Long Game 24: The Godless City

[Elenion he/him]

2 hours ago, Kipper said:

...wait wut

What, exactly, are the multiple bandwagons that I've participated in? D1 I voted for you first. And you didn't die. D2 I voted for Mailliw, as did 18 others. So I'm really not seeing the truth in your argument. And it's the height of hypocrisy for a player who has declared their love of bandwagons publicly to even attempt to use this reasoning.

You missed the second half of that phrase: "in a way that suggests he was trying to get on the wagons early to get himself soft-cleared".

The difference between them is that when you wagoned on me it was for some very interesting reasons. I believed that what you were trying to do is put yourself in a win-win situation: I'm lynched elim and you're soft-cleared, or I'm lynched village and you joined early enough that you aren't suspicious.

1 hour ago, STINK said:

Elbereth.

Elenion.

Woops, musta thought that he was in a doc with some peeps. My bad.

Reasoning, please? Or are you just killing me while I'm willing to go?

[Amanuensis he/him]

44 minutes ago, Elenion said:

And as for lynching me: I'm actually good with that, since QF17 is taking much more of my time than anticipated. For that reason I won't defend myself further.

This is twice in a row (Silverblade and Elenion) that someone has said to just lynch them, and I'd be lying to say if I wasn't irritated by these comments. It's such a conversation killer. This lynch discussion is already pretty weak, and is isn't helping. There's been what, eight votes placed so far? And in my opinion, the only one's of worth have been mine, Wilson's and Rae's, and to a lesser extent, Lopen's. I'm satisfied by Araris's response, although I wish more people would have weighed in on it. Kipper's been little more than a troll this game (I've been told he claimed Eliminator to Rae on D1 and that he's been trolling Wilson pretty consistently) and as soon as I noticed that was the route he was taking, I stopped responding to his PMs entirely. As for Rae and SB, I'm equally suspicious of them both, given that outside of their specific situation, I haven't really seen them do anything good. Rae's been phishing for information while SB has been trying to coordinate Noble votes in secret. Both of those things are innately suspicious to me. The first because an eliminator is more inclined to try and gain info and pass it, while the second because knowing the identities of the Nobles allows the eliminators know who to not target if they want to hit a more powerful role. As for Aonar, as much as I can't stand lurking, I haven't seen him watching the thread, or even the forums, and since I've only ever played one game with him (MR10) I can't say if his lack of involvement was because of his alignment or just because of his play style. Does someone know him well enough to say differently?

Edited August 4, 2016 by Amanuensis

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Well, we could lynch a whole bunch of folks. Just make a big tie between 3 or so people. Right now I am comfortable lynching @jaimeleecee, who my vote is on now, and @Arraenae, who is suspicious because of her exchange with Silverblade, and I don't like how she tried to discount my comments about myself when most of the players voting on me had little to no reasoning of their own, and all voted within a short timespan. Silverblade and Elenion we can just have the vigilante roles kill, or have them be secondary lynches this cycle.

[Elenion he/him]

7 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

SB has been trying to coordinate Noble votes in secret.

I have a very strong village read on SB after he proposed a plan to use the noble vote to save my butt from the D2 lynch.

 

I'll clear Kipper from lack of support and vote Silverblade. since claiming neutral in PM doesn't strike me as very villager-like.

[Arraenae]

13 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

This is twice in a row (Silverblade and Elenion) that someone has said to just lynch them, and I'd be lying to say if I wasn't irritated by these comments. It's such a conversation killer. This lynch discussion is already pretty weak, and is isn't helping. There's been what, eight votes placed so far? And in my opinion, the only one's of worth have been mine, Wilson's and Rae's, and to a lesser extent, Lopen's. I'm satisfied by Araris's response, although I wish more people would have weighed in on it. Kipper's been little more than a troll this game (I've been told he claimed Eliminator to Rae on D1 and that he's been trolling Wilson pretty consistently) and as soon as I noticed that was the route he was taking, I stopped responding to his PMs entirely. As for Rae and SB, I'm equally suspicious of them both, given that outside of their specific situation, I haven't really seen them do anything good. Rae's been phishing for information while SB has been trying to coordinate Noble votes in secret. Both of those things are innately suspicious to me. The first because an eliminator is more inclined to try and gain info and pass it, while the second because knowing the identities of the Nobles allows the eliminators know who to not target if they want to hit a more important role. As for Aonar, as much as I can't stand lurking, I haven't seen him watching the thread, or even the forums, and since I've only ever played one game with him (MR10) I can't say if his lack of involvement was because of his alignment or just because of his play style. Does someone know him well enough to say differently?

I'm phishing for information because I decided to switch things up and this was Maill's last game. He asked for no PM safety.

Quote

PM safety should be thrown out a window. For two cycles at least. 

Quote

I'll send it on a rocket across the sky with a trail of glitter behind it this game. Just for you, Maill.

I agreed.

I'm pretty sure I said this before, but I'll say it again. I can't throw away PM safety for Maill and nobody else. And I won't throw away PM safety and ask for nothing in return. I like equivalent exchanges. Sure, you can get my info, but I want some of your info too. I decided to try out roleswapping before the game started, so unless I can see into the future and know what alignment Joe will give me, phishing is non-alignment indicative.

EDIT: Araris, I'd prefer for Silverblade to be lynched instead of me. If he is an eliminator, he'd likely have protection during the Night. (If I'm an eliminator, I'm also likely to have protection during the Night, but... oh well. I can't prove my alignment to you without dying, which kind of goes against my win con. Besides, what eliminator would go around aggressively accusing other people of being eliminators five or six times in a row in order to maybe force a frustration claim?)

Edited August 4, 2016 by Arraenae
Added stuff

[Elenion he/him]

10 minutes ago, Elenion said:

I have a very strong village read on SB after he proposed a plan to use the noble vote to save my butt from the D2 lynch.

 

I'll clear Kipper from lack of support and vote Silverblade. since claiming neutral in PM doesn't strike me as very villager-like.

Hold on: I got confused there. My village read is on Silver Dragon (SD) not Silverblade (SB). I thought you were talking about SD when you really were talking about SB. Kill SB.

[STINK he/him]

Kill SBill?

[little wilson she/her]

1 hour ago, Arraenae said:

Besides, what eliminator would go around aggressively accusing other people of being eliminators five or six times in a row in order to maybe force a frustration claim?

The kind of eliminator who wants to say that exact thing in their defense.

[STINK he/him]

Ooh ooh! She's trying out what all people want to do! You go girl! 

Rae, i believe in your ability to pretend to be suspicious enough that you look like an eliminator, but be useful enough that they surely can't be an eliminator. 

'Course, i think it's that one you're doing, but there are many variants of it. 

[Arraenae]

5 minutes ago, little wilson said:

The kind of eliminator who wants to say that exact thing in their defense. 

(Mobile is being weird, so I'm typing in here) Alright, I walked right into that one. 

[Silverblade5 he/him]

@Amanuensis

Im sorry, I'd just rather die from the lynch than from the inactivity filter. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Elenion said:

You missed the second half of that phrase: "in a way that suggests he was trying to get on the wagons early to get himself soft-cleared".

The difference between them is that when you wagoned on me it was for some very interesting reasons. I believed that what you were trying to do is put yourself in a win-win situation: I'm lynched elim and you're soft-cleared, or I'm lynched village and you joined early enough that you aren't suspicious.

No, I didn't miss it. But how?

In this fantasy world, I'm on a team with you? Why does it matter if I'm "soft-cleared" if I've lynched an Eliminator if I'm not an Eliminator? Your hypothetical doesn't even have much internal consistency, unless you're admitting to being an Eliminator and saying that I was trying to bus you. And again, I was the first vote on you.

[Elenion he/him]

3 minutes ago, Kipper said:

No, I didn't miss it. But how?

In this fantasy world, I'm on a team with you? Why does it matter if I'm "soft-cleared" if I've lynched an Eliminator if I'm not an Eliminator? Your hypothetical doesn't even have much internal consistency, unless you're admitting to being an Eliminator and saying that I was trying to bus you. And again, I was the first vote on you.

A soft-cleared villager wields considerable power.

[STINK he/him]

Everyone wields considerable power. 

Everyone.

Like just saying.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Elenion said:

A soft-cleared villager wields considerable power.

I'm really not sure how to respond to this.

@STINK, I can't wait until you get to the responsibility part.

[Sart he/him]

I don't want to be lynched, but I haven't had the time to properly analyze this game. Work has been keeping me busy, and I have guests coming tonight. Tax-free weekend isn't going to help things either (Apparently it's like working black friday...) So, can someone please inform me why lynching Elenion isn't a good idea. We're having a third day slump, and I think his lynch would generate the most discussion.

[TheSilverDragon he/him]

Ok, so can someone post a vote tally please, cause I'm too lazy to count all.the votes

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Vote tally, based on Aman's previous one(hopefully it was right ):

Araris(1): Jaime
Kipper(1): Wilson
Silverblade(3): Arraenae, Bard, Elenion
Elenion(2): Stink, Sart
Arraenae(1): Silverblade
Aonar(1): Lopen
Jaime(1): Araris

Why is Sart worrying about being lynched if he doesn't have a vote on him?

Edit: Dangit Aman, you missed Bard's vote on Silverblade...and the vote on Jaime, lol.

@Sart, why did you say you didn't want to be lynched when you don't have any votes on you?

Edited August 5, 2016 by TheMightyLopen

[TheSilverDragon he/him]

Thanks

[Arraenae]

Is this a claim of some sort?

This post jumped out at me. Did we ever decide that the discussion over Len happened because he didn't know the meta of SE? This is a rather strong defense of Len and accusation of Sart.

I don't think a lot of discussion usually happens during Nights. Some people (especially big talkers who are good analysts) shut up during the Night so they don't draw attention to themselves and get killed.

Noticed that Lopen referred to Emerald as female here on Monday. Lopen visited Emerald's profile on Sunday, which includes Emerald's gender. Maybe this doesn't mean anything, but this reminds me of MR11, when Clanky referred to Kynedath as female to distance them. Both were eliminators. Could this be the same thing?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

13 minutes ago, Arraenae said:

Is this a claim of some sort?

Just popping in, you'll notice in the writeups, Ashkelon was the one to stab Straw when he was lynched. That was chosen for RP reasons only, and was not a hint. Clarifying that since you've been religiously checking the tags for hints and clues.

45 minutes till the end of cycle. get your votes and actions in now. As per usual, please warn me if you're planning on making a last minute vote change.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Rae, I went to Emerald's profile to send him a PM. I didn't check his gender, although he did alert me about my mistake earlier this Turn(Aman did as well...). I don't know that that really means anything to you, but it is what happened.

[Aonar he/him]

On 8/3/2016 at 1:34 AM, TheMightyLopen said:

Okay, so, my current suspicions are: Jaime(gut), Burnt(gut from our PM - sorry, but thanks for the quicklinks and stuff!), Conq(I just think he's being less game relevant with his posts so far - I'm not the one who attacked him though, I was surprised to see that he was attacked, given his quietness and inactivity in the early Turns), Orlok(PM reasons mostly), Aonar(lurkingish? He was quite a lurker in MR10 when he was evil), and SilverBlade(gut) and I think that's it. Mild paranoia about El, but it's nothing serious(yet ).

Oh, and village reads on Aman, Bard, Emerald, Elenion, Alvron(more, he was attacked and I think it was the elims who did it, so putting him in the villager section of my reads for now) and that's all(I think. I'm really tired as I'm posting this, so I may have forgotten about a player or two).

Wilson - scanned by a Dula apparently. I'm willing to believe that claim for now.

Try to use more than one point of reference when making an accusation, Lopen. I lurk more often than not, regardless of my alignment. I'm not someone that tries to direct discussion. I collect information, and make comments on strategy, lynches, etc, when I feel I have something to contribute. Some games, I've had lots I feel the need to comment on.

This game, there's little I can say in terms of strategy. The known roles are fairly simple. The day one lynch was kinda garbage, like usual. Day one lynches are important; but generally the information gained doesn't become important until later, unless the Eliminators slip, (which they may have done). The day two lynch was ceremonial. (Although there were some background points of interest.)

Which leaves us here, without much to show for ourselves.

Now, I'm going to outline some points of interest.

1: Elenion. He's becoming what I call in my notes a nexus. Someone who is, effectively, leading the village. I know, that sounds contradictory. He's been up for the lynch several times, played aggressively and inconsistently, called for his own lynch on multiple occasions, and thrown votes around largely without reason. But think; how much time has been spent discussing his actions? How much has he influenced people's votes and suspicions? He's a player that, quite simply, we can't afford to keep around while expecting to get anything done. We either need to kill him (has my support, although I'd recommend it be done at night) or ignore him completely. (Beneficial, in the case that he's actually good/neutral and just screwing around for his own reasons, harmful if he happens to be an Eliminator who has chosen an annoyingly effective cover.)

2: Groups. Those of you who have played games with me before where I've had the opportunity to keep a close record of a game know that I'm in the habit of making what are called network diagrams. (Technically speaking, this isn't a game where I really have the opportunity; but the time I get off work and finish recording, I'm way to tired to actually analyse what I've found. Thankfully, today was quiet enough that I was able to do a little. ) Basically, it's an excel add-on (free and open-source, if anyone wants to try it out; just google NodeXL*) that graphs the sum of connections within a population. The software comes pre-built with a variety of algorithms that analyse connections made and intuit hidden ones; looking for players that are acting in similar ways, even if they're not being overt about it. Likewise, it's also possible to determine mathematically "background" players; people that stay out of main discussions, giving and generating little information. These aren't necessarily lurkers or inactives, although those people do tend to end up in this list; these are players that are contributing minimally to the progression of the game. With these metrics, and a bit of logic, it's very possible to figure out a number of otherwise non-intuitive things. 

For example, I've sent two players PMs with a good guess of their role; I'm willing to bet good money that I'm right, assuming Aman isn't lying about being Legionare'd. (Those I sent the PMs to; mwahaha. Scared you a bit, didn't I?)

They can feel free to confirm the legitimacy of my guesses, if they wish.  

Anyways, onwards. 

I don't have time to go through every possible cluster, but I'll go through a couple ones that are of immediate interest.

1: Bard. I'm not sure how feelings run right now, but early in the game, people found Bard suspicious. (As reflected by his relatively central position on the Diagram.) If he is evil, and on an Eliminator team, I'd place a very high probability on Eol or Kipper also being an Eliminator as well. They've been rather consistently grouped together so far. (Although part of that has to do with the fact that Eol and Kipper are both background players, [Eol more so] and as such do not have many connections to work with. So this particular guess may change.)

2: Ecthelion/Conquestor's Killer: Ecthelion and Conq tend to be grouped separately, which broadens the suspect pool slightly. However, my top four would be Elodin, Elbereth, Arraenae, or Araris. This is more tenuous than the one with Bard though, for sure. 

3: Decentralized (background/lurking) players: 

• Burnt
• Ren
• Ant
• Conq
• Araris
• Silverdragon
• Jamie
• Orlok
• Kipper
• Eol
• Magestar
• Sart
• Alv
• Elodin
• Elbereth
• Aonar
• Silverblade

Some of these players are lurking more than others, but all of them have contributed only rather minorly to the discussions at hand. (Notice how this is a majority of the players playing. This is bad.  Given the activity we've seen, it's surprising how little of it has actually been productive.) Notice, Lopen, that his list is significantly longer than the one you gave. Thread presence =/= not a lurker.  

 

Alright. To wrap this ramble up (sorry! ) I'm voting Elenion. (If you're Jester, kill me. I dare you. ) I am not opposed to a tie that takes out two genuinely suspicious players. Next time I have time off (should be Sunday/Monday?) I'm going to try to put something more solid together.  

 

*There is a paid version with more features; for the most part though it's child's play to access most of the more useful paid features without actually paying, though.  

[Arraenae]

@TheMightyLopen, I know that referring to someone as the wrong gender does not an eliminator make. It's just something that I thought worth noting.

@Aonar Faileas, for Etch/Con's killer, what are Elbereth, Elodin, Araris, and I top four suspects for?

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

I don't have more than 1 point of reference for you though, which is why I wanted to hear from you, Aonar.  Thanks for posting, it's quite interesting.

I will agree that there are far too many background/lurker players here.