and the Ghostbloods having more firepower (2 out of 3). The Ghostbloods need the Sons of Honor to help protect them from the Diagrammists, and the Sons of Honor needed the Ghostbloods to help them kill the Diagrammists. And once things came down to the faction game, the SoH could protect themselves from the Ghostblood kills.

But this didn’t really happen. Right from the get-go, the teams decided to go for the faction game, which elated the Diagrammists and had me incredibly worried. Finally, when Bort made his comment comparing this game to MR7, I used that to intervene and explain why this was not the same way. I tried to let it be known that I was just fine if the two teams teamed up against the Diagrammists. In fact, I wanted that to happen. But it did’t. The people who’d been pushing for working together got drowned out by the people pushing for the faction game.

Lack of Communication & Information

As I already stated, I’d intended for the Diagrammists to start with less information due to their ranks, and this worked for a little bit. Everyone assumed that the Diagrammists knew all the alignments, but they actually didn’t even know half. Until Maill posted his list, trying to phish faction-information out of people. That shifted the information a bit in the Diagrammists favor.

On top of that, one of the village Runners wasn’t using his ability, all the Diagrammists were active, and people were going for the faction game. I needed to throw something else in to help the village more. I talked to Meta, and we came up with the Rank PM idea to mitigate the lack of communication and help the village out more. The Diagrammists had 3 Captains, sure, but there were a lot more village ranks. In theory, the rank PMs would go to more villagers than Diagrammists. In practice, that was not the case. Within an hour of adding the Rank PM mechanic on Cycle 2, three of the SoH ranks had started up PMs with Diagrammists. One of those was the SoH Commander that the Diagrammists didn’t know. At the same time, Restares had role-claimed as Restares to another Diagrammist in the thread, and at that point, I just threw my hands up into the air and said “fine.” I refused to mess with anything else.

On the information side of things for the village, the Scholars were not the only information-finding roles. I understand that not knowing the role/alignment of the dead can be problematic, but there were a number of information-gathering roles in the game, and those came out in abundance in the late-game, when it was almost too late to stop what was happening (and once Polking came back, it was). The Assassin was the obvious information-finding role, since they track people and see who target the person tracked. But the Artifabrian can target people and take an action from their target, and they know what action they steal. Araris stole protections from 3 different Diagrammists: Ada, PK, and Maill, in that order, from Cycles 1-3. So PK’s protection was before he’d roleclaimed. What with the other information gathered by the assassins, that could’ve been incredibly problematic for the Diagrammists. And that’s just two of the information-gathering roles. The Lightweaver was another, and they also learned what type of action they illuminated. Then there’s the Edgedancer.

Feligon got spied on a number of times. At least once by both village Edgedancer. One of the cycle he wasn’t spied on (but this cycle was right after he’d been spied on), he PMed Twei and told her that he wasn’t able to access the doc. Had he been spied on, the Edgedancer would’ve known he was a Diagrammist. They wouldn’t have known who his teammate was, but if they knew who all he was in PMs with (he was telling people), they would’ve figured out that too.

At another time, Burnt was going to spy on Ada’s PMs one the same cycle he’d blatantly tried to manipulate DeathClutch (which is partially what made DeathClutch so certain that Ada was evil). But then she switched her order to Stink, and didn’t see nearly as much as she could’ve.

It took a bit for the Edgedancers to start learning things, but once they did, they got a lot.

That said, a lot of that information didn’t get released until late-game, if it got released at all, because people were worried about the faction game.

What Would I Change?

First, I want to say that I like the restrictions on PM and the need to branch out and gather information in ways outside of role/alignment. It requires a little more creativity. So I wouldn’t change either of those things.

I also like the faction idea, with the Rank PMs opening up communications a little bit more. With active Runners, this game could’ve turned out a lot differently (there are a lot of things--not necessarily activity-related--that would’ve made this game turn out a lot differently). However, the focus on the faction game at the beginning was a major issue and really hurt both the Sons of Honor and the Ghostbloods a lot. The faction game was meant to be a mid-to-late game consideration, but I’m not sure how to make it so without removing the threat of the faction game entirely and making it exactly like LG4 where the teams can claim to win without actually acquiring that win condition. I don’t want a secondary win con that is more just a “bonus” win con. Those are too easy. So I’m not sure how to fix that, and any ideas there would be much appreciated.

The one thing I know I would fix is removing the Diagrammist Doc. The coordination by the Diagrammists in the late-game, where they were able to plan a last hour lynch on Seonid, made it obvious to me that it was way too easy for the Diagrammists to communicate, especially considering the problems the village was having. By removing the doc, it means they have to communicate via PM, and the PMs can be spied on by the Edgedancers, meaning that they have to be very careful what they say, just in case someone is listening.

All-in-all, while this game had its problems with communication and information, a lot of that was situational and I think the game would turn out very differently given another run-through. It was very close, despite the Diagrammists only losing one player. Had the Cooks, when they were targeting inactives, gone after Polking, the Diagrammists would’ve been down one more. Had Seonid repeated his action from one cycle the very next cycle (which he did the cycle after that), Ada would’ve been dead the first time you guys tried to lynch him. Had the Bondsmith survived longer, that also would’ve changed things (and that’s also the part that I was most saddened about, since the Bondsmith was my personal troll in this game, with that alt win con. I was so hoping for some fun things with that, and not just because the role distributor gave the role to my brother….).

I think it was a good game, and everyone played very well. Special mentions go to Kynedath who did an exemplary job for her (his?) first game, Ada for somehow staying alive for 5-6 cycles after revealing himself, and Lopen for pegging every single active eliminator in one fell swoop (okay, it was too late to do anything, but still, I thought it was impressive). Well done, everyone, and thank you for playing.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Alvron

[Seonid]

So, first off, I apologize for my borderline inactivity in this game. I thought I would have enough time to actually spend here on analysis and other things. But I did not, and it cost me. There were several instances where I could have changed the game, but didn't because I didn't have the time to think through my actions clearly. Saving Ada was the worst of them - I have no excuse other than what I have already offered. I was tired, just barely waking up, and not thinking clearly. My apologies.

 

Second, I could have - at several points - gotten Ada killed by redirecting his kill. I tried a couple of times, and guessed right once - but redirected the kill onto Jain instead of him. Again, a failure of time. My apologies again. I probably won't sign up for another of these until I am certain that I have enough time to participate meaningfully. I hope that that will be soon.

 

Finally, in answer to Ada's question in the Doc, I am most certainly a night shift worker (3:30 PM - midnight), so I tend to be on the Shard at weird hours. Expect the unexpected.