Long Game 28: The Awakening at the House on the Hill

[Mark IV he/him]

Mark here

I doubt a village vig. would choose stick over stink to kill. To me, it stands that Stink seemed harmless, and almost beneficial for the elims. Given how he's acted in the past as a neutral, I don't doubt the elims expected him to help them. Alas, he was villager.

Stick, on the other hand, was not too conspicuous of a target. She would be a perfect kill if the elms wanted to throw us off. 

So, yeah, I believe Stick was killed by the elims and Stink was killed by the vig.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

I also think Stick was killed by the elims. He/she seemed to have some useful information.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Ookthelion III

[Elenion he/him]

I'm currently on mobile, but I would like anyone who Stick had contacted to start looking for others who also knew Stick's role. If Stick was killed for her role, the elims had inside info.

 

-Len

[Jondesu he/him]

All too easy for the Elims to get inside info in a game like this, since anyone can suddenly become one. I didn't have any knowledge of Stick's role, but while I'd also be curious who did know, I'm not sure anyone could safely reveal that even via PM. Perhaps that wouldn't matter as much as having an item themselves, but I'd be wary of sharing that info if I had it.

[Elenion he/him]

Well, I don't have anywhere near as much time as I hoped to have tonight. Still, I'll put in my suspicions and vote before I go to bed.

5 hours ago, Ookthelion III said:

Sorry for not mentioning I agreed with the case against Rae. Her excuses seemed a little too convenient. My vote on PK was not serious, as is clearly evidenced by that post.

When you put your vote down on Rae, you said nothing about agreeing with the case against her. Instead, you brought up what she did to you and the rest of GoH back in LG26. This and your assumptions in the second bullet sound to me like you're covering for your vote after the fact. Ecthelion III

-Len

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Just now, Ookla the Unpredictable said:

This and your assumptions in the second bullet sound to me like you're covering for your vote after the fact. [emphasis mine]

Do you expect me to not provide further explanation for (or, as you put it, "cover for") my vote after the fact? That's something anyone, villager or eliminator, does.

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Unpredictable said:

When you put your vote down on Rae, you said nothing about agreeing with the case against her ...

You know, I find it kind of funny, but neither did Arinian or STINK, and no one paid them a second glance. Heck, STINK is a confirmed villager! Until you tell me why you're specifically targeting me, Elenion, and not even asking anyone else why they voted on her, I'm can only believe you just want a villager dead.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

We've been getting a lot of people saying that the game is becoming practically unplayable with the Ookla thing. Now, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade or force you guys to stop participating in a forum event. However, I do agree, as a GM it's just a pain as well as it massively increases the time it takes for me to do anything, as I have to double-check everything to make sure everything is correct. For a lot of people, it's okay provided you recognise avatars. Ecthelion III is pretty obvious, for example, though he did not include his name in that and therefore I'm not counting his vote at this time.

 

However, (I'm not picking on you, it's just a good example of a post), we do also see other things which make things awkward. He quotes Ookla the Unpredictable. If he did not further on vote for Elenion, then it would be very difficult to tell who he was referring to, and when reading it makes it awkward as we then have to re-read what was said now we have context.

 

As such, I'm instituting two new rules to make Ookla season easier, in lieu of shutting the game until it's over.

1. Please go and change your title to be your previous name. If you're not willing to do this because you're attached to it, put it first thing in your signature.
2. Whenever you mention or quote an Ookla, state both their actual name and their Ookla name, as Araris did above.

This should make things easier for everyone until it all passes.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Straw he/him]

I have a bit of a gut read on Nutspud.

-Straw

[Unodus he/him]

This is Ookla the Fortunate, un-ooklifying back to Unodus aka: Exion. Hey :B

I agree that, if it was a vigilante kill, Stink was probably the non traitor kill.

I would also go as far as to say that I'm also suspicious of Ecthellion, but before we turn to bandwagoning- has anyone been paying attention to who's been inactive or not? Because it doesn't seem like 30 different people are posting each cycle imo, and it would be very easy for the traitors to hide while the active player duked it out. While I'm against lynching against inactives in the early cycle, I think it's fair to say anyone who's been silent for a while also warrants suspicion?

[Wonko the Sane he/him]

-Wonko the Sane -

All right. I'm going to agree with Hael that any further exploration is a little too risky for me, at least until we can find the Heart. We have reached the part of the game that requires activity to be useful. 

I've tried to keep an eye on the thread, but not nearly so well as I'd have liked, and I frankly don't know where to start for suspicions. I am still concerned that Araris is still alive, though, with the "I can never be evil" power he's claimed. I am beginning to suspect, though, that the power is a fake, and that the Elims have come to the same conclusion.

Unodus, the problem with that is that a literal majority of players are inactive, myself included. Hopefully, I can be more present going forward, and I can bother Chaos until she posts, but that still leaves just too many of them. I have no doubt that some of them are Elims -- unless Wyrm is fudging his rolls very heavily, it would be a bizarre coincidence if they weren't. But since telling one inactive from another is difficult or impossible, trying to figure out which would be fruitless.

All we can do is hope that more players start talking, so that we have something to go on. I'll try to make time for analysis later, but if not, I'll at least read up enough so I know the right players to poke so that discussion gets started.

- Wonko the Sane -

Edited November 29, 2016 by Ookla the Doctorly

[Nyali she/her]

I'm trying to follow this game, but I'm so far behind and there are so many people in the game to follow. The Ooklas don't help because none of the early posts by them are signed, so reading the posts from the beginning of the game to now was rather difficult earlier when I tried.

I'll see if I can find the time to go through the old posts again though. I don't think I'll be able to contribute much until I do.

[Wonko the Sane he/him]

- Wonko the Sane -

40 minutes ago, Nyali said:

I'm trying to follow this game, but I'm so far behind and there are so many people in the game to follow. The Ooklas don't help because none of the early posts by them are signed, so reading the posts from the beginning of the game to now was rather difficult earlier when I tried.

I'll see if I can find the time to go through the old posts again though. I don't think I'll be able to contribute much until I do.

Yeah, I hear you. I've been excited because somehow, despite five and a half years with the Shard, this is my first time participating in Ookla season, but I can see that it's damaging both of the games I'm in.

Signing posts, identifying people we mention -- in the end, all these tedious fixes only mitigate the problem, rather than solve it. So, for the sake of SE, I will be switching back.

Wyrm's right in that it's unfair to ask players not to participate in this event -- it's a tradition even older than SE, after all. But I ask my fellow Ooklas to consider whether it's really worth the stress this is putting on our fellow players. Nyali seems near to bowing out of the game; is this acceptable to you?

If you really must continue participating in the event, I ask you to go out of your way to make it brazenly obvious who you are. Put it in your title. Put it in your sig. Put it in your username, like Mark. Do whatever you need to to keep confusion from overtaking us.

Here's the list of current Ooklas involved in this game (minus me, since I'll be switching after this post).

@Ookla the Watcher - Doctor12

@Ookla the Indubitable - Magestar

@Ookla the Inimitable - little wilson

@Ookla the Unpredictable - Elenion

@Ookla the Colorful - Assassin in Burgundy

@Mesa the Ookla - Darkness Ascendant

@Ookthelion III - Ecthelion III

@Ookla the Insufferable - Aonar Faileas

@Ookla the Paranoid - Straw

@Ookla the Incarnate - Seonid

@Ookla the Indefinable - The Young Bard

@Ookla The Russian (Mark) - Mark IV

@Wyrmhero, it won't fix everything, but one thing you could consider doing is putting their Ookla names in their entries in the player list.

Wyrm's built an incredible game here, guys. Let's not let it fall apart from a little thing like this.

- Wonko the Sane -

[Magestar he/him]

29 minutes ago, Wonko the Sane said:

@Ookla the Indubitable - Magestar

Ookla the Indubitable is no more!  He has removed his mask to reveal himself as...

Magestar!    I had no idea!  

Sorry Wyrm.  Didn't mean to cause any harm.   

[Araris Valerian he/him]

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Wonko, that was a troll post. Read this first. Then this.

@Wonko the Sane: I clarified that my post about having that role was not serious.

[Clanky he/him]

So it seems like most people agree that stick was the elim kill which I agree with but for other reasons. In the write-up where Bard was killed his body disappeared. "both the skeleton and the body of Huxton were gone" and in this write-up "they could not find Stick's body. It was as though the man had vanished entirely overnight." plus we never found kasimirs body either. So likely whoever disappears in the night was killed by the traitor kill and if we find the body it's from another cause. 

                                                                                 

C.L was exhausted after another long night exploring the house. There was still no proof that there was any sentient awakenings going on here! He still hadn't heard any unnerving music or smelled anything fishy (but he did smell something odd every time he passed that Hammer fellow). 

This obviously leads to only one possible conclusion. They were all in on it! This whole house was built to create the most impossible mystery of all time to test the great C.L Anky to see if he is worthy of being welcomed in to their secret society of the greatest investigators of all time! Finally! My brilliance is being recognized. I knew it was only a matter of time. I will show you all how great I am and rightfully join with the greatest of all time!

"I can do this!" yelled C.L, uncaring of the many strange looks he got for yelling alone in the corner. It didn't matter he was prepared for anything! But first time to interview some suspects!

"You, Arinian, I see you lurking over there! What have you been doing during all these dark mysterious nights?" 

                                                                                    

So looking back I still haven't sen much suspicious activity. I did however notice arinians change of tone regarding the lynch. From  

"For me it seems like he just was against lynch on the first day(and I agree with him). Because, I don't understand how you want to get useful info from lynch of inactive(and how suspicion can be landed on someone if there was only two votes on him, your and Elenion's). It was just lynch of inactive player that truly gave nothing."

To later saying:

"Wait what are you doing? There no lynch if draw." along with a vote for Rae.

Why the change? You went from semi-anti lynch to pushing hard for a lynch.

[Elenion he/him]

To preserve the flow of the game, I've switched my username back to usual.

Guys, we need more lynch discussion. More votes. We're falling into a trap of inactivity where all the traitors have to do is kill off actives and then have virtual control over the lynch while still being a minority of the players. Even if you don't think you have much to contribute, please at least check in and vote on the player that you think is most suspicious.

 

[Jondesu he/him]

I'm being cautious about my contributions now since in both current games I'm apparently coming across as suspicious, and I don't feel like I've gotten great reads on people overall. What reads I think I've gotten have tended to be wrong.

I am finding it odd for both Aralis and Straw are calling out Nightspud (Assassin), without much reasoning. Aralis at least had some reason, but not a good one in my opinion, while Straw literally just called it a gut read without saying anything else. I'm not saying I think Assassin is good, necessarily, but he hasn't stood out to me, and they seem to be teaming up while intentionally separating their posts. I've had a read on Aralis for a little while but had been waiting because I thought I might have been getting them mixed up with Arinian, but I was able to resolve that in my mind, so Aralis. What do you have to say?

[Unodus he/him]

I'm going to contribute to the poke vote against Arinian for now because ultimately killing actives who turn out to be villagers just makes things easier for active traitors to swing the vote and nonactive traitors to lurk the game away

[Clanky he/him]

7 minutes ago, Unodus said:

I'm going to contribute to the poke vote against Arinian for now because ultimately killing actives who turn out to be villagers just makes things easier for active traitors to swing the vote and nonactive traitors to lurk the game away

I didn't mean my vote as a way of killing an inactive. I do have a little reasoning for my vote and Arinian also was looking at the thread when I posted it so I was actually hoping for a reply. Maybe if I use a tag it'll get a reply @Arinian

Edited November 30, 2016 by Clanky
spelling errors

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Aralis turned around when he heard his name called out. "What's that? Speak up young fellow, my ears aren't what they used to be." Someone nearby whispered in Aralis's ear. "Quintus doesn't like me? I've spoken my mind on pretty much everything that has been brought up, which is more than most here can say. Nightspud was wasting his breath, so I say we don't give him anymore! I can't help if you disagree with me, since I'm a disagreeable old man, but please point your finger elsewhere, or I might introduce you to the end of my stick here." Aralis leveled his cane at Quintus as threateningly as he could manage, and then turned back to his contemplation of the nearby window.

Jondesu, the thing is, I think the reasoning behind my vote is solid, and as far as other matters are concerned, I've voted each cycle with what I consider to be good justification behind my votes. Aralis isn't going to come out and say it, but we might just have to agree to disagree here. I don't really have a response, since you haven't really accused me of anything.

[Elbereth she/her]

First off, sorry for disappearing off the planet these past few days - it hasn’t been Thanksgiving so much as a lot of schoolwork, and prioritizing that over SE for once in my life. I’ll try to be a little more active than I have been, but it’s also the last full week of school, so I can’t guarantee much or any activity for the next few days since I’ll be trying to focus on school. Which… all things considered, is probably a good thing. 

A few notes from my readthrough of previous cycles, nicely quoted this time): 
Ecth: 

Quote

Since I'm not dead yet, I figured I'd introduce myself. Jonathan Avondale, Esq, at your service.

I hear you all clamoring for a plan of some kind. Here's mine: stay put. Don't go off exploring this devilish house. That's a surefire way to get yerself killed. I mean, if you want to do that, be my guest, but I'm staying right here until I figure out what the devil is going on here.

What? Did I just hear ya call me lazy? Well, mister high-and-mighty exercise master, ever heard the saying "curiosity killed the cat"?

Anyway, I'm gonna stay right in this here room and look for clues. Better safe then sorry. Oy, Kresla! (@Elbereth) Mind giving me a hand here? I'm looking for clues!

What? You want to know who I find suspicious? Hmm, let's see, Rotiart (Paranoid King)! He looks suspicious!

You want a better reason than that? Look, do you have a better reason? It's not easy to find the culprit when they turn traitor on'y six hours ago!

Mostly quoting this so I don’t have to go back and look for it. I do wish to RP with Kresla. We… will see if that happens. >>

Len: 

Quote

I had a thought: it seems strange to me that no one has tried to kill Elbereth or Wilson yet. El especially tends to be a high-priority target, and with the village almost guaranteed to have no protection roles I'm a little surprised that they killed Bard N1. There must have been a reason for killing Bard, so what was it?

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I said "El especially tends to be a high-priority target". Khaos would be a mid-to-high-priority target that would be a good kill at the beginning because she hasn't yet begun any analysis and El hasn't been on too much.

Um. I know it was pointed out that Wilson would be lower priority this game as she’s RPing and all (which I’d agree with, and am in fact rather happy about), but saying that I’m generally more high priority than her is… um. No. I’m not certain how in the world you got that impression, but I’ve only recently become a priority kill at all. There’s a reason she hasn’t survived in… 13 games? 

And sorry for that, again. >> I don’t like that I’m not giving this game my full attention, but it’s also kinda nice in a way? 
Arraenae: 

Quote

 

Thanks, Len. That means all those hours spent reading Hardball: How Politics is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game haven't gone to waste! I always figured that there had to be ways to improve my SE skills, but I never expected them to come from my brother's AP Gov textbook.

Jondesu, I'm sorry if you think I have it in for you. That's why I posted my suspicions inthread, to see if anybody else had noticed the same thing and to create some discussion. Nobody seems to agree, so I might be misinterpreting. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I might be tunnelling (unfortunately, Hardball doesn't help with analysis). So, Jondesu.

 

I… this post rings alarm bells for me, personally. It feels very eliminator-ish. That said, I got a very similar eliminator read on you in MR17 and you were village, so I’ll withhold judgement for the moment. 

Ecth: 

Quote

If anyone has gotten a role that would help us find the elims, please either tell it to the thread or PM me. (Don't say what the role does, obviously.) I think that it's a better idea to not explore, since we know exploring will create elims but we don't know how helpful the secret roles are.

Multiple others have already said this, but… Why would you suggest this? One, you’re telling people not to say what their role does but at the same time telling them only to PM you if they have a scan role, essentially. And while there are different types of scan role, they’re still basically telling you what they do. And second, even could you get people to actually claim to you (which they shouldn’t as they have exactly no reason to trust you), how the rusts does that help anyone? 

I'll try to post at least once a cycle for the next week or so (after which my activity should go back to semi-normal). I believe that's all for now. 

[little wilson she/her]

12 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

There’s a reason she hasn’t survived in… 13 games? 

Khaos had a sudden urge to say the number 14. She barely suppressed it, having no idea where it came from. Crazy is not chaotic, after all, and if she started talking to herself, blurting out random words, people would think she was the former.

She threw her little metal ball up in the air, and caught it as it came down. She hadn't found the skeleton last night, despite searching all over for it. On the plus side, the ball was proving fun. Though it didn't seem to have a purpose. Not like the pen. Ah well. At least it had kept her mildly entertained while she looked for that blasted skeleton.

Sliding down the wall until she was sitting on the ground, she laid the metal ball on the ground and rolled it across the floor between her legs, back and forth from one hand to the other. Then she glanced across the room and noticed Eques Tempore and Quintus both looking a little shifty-eyed. And then she mentally kicked herself. She'd forgotten to follow the Hammer last night. Her eagerness to find the skeleton again had completely made her forget about following him. But it didn't seem like it would've mattered anyway. Today, he was acting decidedly un-traitor-like.

She sighed. She was probably never going to find the traitors. She went back to rolling her ball across the ground. Back and forth, back and forth. Mesmerizing.

---

I'm going to leave my Ookla name as it is, but the only reason I'm doing so is because I've been RPing the entire game, so my posts pre-Ookla are virtually the same as my posts post-Ookla. If you're still having trouble with that though, let me know, and I'll change it.

[Aonar he/him]

Aon paced absently through the halls, chewing on a piece of bread as she considered her next move. Last night the House had lead her to food, but since then, it's Voice had been frustratingly silent.

Still considering what this silence could mean, she stepped around a corner and immediately cracked heads with one of the other explorers.

"Ow." The woman -Khaos, Aon thought her name was- looked briefly dazed, then suddenly shoved half a broken pen into her hands. "Here. This is for you." She turned and left, without a word.

Aon stared after at the retreating woman in confusion. That was... strange. Inspecting the pen, she could find nothing special about it. Well, I have a writing utensil, I might was well use it. Taking down one of the House's innumerable faded paintings, she tore out a strip of canvas for note paper.

Before she'd even begun to write, the pen started to buck and twist in her hand. Startled, she dropped it, and it scrawled words across the floor of its own accord. Empty-headed animal food trough wiper!

She blinked a few times. What? She bent down and snatched the pen up again. ...Is it... insulting me? Aon closed her eyes, concentrating. The pen buzzed lightly against her senses. It felt almost like Biochroma... and almost exactly like the Voice of the House, many times smaller. Holding it, she could just feel it thrumming in time with some larger beat, subtly outside her awareness.

She smiled, tasting now familiar copper in her mouth. No, not insulting, guiding.

Time to take a trip to the stables.

---

Now that that's out of the way, (I'll try to post some more up-to-date RP sometime soon); OOC thoughts. 

I'll also chime in to agree that Stink's killing was likely a Village kill; moreover, it's likely someone who believed his neutral claim. (Despite the fact that Wyrm explicitly stated that all players would start as Explorers early in the game.) 

@Wonko the SaneIf people want me to, I'll change back, but my avatar's the same, my sig has my name in it and my character name is similar to my usual usename, so I at least shouldn't be hard to figure out.

On Exploring: I agree we should tone it down. While I won't say people shouldn't Explore, we don't know how Wyrm's balanced the game, and if we keep gaining Traitors at this rate things will be bad.

As for who I'm suspicious of... I'm not sure yet. Part of the problem with playing these games inconsistently is that I'm really not sure what is and isn't in character for all the player. There have been things said that have raised a few eyebrows, but nothing that's stood out enough for me to record it. I'm hoping to have formed some more solid suspicions before the end of the day, but we'll see.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

54 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

Quote

If anyone has gotten a role that would help us find the elims, please either tell it to the thread or PM me. (Don't say what the role does, obviously.) I think that it's a better idea to not explore, since we know exploring will create elims but we don't know how helpful the secret roles are.

Multiple others have already said this, but… Why would you suggest this? One, you’re telling people not to say what their role does but at the same time telling them only to PM you if they have a scan role, essentially. And while there are different types of scan role, they’re still basically telling you what they do. And second, even could you get people to actually claim to you (which they shouldn’t as they have exactly no reason to trust you), how the rusts does that help anyone? 

Apologies. I meant to say "a role that would help us lynch the elims" or "a role that would help us against the elims" or something to that effect. Frankly, I just want some kind of confirmation that exploring helps the village in the least.

[Elenion he/him]

Ummm... @Elbereth, Rae is dead and village.

It's great to see more discussion all of a sudden. Let's keep this up!

I don't really have a good or bad read on Aralis, Arinian, or Straw. Arinian is voting similar to how I vote, so I can't really find anything to be concerned about there. Aralis I haven't found much either way. Straw is mostly inactive.

@Ookthelion III, I don't think there's a single player here that would claim to you right now. Or to me either, for that matter. There are too many unknowns now for that sort of thing.