Anniversary Game 4/Anonymous Game 1: A Fresh Start

[Orlok Tsubodai]

AG4/AN1 - Day 5: Poisoning the Well

 

Peng Uinneas slept uneasily in the inn, still comfortably wrapped in his chartreuse Shardplate. It wasn’t as if anyone in the town had the knowledge to remove it properly, after all, and he was safe with it on. Even if it was a little uncomfortable to sleep in. 

There was a creaking from downstairs, waking Peng completely. Elysian, come back to his old home? Peng thought. Perhaps. But if not…

He got up, carefully, trying not to make any noise. Unfortunately, Shardplate wasn’t designed for silence, and his feet thudded on the floor no matter how carefully he placed them. 

He abandoned silence and rushed downstairs, bursting into the main common room, only to feel a thud. 

He looked down in time to see the arrow falling to the ground, and the cracks in his Shardplate. 

He yelled, more instinctively than to call for help, and charged forward. But a second arrow, and then a third, took him in the chest, and he fell to the ground still steps away from his attacker. 

The air was perfectly still, as the watching eyes of the archer saw the room change from containing two people to only one. 

 

---

Peng was missing the next morning, but it was clear where he had gone. Tracks of two heels dragging in the dirt, along with occasional bloodspots, could be followed from the inn all the way up to the well. 

This, unfortunately, meant that the well water was no longer safe to drink, and they only had limited stores left...

 

---

Chartreuse Penguin has died! They were a Villager.

Day Five has begun. It will end in 48 hours time, at 10pm GMT on the 27th January. 

 

 

PMs are open.

 

Player List

1. Amethyst Scorpion
2. Azure Mouse
3. Amber Vulture
4. Charcoal Hyena - Cannoc - Villager
5. Chartreuse Penguin - Villager
6. Coral Swan - Elyle - Village Lightweaver
7. Cream Tuatara - Villager
8. Emerald Falcon - Aldrick
9. Fuschia Ostrich
10. Indigo Weasel
11. Ivory Dragonfly - Nolan
12. Magenta Albatross
13. Mauve Crocodile
14. Melon Dingo - Quentisan - Village Edgedancer
15. Mint Heron
16. Onyx Flamingo - Squawk
17. Opal Lion - Villager
18. Oxblood Beagle - Jai - Village Willshaper
19. Pearl Chameleon
20. Plum Rhinoceros
21. Quartz Zebra
22. Saffron Iguana - Emalia - Village Lightweaver
23. Sage Kangaroo
24. Salmon Meerkat - Village Bondsmith
25. Sapphire Elephant
26. Scarlet Octopus - Village Edgedancer
27. Sunburst Toucan - Vanna
28. Taupe Gecko - Villager
29. Turquoise Gorilla - Village Dustbringer
30. Violet Axolotl

 

[Onyx Flamingo]

Squawk wasn't surprised when the calls of "murder" rung out in the morning air. After all this was the 4th morning in a row for her to be awakened by such. That is if you could call what she did last night "sleep". What did surprise her was that it was penguin who was murdered! It was just hours ago that Squawk was talking to Peng(Penguin) and he said he still had similar suspicions as he did yesterday. For him to be alive one minute and gone upon waking no more than an hour later seemed cruel to Squawk.

But why did they target Peng? Are they trying to go for participating villagers who aren't at the top of the town's suspicion list? Is it because Peng accused @Magenta Albatross the other day? These thoughts and others were racing tthrough her head as she made it to the well.

"I'm nearly the First one here, I see" Squack squawked as she perched on the rim of the well to look down in the well. Indeed it was Peng with arrows sprouting from his chest.

By Ashs name this was unpleasant business to see so many friends and acquaintances murdered, all the while thinking that she was going to be next.

Today we need a grand council of our towns remaining minds, we need to have discussions with evidence presented, and open minds to view it all. Squawk decided the best way to do this was to pester each villager one by one for thoughts earlier rather than later in the day. But first she saw a cremling that looked like it might make a great breakfast. She waddled towards it.

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

The elims killed Penguin. Not too surprising, but not good for us either.

Doing a bit of meta-reasoning, with 30 people in the game I expect 5 elims. Maybe 6 if most of them are vanillas, but I think it's more likely that they have 5 with vote manipulation.

Another thing I'm noticing is that we're not doing so well in the activity department. Without names it's hard to tell who's a habitual less-active and who isn't, which makes this tougher.

[Violet Axolotl]

13 minutes ago, Fuchsia Ostrich said:

Another thing I'm noticing is that we're not doing so well in the activity department. Without names it's hard to tell who's a habitual less-active and who isn't, which makes this tougher.

Names should make little difference.  The point of anonymous accounts is that there are no preconceived notions of activity or past game usefulness.  It's a blank slate for everyone.  And I find it refreshing.

As for activity, we can help that along by voting early in the cycle.  Even if it has little to back it up.  I'll start.  My new voting system has revealed to me that there is a 87% chance that Weasel is an elim.  I'm not going to explain why as that would contaminate following cycles information.  This is how I will be doing all my votes so don't expect anything more. 

[Ivory Dragonfly]

Okay, in case anyone missed this: PMs are open!! While I feel Beagle would be disappointed that this didn’t happen sooner, it’s a great chance to tie up some loose ends in existing PMs. 

Emerald Falcon, I see you note one or two of my posts as being off. Can you please tell me which ones? I would like to give you my thoughts behind them, but I cannot if I don’t know which ones they are. 

Our Elims this game are good at blending into the crowd, so we’ll need some good lynch discussion to draw them out. So I’ll start it off with a vote on Indigo Weasel. They’ve been trying, and mostly succeeding, to escape public scrutiny. But the commentary they have offered looks suspicious. He voted Swan for suspecting Flamingo, after he had already suspected Flamingo himself. Then, he goes on to express suspicions of Beagle and Flamingo’s PM group anyway, all while staying on the activity fringe. 

And, ninja’d (somewhat) by Axolotl. Oh well. I’d really appreciate an explanation of this voting system, @Violet Axolotl.

[Amethyst Scorpion]

Hmm, odd, two votes out of the gate on Weasel?  Doesn't mean I feel good or bad about Weasel directly, but that's exceptionally odd.  That said, if Axolotl and Dragonfly were both Elims, they'd probably have avoided that mistake (though I've certainly missed things in an Elim doc before and gone ahead with something, or even intentionally posted without reading what my teammates were saying to make sure I didn't appear to be working with them).  Dragonfly, I've been worried by your voting habits, the way you've presented suspicions, and yes, your activity level somewhat, though I would never lynch someone for being too active. I do think it's highly likely that at least one Elim is among our more active players, though, possibly as many as 3 or 4, and right now I'm thinking you may be 1.

[Ivory Dragonfly]

Alright, I suppose this was kind of long overdue. I’ve led or participated in bandwagons on 3 villagers, so I was kind of expecting to get accused ever since I led the Tuatara lynch. So, going over Scorpion’s points:

Voting patterns: My voting is driven mainly by the assumption that I won’t get home from school/ track in time before rollover. So, any weekday vote I make has to be done 12 hours in advance. Which is highly inconvenient, but also not something that I can avoid. This explains my vote on Heron, and to some extent my vote on Meerkat. The other reason I moved my vote from Ostrich to Meerkat was that I saw that Ostrich wasn’t getting lynched, so I wanted my vote to count for something. Flamingo and Albatross were bad choices, I had a bad gut read on Meerkat, so I took a chance. Didn’t work out, of course, but nothing I could do about that. 

The Dingo vote was due to me being very confused D1, having been essentially dropped into the middle of an SE game. I was slightly intimidated, and definitely naïve with my opinions, so my vote swapped around a lot as I changed my stance on things. It settled on Dingo for the reasons I outlined when I gave my vote. 

I tunneled on Tuatara, I’ll admit, but none of the other lynch candidates were better. The only other one in that group I might have lynched would have been Vulture, but I have a slight village read on her. Tuatara seemed the most evil of the bunch, so my vote was on him. I never actually meant to lynch him, my initial vote being more of a poke vote than anything else, but after his posts did nothing to really clear him, I began suspecting him more and more. 

The Way You’ve Presented Your Suspicions: This line manages to be both ominous-sounding and vague simultaneously. I can’t really offer a defense, as I’m not entirely sure what the accusation is, but the way I look for suspicious activity is by picking a few people and reading back through their earlier comments to see if anything jumps out at me as suspect. If my writing comes off as stream of consciousness because of this, that’s because it is most of the time. (Though I do try to give some general structure to my really long posts).

Activity Level: I don’t see this as a bad thing. I really don’t see it as evidence against me, either. If everyone participated more, I think highly active players like me wouldn’t be as noticeable.

Simultaneous Voting on Weasel: I was in the middle of writing up my suspicions of Weasel when Axolotl posted. While I understand that it looks fishy, it was pure coincidence. If it helps you feel any better, I don’t trust Axolotl at all, as I’ve said previously. So coming to the same conclusion on something when we’ve been sparring for so long would not be a good strategy if we were both Elims. And Axolotl’s “voting system” radiates suspicion to me. My vote stays on Weasel for now, but I’ll look at some other players to see if a better candidate pops out at me. We have lots of time as a village to discuss this lynch; let’s use it.

 

[Pearl Chameleon]

I had two main players that I was interested in lynching today, and they're Weasel and Toucan.

Referring back to my post from night 2:

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Swan: I'm going to put my vote on Flamingo. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like Beagle and Albatross are trying to switch the lynch off of Flamingo, and taking advantage of a fairly minor statement to do so. While I am definitely suspicious of Axolotl, I think that it is a legitimate question to ask why someone is emphasizing a tie for second place in the lynch rather than the current leader. I read that vote as a sort of poke vote, since it specifically asked for an explanation. I would rather lynch Taupe for not giving us the analysis they promised, but nobody else seems willing to buy that and if Flamingo flips elim this will give us a good place to go next.

 

Weasel: Well they trying not to lynch person whom they think that probably villager... What reasons you have to not trust them more than to anyone else in this game? If I remember right it's not the first time when you stating that counteracting to them(or atleast counteracting to Beagle). If you think that Beagle or Albatross is elim why not lynch them then you would know that Flamingo is probably also elim... I absolutely don't understand what you trying to achieve. Swan.

Chameleon (me): I'm slightly leaning elim for @Indigo Weasel because of this post. Particularly the last part where Weasel emphasizes how they don't understand Swan's reasoning. I can understand the general point of view that Weasel is trying to convey. I can also understand Swan's reasoning for voting on Flamingo. It's not as out there as Weasel implies. Given the following bandwagon, I wonder if Weasel was part of a larger elim plan to get a helpful villager lynched. And as far as I can tell, this is the first time Weasel expressed suspicion of Swan. It just seems so sudden.

Bolded names by me, because I still haven't worked out SE formatting.

Going back over Weasel's posts (from day 2 onwards because I'm tired and day 1 is chaotic anyways), I feel like they switch around their suspicions a lot. Which isn't suspicious in and of itself but... Something about it is coming off as not genuine. The reasons themselves are sound. But after a few posts, I feel like they're trying to maintain a pattern. Contributing but keeping themselves flexible enough so that they can switch votes without casting suspicious on themselves. So they can vote on an elim, if that vote catches on, they can switch their vote to a villager, etc. It's very convenient. This could just be a move by an innocent villager, but this is one of the best elim suspicions I've got at the moment. It was the post by Weasel that I've quoted above that really made me go back and look at their posts.

 

As for Toucan, they have consistently remained very neutral, not taking any hard stances. There was no one post of theirs that jumped out to me, but it was something that stood out as I read through the thread. They've been voting, but honestly, it would be pretty suspicious if they never did, so I'm reading that piece of information as NAI. It doesn't discount the fact that they've been hesitant to come out strongly for or against anyone. @Sunburst Toucan Would you be willing to give us some idea of which players you're leaning elim for and which you feel fairly confident are village? I know that SE games are full of uncertainty, but we can only find elims if we're willing to make some leaps of faith. If I've missed any strong reads you posted previously, please correct me.

 

Everyone please speak up if you manage to have the time to do so. I know I haven't posted a lot so I understand if it's not possible sometimes. I especially want those who disagree with the status quo to speak up. I don't agree with Scorpion's suspicions, but I appreciate their post. Two heads are only better than one when they don't have identical views.

I'll vote on Indigo Weasel for now... I really hope we just don't end up with a bandwagon the rest of the cycle.

In the interest of promoting discussion,I'll tag @Sage Kangaroo. I'm eager to read that promised analysis. Even a few thoughts would be appreciated, if you're able to share them.

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

So I take it that Weasel has been acting weaselly--how in character.

I'm actually going to make a soft defense of Toucan from Chamelion. Last cycle they made an accusation of Albatross for switching suspicions that sounded to me like it had logic behind it, so I'm reading slightly village on them.

I do think we have an elim among the very-actives, but it's not worth it to start lynching based on activity. The more lies they have to say, the higher chance we catch them doing it.

[Emerald Falcon]

Oh joy, another nascent bandwagon. I kid, somewhat, but still. I'd like to provide a case study here. (Not meaning to single anyone out, just providing an example of what can happen.)

Quote

 I feel like they switch around their suspicions a lot. Which isn't suspicious in and of itself but... Something about it is coming off as not genuine. The reasons themselves are sound. But after a few posts, I feel like they're trying to maintain a pattern. Contributing but keeping themselves flexible enough so that they can switch votes without casting suspicious on themselves. So they can vote on an elim, if that vote catches on, they can switch their vote to a villager, etc. It's very convenient. This could just be a move by an innocent villager, but this is one of the best elim suspicions I've got at the moment. It was the post by Weasel that I've quoted above that really made me go back and look at their posts.

Chameleon above said this. Seems logical, yes? Upon first glance, it makes sense, fits with your half-remembered thoughts on Weasel's actions. You, being a conscientious, methodical SE player () decide to go investigate for yourself, looking to see if the pattern described here fits with what you see. You realize there's not a lot to go off of, but the pattern seems to fit. From there, it seems logical to, if not accept the conclusion (that Weasel has been acting like an Elim) at least weight it as being more likely than you thought before. 

Where did you make a mistake? You went looking for a pattern. You saw a logical argument, and looked for examples that supported it. Now, later in the cycle when little more has come to light and you feel the need to place a vote, you feel justified in voting for Weasel, even if you can't quite remember why. You say you have a bad gut read, that they seem the most suspicious, you cast a vote and join the consensus. You just engaged in pretty serious confirmation bias, without ever intending it. (And this isn't even the worst example, since at least you're not engaging in bias over a gut read, which also happens.)

Does that mean that suspicion will be wrong? Hell if I know.  Weasel might well be an elim; heck it's even fairly plausible that they are, like I said, what Chameleon said made sense, and what do you know, when I went looking for that same pattern, I saw it.  Just think twice before adding another vote without seriously considering and investigating other options. Three is enough for now. Give them a chance to respond while we discuss what else we have available.  

Speaking of, Scorpion. It's almost 10:30 and I really need to sleep, so I can't really write out suspicions ATM, and Dragonfly already has a vote, so I'll poke another option. I don't have the time, or the right information to get the ball rolling myself, but discuss your options. Flamingo, Albatross and others have all been viewed as suspicious recently, go over the whys and why nots, the pros and cons of various lynches. Please. Don't just have another bandwagon.

(Also, if anyone would be willing to PM me to discuss suspicions one on one, or better yet explain to me the gist of current suspicions and why, important pieces of info that have come to light and things that have happened, etc, etc, that would be much appreciated, I'm still kind of feeling things out in this game and trying to get a handle on what's gong on.)

[Amber Vulture]

Hello, all. I apologize for my inactivity this previous night cycle. I’ve been incredibly busy for the past week, and the past few days especially, but I should be able to post with greatly increased regularity during this upcoming weekend. I’m writing this mainly to request that if I don’t post again within the next 24 hours, I’m tagged in some way so I’m reminded to. Hopefully, it will prove unnecessary  

[Mint Heron]

...I know that Vulture just posted saying she's been very busy, but I've just gone over her posts and, well, they don't look too good. They don't look too bad either, and at this point I'm going to be wary of null reads. In her first post, she speculates over the experience levels (and by extension the identities) of Kangaroo and Nolan (Dragonfly). She's making clear efforts to present herself as experienced and defended Chameleon on the basis of this experience. After Elyle (Swan)'s lynch, she said that she would have voted for Elyle had she been online and that Beagle was making a bad village play. Her sparse activity, at least, supports that statement. Her village Beagle read stayed consistent up until he died. She also claimed to have a strong village read on Kangaroo "since day one", but I don't remember seeing it.

The funny thing is, Vulture hasn't said much of substance beyond that. Sure she's making posts, but they don't actually say much in them. I get the struggles of trying to juggle SE and life at the same time (grad school life is hard), but it seems like she ought to have more to say than this. I don't have any read on her and by Day Five that's a little suspicious in itself.

Other thoughts: Practice safe PM use, people! Role reveals even over PMs can come to haunt you later. Even if you have no role, it helps the Sympathisers know who the people who do have roles are, and who to kill in the Night, and who to not, etcetera. So, if you're thinking about telling people your role: Cease and desist!

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

Wait, I just made a connection that I should have made much earlier. Flamingo pointed out that Penguin suspected Albatross before Penguin died, and Toucan also suspects Albatross. Before I hadn't realized that these were the same bird. I'm going to put a vote down on Albatross because the Penguin kill seems to have been in defense of them, and even before the kill they had done a suspicious vote move. If Albatross is lynched and does flip evil, I'm going to be heavily suspicious of Chamelion. Personally, I think the Weasel lynch is a decent choice, but I want to propose another option.

[Sunburst Toucan]

Just wanted to quickly mention I'll be rather busy today. I will try to have a post up within the first half of this day-cycle, but I can't guarantee it.

[Ivory Dragonfly]

I’m going to remove my vote from Indigo Weasel for now. Not because I suspect him any less, but because I want to broaden my view of the lynch a bit more. Other suspects exist, and I don’t want a bandwagon before we have some more discussion about other people. Unfortunately, I’m also pressed for time, so I’ll have to wait until this afternoon to get some analysis up. I’ll just say that my main suspicions other than Weasel are Axolotl and Kangaroo, somewhat. Hope lynch discussion develops, as usual, and I’ll be back around 6 PM EST.

[Sunburst Toucan]

Now the murderers had taken down the shardbearer. It seemed like they where getting bolder after almost a week had passed without any of them being caught. Vanna feared that things couldn't continue going like this for much longer. If the murderers wouldn't finish the job first, then a lack of water would do them in. Vanna had started stockpiling food, water, gems and other essentials. She still didn't want to run, but if the choice was between staying and dying or leaving, she'd leave.

Several villagers had been asking her about her conclusions about who was likely innocent, and who wasn't. She supposed this was fair enough as she'd spent the last few days  making notes. "There's only one that I trust without serious reservations right now, and that would be Zebra. He seems to be focused not just on his own investigation, but in helping others do theirs, which isn't something I expect a murderer to do. My instincts are telling me that Nolan (dragonfly) is innocent too, but I don't trust my instincts in this regard, and the fact that I haven't been able to find why I feel that way worries me. There are others I'm not really suspecting right now, but I wouldn't say I trust them either."

"Now, regarding my direct suspicions. I'm wary of Albatross right now. His small contribution during the meerkat lynch just looked strange, as he claimed suspicion of three people, and then voted on someone else entirely, saying that this was important for gathering information. Given that at that point the lynch of Meerkat seemed all but guaranteed, i don't see what kind of information could be gained from anyone else adding their votes."

"I'm also still waiting for @Sage Kangaroo to answer my question about his vote retractions during the early days. That could have had a very innocent reason, but until he shares his reasons I'm suspicious of him as well."

"Lastly, there's Axolotl with his new voting system. If that system gets results then I might trust him more, but right now it seems like he's just throwing up a smoke-screen to hide behind."

[Amethyst Scorpion]

@Emerald Falcon, can you at least explain why you voted for me? A poke vote doesn’t make sense considering I had already posted this cycle.

[Sage Kangaroo]

12 hours ago, Pearl Chameleon said:

In the interest of promoting discussion,I'll tag @Sage Kangaroo. I'm eager to read that promised analysis. Even a few thoughts would be appreciated, if you're able to share them.

Ok, I did read over all of Beagles posts, and was actually rather disappointed by the lack of things to go off of.  Beagle had a whole ton of posts at the beginning of the game, but in reality, most of those posts were very fluffy.  I did comment on that back when I thought Beagle was an Elim, and looking back, I have to agree with myself.  Part of the reason Beagle was such a huge influence was because of PMs, and because of how discussion revolved around them.  They didn't say a whole lot of really in-depth things;  they were just super active, referred to as super active, and had a bunch of people who trusted them for a while.  I didn't see a lot of their suspicions that would be in any way relevant at this point, and I'm not sure how much they really can effect the game at this point.  I'm starting to wonder if Gorilla killed Beagle just because they knew that he would end up being a huge discussion sink if he stayed alive;  People would continue debating his alignment, arguing over whether or not to lynch him, and end up not getting a lot done.

And yeah, that's pretty much all I got out of Beagle.  Honestly, I think that despite the lower post count, Dragonfly has actually been more active than Beagle, with deeper analysis and more actual contribution to the game.  I realized when looking over the game that I was attributing a lot of Dragonfly's arguments for Beagle to Beagle himself, rather than Dragonfly, and the same thing was happening with Onyx.  Anyway, I do really trust Dragonfly, which is why this bothered me;

12 hours ago, Amethyst Scorpion said:

Hmm, odd, two votes out of the gate on Weasel?  Doesn't mean I feel good or bad about Weasel directly, but that's exceptionally odd.  That said, if Axolotl and Dragonfly were both Elims, they'd probably have avoided that mistake (though I've certainly missed things in an Elim doc before and gone ahead with something, or even intentionally posted without reading what my teammates were saying to make sure I didn't appear to be working with them).  Dragonfly, I've been worried by your voting habits, the way you've presented suspicions, and yes, your activity level somewhat, though I would never lynch someone for being too active. I do think it's highly likely that at least one Elim is among our more active players, though, possibly as many as 3 or 4, and right now I'm thinking you may be 1.

No.  Scorpion.  I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure there's no way that Ivory is an Elim, between their activity, the tone of their posts, and their actions.  Their voting habits might seem a bit off, but honestly, we haven't killed a single Elim yet.  So, at this point, pretty much all of us have iffy voting patterns.

Another thing I noticed when I was looking over the game is that several people have actively voiced suspicions of you, especially towards the beginning of the game, and that you didn't really respond to most of them;  Instead, they sort of just slid off.  Also, you've kind of been hiding in the shadows, and done some pretty suspicious things yourself.

15 hours ago, Violet Axolotl said:

As for activity, we can help that along by voting early in the cycle.  Even if it has little to back it up.  I'll start.  My new voting system has revealed to me that there is a 87% chance that Weasel is an elim.  I'm not going to explain why as that would contaminate following cycles information.  This is how I will be doing all my votes so don't expect anything more. 

Yeah this is really odd.  What the heck?  I'm really confused by this.  Also, not super happy with it.

8 hours ago, Fuchsia Ostrich said:

Wait, I just made a connection that I should have made much earlier. Flamingo pointed out that Penguin suspected Albatross before Penguin died, and Toucan also suspects Albatross. Before I hadn't realized that these were the same bird. I'm going to put a vote down on Albatross because the Penguin kill seems to have been in defense of them, and even before the kill they had done a suspicious vote move. If Albatross is lynched and does flip evil, I'm going to be heavily suspicious of Chamelion. Personally, I think the Weasel lynch is a decent choice, but I want to propose another option.

15 hours ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

But why did they target Peng? Are they trying to go for participating villagers who aren't at the top of the town's suspicion list? Is it because Peng accused @Magenta Albatross the other day? These thoughts and others were racing tthrough her head as she made it to the well.

This is really interesting.  I'm not super suspicious of Albatross just as a whole, but it is very interesting that Penguin died right after voicing some pretty decent suspicions of Albatross.  I could see an Albatross lynch.  However, it seems kind of odd that Elims would make that kind of mistake.

7 minutes ago, Sunburst Toucan said:

"Lastly, there's Axolotl with his new voting system. If that system gets results then I might trust him more, but right now it seems like he's just throwing up a smoke-screen to hide behind."

Kind of have to agree, actually.  I'd be interested to see what happens with the Weasel lynch, just to get more info out of Axolotl.  

7 minutes ago, Sunburst Toucan said:

"I'm also still waiting for @Sage Kangaroo to answer my question about his vote retractions during the early days. That could have had a very innocent reason, but until he shares his reasons I'm suspicious of him as well."

I took my vote off of Gecko because I didn't feel like leaving it on, and I was starting to realize that their actions weren't really that Elim-y.  Later, Gecko actually commented on the fact that I had just stopped talking about them, and that it seemed rather odd, and I explained then that I had realized that it was really just their play style that had made me feel odd.  Also, I feel like an Elim probably wouldn't have acted the way they had, early on, although it could have been a cover.  Clearly it wasn't, but at the time I wondered if it could have been an IKYK.

As for taking it off of Beagle...  I didn't want to feel like I was voting for someone just because they were active, and I wanted to get as far away from that as possible.  So I took my vote off of Beagle.  Voting on someone just because they're active is just against what I stand for, and I didn't like being accused of it.

As far as the Weasel lynch goes, I think Weasel could be an Elim.  I don't honestly have enough of a read on them to adamantly say one way or the other, but I could probably see them being an Elim.  The sudden jump on them early in the cycle was kinda odd, though.

The people I trust most at this point are probably Ivory, Toucan, and @Quartz Zebra, who I'd like to hear more from.  I actually have a village lean on Vulture as well, but I'm not sure.  Everyone else is basically either suspect or neutral at this point.  The reason I've put a vote on Scorpion is because I've A; got a bad gut read on them and B; their vote on Ivory feels way off and C; I agree with the other suspicions voiced of them.  I would be open to another lynch, though, if I see a better option.

There are probably more things for me to say, but I'm running low on time.  I will say that I'd appreciate being PM'd;  I don't like making PMs myself, but I always enjoy being in them.  Plus, it's a very good idea for us to make use of the time we have with them open.

[Mauve Crocodile]

9 hours ago, Fuchsia Ostrich said:

Wait, I just made a connection that I should have made much earlier. Flamingo pointed out that Penguin suspected Albatross before Penguin died, and Toucan also suspects Albatross. Before I hadn't realized that these were the same bird. I'm going to put a vote down on Albatross because the Penguin kill seems to have been in defense of them, and even before the kill they had done a suspicious vote move. If Albatross is lynched and does flip evil, I'm going to be heavily suspicious of Chamelion. Personally, I think the Weasel lynch is a decent choice, but I want to propose another option.

 

42 minutes ago, Sage Kangaroo said:

This is really interesting.  I'm not super suspicious of Albatross just as a whole, but it is very interesting that Penguin died right after voicing some pretty decent suspicions of Albatross.  I could see an Albatross lynch.  However, it seems kind of odd that Elims would make that kind of mistake.

I agree that it would be slightly odd for any elim to make that mistake, but beyond that I would assume that the elims would do that specifically to throw suspicion onto someone, and make them stand out. But this quickly turns into an IKYK, so I'm not going to mess with it too much. I think that we should keep an eye on Albatross, but not focus too much on them.

Weasel lynch: I'm not against it, not overly for it. Weasel has been a fairly decent player, and has provided some half decent reads, but he has a few posts that stand out to me:
 

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Yes, Dustbringer kill this nasty elim! Also I absolutely don't understand why someone can be suspicious of this nice, honorable weasel.

This post reads as off to me, but I can't quite tell why it does. The wording of "Also I absolutely don't understand why someone can be suspicious of this nice, honorable weasel." seems to be just a little too much, and throws me off. Slight elim read.

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Okay, people, I'm not lurked. I'm just was reallyyy busy. I don't know what else to say... I see people already decided who is most suspicious... so... Meerkat?

This one reads that Weasel is falling behind in the thread, and just kinda wants to appear active. This could be filling the activity requirement of the game, or it could be an elim trying to appear active to try and avoid suspicion. Slight Elim read form this.

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Oh Gods! You guys posting too much! It's good but I can't keep with all that... ahh...

Can someone, very generous, give me short explanation what is going on who is suspicious and reasons why this someone is suspicious?

Cause I doubt that I can push myself to read this all... I know it's only my problem that I very very lazy...

This one reads to me lack Weasel isn't in a doc, as he should be able to just read through the doc, and ask his elim compatriots about this, while still being an active participant in the game. So this post makes me lean slightly village on him.

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Hmm... Nope. I'm just like to stay silent on night cycles because I'm lazy. And wrote my previous post because for my inactivity on previous night turn GMs send me warning. But you can create some insane tinfoils I would like to see them.

This one still annoys me, as I think that players should try to be active whenever they can, especially if they are busy (see above) so they should spend as much time in thread as possible. I get no read from this post, but it decreases my hesitance to lynch him.

 

Overall I think that Weasel is a bit suspicious, and the player that we (currently) have the most to go off of. If I had to chose between lynching an active and a semi-active like Weasel then I'd have to pick Weasel.
I'll keep looking for any other people that seem suspicious, and if someone makes a good case then I'll take my vote off, but for now it seems like our best choice.

[Quartz Zebra]

I was PM'ed after PM's were opened, and asked about Axolotl and Weasel. I typed out an extended response analysing both of them, then realised that while I've mentioned my thoughts very briefly, I probably should share them in the thread and encourage others to do the same. Also, this helps let people know that I'm not dead, especially since my next post might take a while - I'm trying to do a reread of the game so far and see if I can find any more information with the benefit of hindsight.

By the way - Orlok/Impartial mod - I'm assuming since I typed it it's OK for me to repost the analysis even though it was originally in a PM - please correct me if I'm wrong.

---

Axolotl - The old Axolotl said some things that were kind of suspicious, but everything to do with the new Axolotl seems fairly NAI to me (which could mean they're a good Elim or just that the old Axolotl had a strange playstyle that seemed suspicious to both of us.) If anything, the 'new voting system' post seems like it would be suicide for an actual Eliminator to post - there are so many easier ways to justify voting on someone that won't draw attention - that I can't really see an actual Eliminator doing it. But then, the fact that I (and presumably other players) can't see an Eliminator doing it might mean they do it for exactly that reason, but then you start heading into IKYK territory, which makes it impossible to decide anything at all. So, generally - either they're village, or they're a very gutsy Eliminator that deliberately drew attention to themself.

EDIT: I type all this out, and can't be bothered changing it now, but the Ostrich - Axolotl dialogue at the end of last cycle seemed incredibly weird to me, looking over it now. Ostrich chose fairly weak reasons for lynching Axolotl - eventually, someone has to start a bandwagon with the vote manips, otherwise we wouldn't get anywhere - and then immediately drops the line the moment Axolotl defends themself. That could be a villager changing their mind, but it feels more like a question from the same team designed more to make Axolotl seem less suspicious than anything else. I'm hoping to see more of the new Ostrich before I judge - it seems unfair to lynch them before they get a chance to say something - but I'll be keeping a close eye on how both of them act - particularly around each other, in the reread and going into the future.

Weasel - I found this post to be suspicious the first time I read it, but when I went back and looked at all of their posts, it almost seemed to be more in keeping with their general playstyle, and I ended up coming to a similar problem as I did with Axolotl - if they were an Elim, I'd think they wouldn't post a line like that, as it draws too much attention. And unlike Axolotl, I really don't see Weasel as being sneaky enough to try and double bluff that. So, my read on them is that they're a fairly chaotic villager, but a villager nonetheless.

Of the two, I would almost certainly lynch Axolotl - it also gives us information on Ostrich if they're evil, which is nice, but also because I can't really buy the idea that Weasel's an Eliminator.

[Mint Heron]

1 hour ago, Mauve Crocodile said:

I agree that it would be slightly odd for any elim to make that mistake, but beyond that I would assume that the elims would do that specifically to throw suspicion onto someone, and make them stand out. But this quickly turns into an IKYK, so I'm not going to mess with it too much. I think that we should keep an eye on Albatross, but not focus too much on them.

I'm not too familiar with the metagame anymore, but from QF29 it looks like players don't analyse evil kills. If so, it would be a viable strategy for the Sympathisers to kill anyone who is too suspicious of them, with the expectation that nobody will look at the kills much.

'Course, I could be completely wrong about how things are.  Aside from QF29 I haven't been here for a long time.

[Amber Vulture]

20 hours ago, Violet Axolotl said:

As for activity, we can help that along by voting early in the cycle.  Even if it has little to back it up.  I'll start.  My new voting system has revealed to me that there is a 87% chance that Weasel is an elim.  I'm not going to explain why as that would contaminate following cycles information.  This is how I will be doing all my votes so don't expect anything more. 

2

I'm very, very hesitant to trust this, as secret "voting systems" basically eliminate the chance for the village to get the information they need from a lynch. If Axolotl is going to vote in this way and only this way for the remainder of the game, then they will be of minimal use to the village, and I'll be much less likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, lynching them, even if they flipped village, would cost us less than lynching a different villager, and they could very well be an eliminator relying on a nonstandard playstyle to disrupt reads.

17 hours ago, Amethyst Scorpion said:

Hmm, odd, two votes out of the gate on Weasel?  Doesn't mean I feel good or bad about Weasel directly, but that's exceptionally odd.  That said, if Axolotl and Dragonfly were both Elims, they'd probably have avoided that mistake (though I've certainly missed things in an Elim doc before and gone ahead with something, or even intentionally posted without reading what my teammates were saying to make sure I didn't appear to be working with them).  Dragonfly, I've been worried by your voting habits, the way you've presented suspicions, and yes, your activity level somewhat, though I would never lynch someone for being too active. I do think it's highly likely that at least one Elim is among our more active players, though, possibly as many as 3 or 4, and right now I'm thinking you may be 1.

It's easy to say you've been worried by someone's voting habits, but what specifically about them has been concerning? Dragonfly is one of my more village reads right now, so I'd be interested in knowing

13 hours ago, Mint Heron said:

...I know that Vulture just posted saying she's been very busy, but I've just gone over her posts and, well, they don't look too good. They don't look too bad either, and at this point I'm going to be wary of null reads. 

1

What you're essentially saying is that you went over my posts looking for suspicious stuff, didn't find any, and you're voting on me anyways  

I mean, that's fine. It's actually something I consider NAI, since villagers will often make more of these types of arguments than eliminators, who don't really care who's lynched and just want a village player to die.

13 hours ago, Mint Heron said:

In her first post, she speculates over the experience levels (and by extension the identities) of Kangaroo and Nolan (Dragonfly). She's making clear efforts to present herself as experienced and defended Chameleon on the basis of this experience. After Elyle (Swan)'s lynch, she said that she would have voted for Elyle had she been online and that Beagle was making a bad village play. Her sparse activity, at least, supports that statement.

Her village Beagle read stayed consistent up until he died. She also claimed to have a strong village read on Kangaroo "since day one", but I don't remember seeing it.

 

Ok, this is reading as suspicious to me. You just referenced my statement that Kangaroo seemed to me to be an "experienced villager", and then you say you didn't see any comments on Kangaroo's alignment. Also, I'm not sure what you mean that I've made efforts to show that I'm experienced, because I don't believe I've done so in an irrelevant way. With Chameleon especially I wasn't saying that people should listen to me because I'm experienced, I was saying I've done things similar to making a vote count in an effort to go over what has happened, so I know it's something that can be a village course of action. 

13 hours ago, Mint Heron said:

The funny thing is, Vulture hasn't said much of substance beyond that. Sure she's making posts, but they don't actually say much in them. I get the struggles of trying to juggle SE and life at the same time (grad school life is hard), but it seems like she ought to have more to say than this. I don't have any read on her and by Day Five that's a little suspicious in itself.

1

You say that I'm a null read, and given the fact that you're calling out me specifically and not another player leads me to believe that means I'm the most suspicious player alive now, in your opinion. If that's the case, that means you have at least a village lean on every other player in the game. That seems rather odd, to me. If I'm wrong, and there are other NAI players, I'd encourage you to name them. I'd also like to know why you're choosing to vote for me rather than them, if you don't mind. I'm always suspicious when someone's best argument for a lynch is a null read, since you're voting on someone you're self-professedly not suspicious of.

 

[Onyx Flamingo]

When Squawk finsished with her breakfast and took a nap  she was surprised to see that the town was already deep in discussion about multiple candidates just as she hoped! She still didnt see @Sapphire Elephant, @Indigo Weasel , @Plum Rhinoceros, and a few others at this meeting but it seemed like an improvement in participation for sure.

She tried to get caught up on everyone's current arguments before she contributed and hoped to see a vote  from @Amber Vulture and  @Quartz Zebra.

"Ok as far as the vote counts go right now this is what I have scratched out as the current vote count correct me if I am wrong" As Squawk finished drawing in the dirt:

Weasel(3): Axolotl, Dragonfly, Chameleon, Crocodile

Dragonfly(1): Scorpion

Scorpion(2) Falcon, Kangaroo

Vulture(1): Heron

Albatross(2): Ostrich, Toucan

"We are way more spread out which will hopefully mean we get a better discussion as we try to convince each other of a most likely elim" Squawk honked nasally. "As for who I am voting for I am in a bit of a toss up. I would like to vote for axolotl for the reasons I stated last night but seeing how he isn't even on the board yet.... I'm not sure If I want to diversify that much. Weasel I'm personally leaning towards neutral on him but maybe I am a bit biased because it was him changing his vote when I was about to be lynched that made it so i was saved so that could be clouding my judgement."

"I've already said that if Nolan (Dragonfly) is an elim then I guess I'm dead because I trust him fully. Vulture I would like to hear some more from, and I'm not sure about Albatross but I am suspicious of Scorpion. Most of scorpions explanations on why he votes for someone are so short and all of his posts don't contain a lot of content, and usually just point out basic things just enough to make a point of why he is voting for them but doesn't point out why that reason applies to them being an elim. I will place a vote in a bit but I still need to eat lunch and think about this more :/

[Amber Vulture]

I'm going to go through all of Ostrich's posts, because I'm rather suspicious of them.

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I'll place a vote on Salmon Meerkat because they have two animals in their name.

Right off the bat, Ostrich begins by throwing a poke vote. Not really suspicious, considering it's still the first day

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Excuse me @Onyx Flamingo, but we are chicken and should be reference to as such during rp. This is Roshar, a civilized land with only chicken.

NAI

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I'm pretty sure that this takes place during one of the earlier Desolations, at minimum 4500 years before Jasnah Kholin. Unless your character has somehow traveled in time with knowledge of the future, he should have never heard of Jasnah.

Excuse you, but I am not pink. Fuchsia is a noble color. That said, I will remove my vote from you as requested Salmon Meerkat

 

Ostrich withdraws the poke vote. Also NAI

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I agree with the Scorpion. Let us have RNGebus decide who dies. If Axolotl's list is correct, than Weasel

This is a very bad thing. RNGs are anathema to analyzable information

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Having finally finished catching up, Axolotl is suspicious, though my notes aren't the best

Note that there was never any justification given, that I'm aware of

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axolotl if you truly wish to stitch with a pinch hitter

 

Ostrich withdrew their vote. I'm not of the belief that this is alignment indicative, although please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong

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I ended up removing my vote on axolotl. Please correct the vote tally. Unless a vote manipulator put it back

NAI

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Oh yeah, definitely not a pinch hitter 

I'm far from the best one to give a summary so I summon @Oxblood Beagle and @Ivory Dragonfly to maybe give some

 

NAI

Quote

 

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...I mean, why? What information could we possibly glean from an RNG death? Wouldn't that reduce the ability for conversation about who to lynch, thereby spreading more information about players stances on other players? Or is this a quick way to vote on Weasel without having to find a genuine reason?

 

It was because I was bored and felt like sticking a vote out there. 

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Again, no explanation why, hopping on a bandwagon (along with Albatross, who I've already discussed my suspicion of, and Beagle, who plenty of other people seem to be suspicious of, so...) - could you elaborate on why you found them suspicious? Do you have any other thoughts on any of the other players?

 

It was mainly a gut read that I had gotten. I do have thoughts, but they're on my computer which I won't have access to for a couple of hours. I'll post them then

 

The notes that Ostrich mentioned failed to ever materialize.

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This is Fuchsia Ostrich 2.0 reporting in. I regret to inform you of the inactivity death of Fuchsia Ostrich 1.0 but I am glad to join in the party. Looking over the game state we don't appear to be doing so well. I don't know exactly who Ostrich 1.0 is, but I have an assortment of "what do you think about the game?" PMs so I think it may have been Straw. I have initial village reads on Ivory Dragonfly from the thread and maybe just a bit of one on Chartreuse Penguin from PMs, but it's not much and based on them appearing to be focused more on enjoyment than strategy. When I have more time I'll attempt some in-depth analysis.

1

Had forgotten about this until I got to it when going over the thread. Whoops  

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@Violet Axolotl I'm not getting that impression from Heron's post. I've seen players in past games propose to be scrutinized or even scanned in order to get cleared. While an elim could certainly bluff it, I haven't seen any contribution crusade comments this cycle, and so they would have a better chance of going unsuspected had they just feigned inactivity. An elim would have no motivation to post something possibly suspicious when they had not been suspected at all, but a villager would want to encourage contribution and analysis. While it's hardly concrete evidence, I'm going to put my vote on Axolotl for attempting to start a bandwagon.

@everyone Has Axolotl been this aggressive earlier this game?

Edit: it's night, isn't it? Well then, discount my vote. 

2

I disagree that an eliminator has no reason to post. A village stumbling in the dark will still most likely catch the elims unless the elims manipulate them. I also find it interesting that your argument that eliminators would remain inactive as followed directly by you voting for an active person

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OK then Axolotl, suspicion lifted. We conveyed the same thought but in different ways.

For me it's about the same being lynched village and lynched elim. For both of them I'm concerned that it'll cause my side to lose and I try my best to swing the lynch away from me.

I'm really daunted by the backlog: 20+ pages of posts, many of them done by the dead. I don't think I'm going to be able to get through those, no matter how long I have for analysis. But I will start gathering reads from now on.

3

NAI, I'd say

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The elims killed Penguin. Not too surprising, but not good for us either.

Doing a bit of meta-reasoning, with 30 people in the game I expect 5 elims. Maybe 6 if most of them are vanillas, but I think it's more likely that they have 5 with vote manipulation.

Another thing I'm noticing is that we're not doing so well in the activity department. Without names it's hard to tell who's a habitual less-active and who isn't, which makes this tougher.

3

Hm. I'm not sure that I'd expect 5, but it seems close enough

I agree that activity could be better, but I don't think it's *bad* as it is

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So I take it that Weasel has been acting weaselly--how in character.

I'm actually going to make a soft defense of Toucan from Chamelion. Last cycle they made an accusation of Albatross for switching suspicions that sounded to me like it had logic behind it, so I'm reading slightly village on them.

I do think we have an elim among the very-actives, but it's not worth it to start lynching based on activity. The more lies they have to say, the higher chance we catch them doing it.

2

Hm. Not entirely sure about that "soft defense", especially given their lack of context/quotes. I'm not sure what it was Chameleon did that they were referencing, and I really wish they had cited the post accusing Albatross

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Wait, I just made a connection that I should have made much earlier. Flamingo pointed out that Penguin suspected Albatross before Penguin died, and Toucan also suspects Albatross. Before I hadn't realized that these were the same bird. I'm going to put a vote down on Albatross because the Penguin kill seems to have been in defense of them, and even before the kill they had done a suspicious vote move. If Albatross is lynched and does flip evil, I'm going to be heavily suspicious of Chamelion. Personally, I think the Weasel lynch is a decent choice, but I want to propose another option.

 

Saying you think another lynch is likely to be good and then proposing an opposing lynch is an interesting move. On one hand, it generates conversation. On the other hand, if Chameleon flips elim it may let Ostrich claim that they suspected a teammate while still doing their best to deflect attention

All in all, Ostrich was less suspicious than I was expecting based on my gut read. That said, they're still up there as one of the people I'm suspicious of. There was little to indicate that they were village, and some to indicate that they weren't. I'm not sure it's enough to vote on, however, especially this late in the game

[Sapphire Elephant]

Ok - this is a blessing, we've got a round of PMs back. Our Skybreaker should have 4 scans now, and should be able to form a trust group. Here's hoping that most of those scans are still alive, and that at least one is an Elim.

I want to be more active than I have hitherto been, and so I'm going to start doing larger analysis posts on each of the lynch targets throughout the day (hopefully at least twice). However, I lack the time to do so at the moment. So, until I get to the place where I can do that later today, I'll share my current (brief!) thoughts on Weasel and Albatross, without going through and doing a targeted reread.

Weasel is feeling off to me for some reason. I'd probably be ok with lynching them today (but I don't want to commit until after I've done my targeted reread). The list of their posts above has me leaning Elim on them, and the reluctance to talk during night turns is annoying.

Albatross, on the other hand, is a far more interesting situation. Penguin accused them yesterday, and was killed last night. On the one hand, there we go. Means, motive, and opportunity. As Mint Heron notes above, the village doesn't do nearly as much analysis on Elim kills as we used to (although I intend to change that today!) On the other, though...

Albatross has been widely acknowledged as the most likely of the early-game trust group to be an Elim (if there are any). They've accrued enough suspicion that they could have gotten lynched yesterday, at least before the lynchtrain coalesced around Meerkat. If the Elims wanted to short-circuit discussion and push an easy mislynch, Albatross would be a decent target to try and do so, and killing Penguin would push Albatross to the forefront of lynch candidates (as we see has happened).

From that perspective, I'm quite happy that we're still discussing a wide variety of targets for the lynch. I worry about lynching Albatross (but they would most likely be a good candidate for the Skybreaker to scan tonight - if you set up a code in-thread with your trust group, you can communicate your results without revealing yourself) because at this point I'm more than halfway convinced that it's a red herring, that the Elims are placing kills deliberately to push us in one direction or another.

Anyways, there's my initial thoughts without a targeted reread. Before the end of the cycle, I intend to do a targeted reread focusing on Weasel, Ostrich, and Albatross. I reserve the right to change my position, up to and including doing a complete 180, based on the results of that reread.