Long Game 43: Under the Banner of Adonalsium

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

Hmmm... rug merchants... no fee.

No fee?

Jiamo's ears perked up. "Blue, you say? Tempting indeed. My... friend, yes, you have yourself a deal." Jiamo extended his hand to the merchant. The man's eyes shone as he firmly shook Jiamo's hand. "Thank you, thank you so much, sir. I'll have the gloves to you as soon as possible. I only need the payment..." he looked at Jiamo expectantly. 

Jiamo patted down his cloak. No, not there. He check his trousers. No money purse there. Hints of panic began to seep in. Perhaps he had forgotten it? Revelation struck and he snapped his fingers. His headscarf! He unwrapped it and reached into one of its folds. He withdrew a thick wallet. Quality leather, three special compartments for holding any sort of currency the average worldhopper might require. He sifted through his spheres and pulled out eleven broams and a few other spheres that added up to the total. He dropped them in the merchant's awaiting hand.

"And for your offer at the tavern, I accept gladly." Better than reorganizing my closet all evening... he thought. He did that too often. "Yes, of course I will be there. Thank you." Jiamo gave a brief smile and entered the Labs.

[Magestar]

@Macen, @A Joe in the Bush, just pinging you because you had expressed interest in signing up but haven't officially done so yet.  Didn't want you to miss the start of the game if you ended up wanting to play.   

[MacThorstenson]

@Seonid I apologize, but some IRL things have come up and made me realize that I don't have the time to devote to playing this game. If you could, would you please remove my name from the player list?

[Jondesu]

11 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

@Seonid I apologize, but some IRL things have come up and made me realize that I don't have the time to devote to playing this game. If you could, would you please remove my name from the player list?

He'll probably just make you die first cycle at this point. 

[The Young Pyromancer]

NOOOO.  Don't leave! 

[The Young Pyromancer]

ONLY THREE HOURS LEFT!

Young Bard, I see you!  I am bored.  I must leave soon.  Got any final non-alignment indicative thoughts?

EDIT @Young Bard

Edited March 15, 2018 by TheYoungPyromancer

[DrakeMarshall]

I have no idea how this is going to play out but it should be fun 

[A Joe in the Bush]

4 hours ago, Magestar said:

@Macen, @A Joe in the Bush, just pinging you because you had expressed interest in signing up but haven't officially done so yet.  Didn't want you to miss the start of the game if you ended up wanting to play.   

Errrrrmmmmm. I don't know. . .  The problem is, it is finals for me right now. I really want to play, but i need to support the current "Don't sign up if you don't have time, and i do not have time until after this coming Monday. that is almost 5 days i would be borderline inactive. So i really, really, shouldn't play, which makes me really sad..

[MonsterMetroid]

51 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Errrrrmmmmm. I don't know. . .  The problem is, it is finals for me right now. I really want to play, but i need to support the current "Don't sign up if you don't have time, and i do not have time until after this coming Monday. that is almost 5 days i would be borderline inactive. So i really, really, shouldn't play, which makes me really sad..

:'( you will be missed joe

[Seonid]

LG43: Night Zero - Containment Breaches

Ninera ran through campus, breathing heavily, her oversized backpack jostling up and down her back as her gym bag bounced against her legs. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, checked her watch, and swore.

Nights, I’m late, she thought. Her dance coach had made practice run on for an extra half-hour again. Professor Sheran would understand, right?

Finally, just as her legs felt like they were going to melt into jelly, she reached the entrance to the Shard Lab. She slammed her hand into the biometric scanner, panting.

Nothing.

She pressed her hand into the scanner again.

Still nothing.

“I don’t have storming time for this,” she muttered. She dropped her gym bag and backpack to the floor. As she took out her phone to call the office, she leaned against the door.

It swung inwards.

Ninera yelped and flung out her arm catch herself. Then she held the door open with her foot to collect her things. Once she got everything -- gym bag, backpack, and all -- she closed the door behind her.

Cold white lights flooded the corridor. Ninera closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the first one she’d had since she’d left dance practice. She waited for the decontamination procedure to start, for the chamber to blast her with cold air, for the machinery to scan her for any significant sources of Investiture that might disrupt the experiments within, for the almost-but-not-quite-human voice to tell her that she was cleared.

Nothing happened.

Huh, that was weird. Ninera shrugged and passed through to the lab.

Dog-tired, sleep-deprived, with a mountain of homework waiting for her afterwards, the sight of it still brought a smile to her face. Rows of computers lined the walls, with cords stretching from them to every part of the room. An assortment of barometers, geiger counters, mass spectrometers, and more lay on some tables that had been set aside. And there, on table 31b, lay Sheran’s experimental setup, the one that Ninera had been chosen to help with.

It was an honor to be here, even as a lowly intern. How many undergrad students got to say that they were allowed into the Shardic Research Facility of Silverlight Polytechnic University? Only one, and that was Ninera Choi herself.

She spotted a bit of broken glass left on the counters, and her eye twitched. That would be Kyle’s experiment with Survival, then. Storming grad students thought they could be as messy as they wanted because they had a new janitor now, huh? Ninera got a broom and dustpan to sweep the glass up.

Nights afire, the glass was everywhere. It littered the floor in a three-meter radius, shining dully in the light. What had Kyle even broken to produce this much glass, several dozen windows?

Ninera glanced at his experiment and froze.

Survival’s containment cage was broken. Where there should have been an unbroken plane of specially-designed optically clear aluminum, plus a million other security measures, there was a large gaping hole instead.

And Survival itself...

Ninera prayed to the Iridescent Tones, hoping against all hope, and stuck her hand into the containment cage.

Nothing.

Survival was gone.

Ninera’s hands flew to her phone to call Professor Sheran. When the university police came, she let them take her away, and answered their questions without complaint.

By the time night fell, everybody on Silverlight knew it, broadcast in a flurry of texts, calls, and spanreed messages, in as many different languages as there were people. Survival was gone. Nobody knew where it was.

 

Sitting in two opposite corners of the Cosmere, two very different individuals smiled the same smile, one of plans made, chances calculated, and opportunities seized.

“Mission success,” said one.

“Why, I thought I’d never get another chance!” said the other.

--------------------

Welcome to LG43: Under the Banner of Adonalsium!

General announcements: The Shard of Survival has been released from containment by malefactors unknown, and is currently believed to be at large. Please report any suspiciously large concentrations of uncontained Investiture to your team leader. Remember, all personal storage of uncontained Investiture is strictly prohibited, and violation of this policy will be grounds for immediate termination from the Silverlight Shardic Research Facility.

In addition, the organizational goals of the 17th Shard have been streamlined and updated. Copies have been posted in all the break rooms in this facility. Please take the time to familiarize yourselves with the updated goals. Remember, at the 17th Shard, our goals are your goals!

(The 17th Shard win condition has been slightly altered. The new conditions are in the Rules post, and are reproduced here for your convenience:

17th Shard - With the dangerous machinations of the madman who once led you taken care of, you are free to study the power of the shards however you like. And if you keep their power to yourselves, who could blame you? It’s not everyday you get offered a chance at Shardic power. You win the game if all members of the Standard of Harmony and Adonalsium’s Chosen are killed.

 

Sudden Death Win Condition - If Hoid and Khrissala are killed and all 11 Shards are in containment, the 17th Shard wins the game.)

Finally, we are pleased to announce that Arraenae has been hired as the Assistant Vice President of Archival Operations of the Silverlight Research Facility. You should all have been given her contact information, and you should feel free to address any concerns you have with her. She will be primarily responsible for maintaining the historical record of this facility, but she has jurisdiction over operational matters as well. If you have any matters that you believe ought to be included in the long-term historical archive of this facility, please bring it to her attention.

(Arraenae has graciously offered to be the co-GM. She will be handling most of the writeups for the game. If you have any RP, death scenes, or just cool action sequences you might like to see in a writeup, let her know in the GM PM. No requesting game-related info in the writeups, please.)

As a final note, please remember that private communication channels in this facility are not permitted. If you would like to open up a private communication channel, please contact your team lead for permission.

(Remember - all PMs in the game are actions, and must be submitted to the GM. They will be created the following cycle, unless the action is roleblocked. Also, unless you have an action that permits you to create a PM, you cannot create a PM.)

Thank you for your time, and we hope you have a productive day at the Silverlight Shardic Research Facility!

The Night will end in:

 

Player List:

1. Young Bard - Jeral
2. Arinian - Unnamed Character 1
3. Eternum - Habrian
4. Fifth Scholar - Darrel
5. randuir - Met
6. Steeldancer - Steeldancer and Eobard Thawne
7. Straw - Straw
8. Jondesu - Quintus
9. Droughtbringer - Ralar
10. Devotary of Sponteneity - Reed
11. livinglegend - Unnamed Character 3
12. Orlok - Locke Tekiel
13. MonsterMetroid - Willie
14. Magestar - Moro
15. Hemalurgic_Headshot - Jiamo
16. Megasif - Mega
17. Sart - Sam Taswell
18. TheYoungPyromancer - Kelsier
19. _Stick_ - Stick
20. shanerockes - Philepe De Pedro Von Leiderhuch Johnson III
21. Drake Marshall - Everen
22. Elbereth - Elaria

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Seonid

[Young Bard]

Excellent. Well, let's start with a poke vote on... oh, it's a night cycle, isn't it? That's that idea gone, then.

Advice - As I understand it, everybody is currently on the 17th Shard team except for Hoid and Khriss. (Survival, as I understand it, is currently a Sharder, and will only have a new win con if they use their power too much? Even so, I'm not really that worried about a Survival win con - I imagine that would be fairly benign and neutral.)

Hoid and Khriss, unless one of them is *extraordinarily* unlucky, and targets the other, will both convert someone tonight, leaving 4 people who are a problem to the Shard. To preempt the discussion that I know is going to happen around a Day one lynch with only 4 Eliminators - I intend to vote tomorrow. Even though the odds are low of catching somebody, the act of expressing suspicion and voting is the best way to catch an Eliminator, and so we have much more to gain by treating the Day 1 lynch as a lynch rather than holding back, because otherwise, we'll never get the information we need to actually catch an Eliminator.

In terms of Young Pyromancer's suggestion of allowing the Shard's to be released... I'll freely admit that I'm two-minded on the matter - on the one hand, I think letting the Shards be released will cause a lot more problems down the road. On the other hand, I look at the actions that having charges gives you and I think "I want some of that", and I'm sure most other players do to. (I'm sure that was entirely Seonid's point - I'm pretty sure this whole thing was based off of the Tragedy of the Commons.) On the upside, tonight is the *one* night we can act and be assured of no interference from Hoid or Khriss - they only have one action this turn, and they'd be foolish not to try and convert tonight. As such, just for tonight, I'm going to advocate that we try and distribute charges in such a way that we can be sure the Shards won't be released. (Though we won't know until Seonid wakes up whether there's enough to go around.) This does require a little bit of openness from everyone about what Shard they'd like to borrow from, but I think that could help the Shard overall as well. In that spirit of openness, I'd like to humbly request taking a Charge from Cultivation, but if there are too many other players who want PM's I'll bow out (and then hope one of them PM's me ).

Gah. I *know* there's something I meant to talk about this night turn, but I can't remember. Never mind. I'll think about it and come back ranting and raving to the thread about it more than I already am.

[Megasif]

Due to time limitations, I won't be doing much game mechanics analysis etc. So a lot quick and snappy posts to show where I'm at. 

An excellent opening by Bard and although I agree we should lynch day 1, I have misgivings from the way he pitched it.

[Stick.]

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

(Survival, as I understand it, is currently a Sharder, and will only have a new win con if they use their power too much? Even so, I'm not really that worried about a Survival win con - I imagine that would be fairly benign and neutral.)

Yeah, their win con doesn't change until they overuse their abilities. If Survival currently is with a 17th Sharder, I'd would've liked them to put it back into containment this turn, as was required by the former win con. But now that it's changed...I guess they may keep it?

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

 To preempt the discussion that I know is going to happen around a Day one lynch with only 4 Eliminators - I intend to vote tomorrow. Even though the odds are low of catching somebody, the act of expressing suspicion and voting is the best way to catch an Eliminator, and so we have much more to gain by treating the Day 1 lynch as a lynch rather than holding back, because otherwise, we'll never get the information we need to actually catch an Eliminator.

^ Because we've started on a night turn, i imagine it'd be probably easier to have more than just gut reads for the lynch. We have plenty of time to develop suspicions (if only slight), comparatively.

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

In terms of Young Pyromancer's suggestion of allowing the Shard's to be released... I'll freely admit that I'm two-minded on the matter - on the one hand, I think letting the Shards be released will cause a lot more problems down the road. On the other hand, I look at the actions that having charges gives you and I think "I want some of that", and I'm sure most other players do to. (I'm sure that was entirely Seonid's point - I'm pretty sure this whole thing was based off of the Tragedy of the Commons.) On the upside, tonight is the *one* night we can act and be assured of no interference from Hoid or Khriss - they only have one action this turn, and they'd be foolish not to try and convert tonight. As such, just for tonight, I'm going to advocate that we try and distribute charges in such a way that we can be sure the Shards won't be released. (Though we won't know until Seonid wakes up whether there's enough to go around.) This does require a little bit of openness from everyone about what Shard they'd like to borrow from, but I think that could help the Shard overall as well. In that spirit of openness, I'd like to humbly request taking a Charge from Cultivation, but if there are too many other players who want PM's I'll bow out (and then hope one of them PM's me ).

(Emphasis mine)

Have we entered IKYK territory, here?  Hoid may try to release a Shard now.  Probably wouldn't work though, if we try what you're suggesting here.

Making sure the Shards stay in containment would be pretty neat, but since stealing investiture is the only action we can take tonight, our next actions would become perfectly predictable...

[DeTess]

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

Advice - As I understand it, everybody is currently on the 17th Shard team except for Hoid and Khriss. (Survival, as I understand it, is currently a Sharder, and will only have a new win con if they use their power too much? Even so, I'm not really that worried about a Survival win con - I imagine that would be fairly benign and neutral.)

What makes you think that? To meit seemed like there where some small teams of both the non-17th shard factions already in place. On a re-read I see nothing confirming this, but also nothing pointing to only Hoid and Khriss being in play for their respective factions.

1 hour ago, Young Bard said:

 As such, just for tonight, I'm going to advocate that we try and distribute charges in such a way that we can be sure the Shards won't be released. (Though we won't know until Seonid wakes up whether there's enough to go around.) This does require a little bit of openness from everyone about what Shard they'd like to borrow from, but I think that could help the Shard overall as well. In that spirit of openness, I'd like to humbly request taking a Charge from Cultivation, but if there are too many other players who want PM's I'll bow out (and then hope one of them PM's me ).

I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Knowing which people have taken from which shard is potentially very useful information, both for the village and the elims. I'm personally of the opinion that we should be working to contain information away from the elims, but I also understand that the downsides of this might be outweighed by having more village access to information.

If lots of people do decide to declare which investiture they are taking, I will do the same of course, as this is the kind of tactic that really needs an all-or-nothing approach. Either everyone shares so we get all the benefits, or no one does to deny the elims the benefit of knowing this info. If we go somewhere in between the village won't have enough information for analysis, while the elims will still be able to predict the actions of a  number of players.

I might have some more thoughts on the rules and mechanics later.

Lastly, I won't be online during the weekend (so most of Day 1 and the beginning of Night 1). After that it should be business as usual for me.

[Young Bard]

Heh. I get no responses for 2 hours, and then 3 in 5 minutes. OK, then.

10 minutes ago, Megasif said:

Due to time limitations, I won't be doing much game mechanics analysis etc. So a lot quick and snappy posts to show where I'm at. 

An excellent opening by Bard and although I agree we should lynch day 1, I have misgivings from the way he pitched it.

Sure. I wouldn't mind hearing a bit more about why, but I understand if you're busy. (Post seems slightly village to me, though in a conversion game that means a lot less than it normally does.)

14 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

^ Because we've started on a night turn, i imagine it'd be probably easier to have more than just gut reads for the lynch. We have plenty of time to develop suspicions (if only slight), comparatively.

True. Although, if I'm being perfectly honest, I'd probably still advocate for it even if it began on a Day Turn.

4 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Have we entered IKYK territory, here?  Hoid may try to release a Shard now.  Probably wouldn't work though, if we try what you're suggesting here.

Making sure the Shards stay in containment would be pretty neat, but since stealing investiture is the only action we can take tonight, our next actions would become perfectly predictable...

I... don't think we have, actually. In some ways, I hope Hoid/Khriss does try to release a Shard tonight - then, if we catch them tomorrow, we'll have eliminated an entire faction. I definitely wouldn't have been willing to take that risk as one of them.

10 minutes ago, randuir said:

What makes you think that? To meit seemed like there where some small teams of both the non-17th shard factions already in place. On a re-read I see nothing confirming this, but also nothing pointing to only Hoid and Khriss being in play for their respective factions.

...Huh. I'd kind of assumed that, perhaps because of my experience with LG29... Actually, I'm sure Seonid strongly implied it when he said the day would start on a night turn (Me from 10 minutes later: he did, here), but it would be good to be explicitly confirmed. Seonid, can you confirm that Hoid and Khriss are starting alone in their respective factions this turn?

15 minutes ago, randuir said:

I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Knowing which people have taken from which shard is potentially very useful information, both for the village and the elims. I'm personally of the opinion that we should be working to contain information away from the elims, but I also understand that the downsides of this might be outweighed by having more village access to information.

If lots of people do decide to declare which investiture they are taking, I will do the same of course, as this is the kind of tactic that really needs an all-or-nothing approach. Either everyone shares so we get all the benefits, or no one does to deny the elims the benefit of knowing this info. If we go somewhere in between the village won't have enough information for analysis, while the elims will still be able to predict the actions of a  number of players.

I might have some more thoughts on the rules and mechanics later.

This is true, however, I'd say that information generally helps the Village more than it helps the Eliminators. A one-time charge isn't especially going to be an important factor in conversions, and as I said, I doubt they'd choose to steal a Charge instead of convert someone tonight. (The same can't be said tomorrow, of course - I'm hoping someone else will have come up with a smarter solution by then. ) But for tonight, I think it will be fairly beneficial for us to declare what we're doing.

[Stick.]

Hoid already has an investiture charge of each Shard, though. So he'd have an advantage over the village if all of us state which Shard we're stealing from, because then he can basically choose who to roleblock/attack if he believes their action could possibly be a threat to him.

[Steeldancer]

As I said before, I will be focusing on RP more this game (as clearly, I didn't get my wish to become Odium ).

---

Steel jumped through Cultivation's perpendicularity into the physical realm, after having waved to the Cultivationspren who had sailed him there. Appearing in a pool in the Horneater peaks, he jumped out and slicked his way down the mountain. 

There wasn't much like slicking your way down a mountain, dodging boulders, a spren by your side. He whooped as he jumped off a rock, and landed back on the steep slope. It was cold up in these mountains, but with his typical steel armor, he was still pretty warm. 
 

Once he reached the bottom of the mountain, he took out a map of Roshar. He needed to make his way to Urithiru, so he could meet up with some other Edgedancers. It seemed like the closest one would be in Jah Keved, so he pulled out a full metalmind, swallowed it, and slicked himself with stormlight from his medallion. And then he ran. When you moved this fast, you had to do quick Vs, and lean forward heavily if you had any hope of staying on your feet. He blurred across the landscape. Steel set him free. There was nothing like the rush of the wind, the feeling of unstoppable motion. Within an hour, he had burned through two metalminds, but arrived to Jah Keved. He nodded to the Radiant on guard there, summoned his shardblade, and transported to Urithiru. 

[MonsterMetroid]

I'm a bit confused on how survival already was released from containment... Was there a rule somewhere that i missed that allowed someone to release a shard so early?

@_Stick_

 

[DeTess]

Okay, I've gone through the rules, and there might be one shard that the village would benefit from freeing above all others, being Ambition.

There are two reasons for this: first of all, the investiture from ambition is very useful to the two elim factions, as it allows them to set up hammer turns with lots of kills, or double the amount of investiture they drain from a single shard to increase their chances of freeing and getting it. Getting ambition out of containment will stop them from being able to harvest her investiture.

The second reason is the Shardic power itself. Allowing people that have died, and have been confirmed good, to affect the living once more can be very useful. It's not as useful in this regard as endowments power which resurrects them, but it also doesn't carry the risk of the newly returned player getting converted. If someone with a bit of Odium dies and gets turned into a Shade, it effectively gives the dead-doc as a whole a kill, which can be game-changing if employed wisely and at the right moment.

***

"As I told you, doctor, Entropy is a universal force, and survival breaking free only proves how foolish we are to try and impose order on powers like the shards. We are trying to play god, but the very laws of the universe are conspiring against our attempts to order powers whose very nature forces them towards chaos." Met was paying a weekly visit to one of the 17th's psychologists. The 17th Shard pretty much mandated that for those that had been working with the most volatile shards, and Met had been part of a project surrounding Ruin that had nearly led to a containment breach.

"So, you're saying that our current system here is doomed to fall to Ruin?" The doctor asked, the question almost sounding like a statement of fact.

"Those are your words, Doctor, not mine." The question annoyed Met. A lot of people seemed to think that the accident had resulted in Ruin affecting Met somehow, but that was nonsense. The accident had provided a new perspective, but in the way any traumatic experience could. The involvement of the Shard was unimportant. "But I do think our current system is prone to failure. If it was perfect, Survival would still have been in containment, and there would have been no need for these sessions."

"And do you have a solution for this perceived problem?" She actually sounded somewhat curious now.

"If I did, I'd be busy working it out, not talking about the meaning of life and my feelings and the like up here. No offense meant, Doctor, but I'm not sure how useful these sessions are. It's already been established that no investiture crossed over during the incident, so I'm free of any Shardic influence. I'm fine, and should be allowed to return to working on bigger projects as soon as possible.

"It's true that you're free of any outside influences." The doctor checked a pocket-watch. "We'll have to continue this next week. "If possible, in addition to keeping a daily log, could you write a bit on how the incident affected your outlook on the work we do here, and your place in it? That might help me make a final evaluation and allow you to join some of our more ambitious projects again."

Met sighed. The doctor always promised that doing just the one thing extra would help her wipe the slate clean, but it never seemed enough. still, there was nothing to be gained, and a lot to be lost by disobeying her. "Yes ma'am. Same time next week, I assume?"

Edited March 15, 2018 by randuir
grammar

[Droughtbringer]

Don't have much to say, as of yet, but I will be rereading the rules a lot and seeing if I can be better than Seonid at knowing them so that I can break the game by cheating the rules.

Because we are talking about what actions we will be taking, I'll let everyone know that I am going after a piece of Cultivation's Investiture tonight. I am awaiting some GM clarification for some rules, to see if I can pull of any shenanigans with some PM's, My idea is that if the PM lasts indefinitely then we can create PMs with players, and continue to use them after they die. The dead player wouldn't be able to respond, but we can have a direct feed of info to them. If they ever become a Shade then we can still let them know our reads or info that we don't want the elims to know, so we can plan with a guaranteed village without the elims knowing what exactly we are planning.

I am awaiting GM clarification for that, and if they say no then I will probably go after Ruin's investiture to attempt to get lucky and pull off a Roleblock on a conversion or a Shardic Barrier weakening.

[Stick.]

1 hour ago, Droughtbringer said:

Don't have much to say, as of yet, but I will be rereading the rules a lot and seeing if I can be better than Seonid at knowing them so that I can break the game by cheating the rules.

Because we are talking about what actions we will be taking, I'll let everyone know that I am going after a piece of Cultivation's Investiture tonight. I am awaiting some GM clarification for some rules, to see if I can pull of any shenanigans with some PM's, My idea is that if the PM lasts indefinitely then we can create PMs with players, and continue to use them after they die. The dead player wouldn't be able to respond, but we can have a direct feed of info to them. If they ever become a Shade then we can still let them know our reads or info that we don't want the elims to know, so we can plan with a guaranteed village without the elims knowing what exactly we are planning.

I am awaiting GM clarification for that, and if they say no then I will probably go after Ruin's investiture to attempt to get lucky and pull off a Roleblock on a conversion or a Shardic Barrier weakening.

The first thing I did was ask the Seonid the same thing in my GM PM, lol. 

1 hour ago, MonsterMetroid said:

I'm a bit confused on how survival already was released from containment... Was there a rule somewhere that i missed that allowed someone to release a shard so early?

@_Stick_

 

Seonid already mentioned in the sign ups earlier that we'll start with a shard out of containment. And here's this from the OP of this thread:

6 hours ago, Seonid said:

General announcements: The Shard of Survival has been released from containment by malefactors unknown, and is currently believed to be at large

[Orlok Tsubodai]

I have a number of thoughts on the discussion so far, and think that that which has been said bodes well for information generation going forward.

@Young Bard, I'd start with your first post. In this post, you indicate that you'll vote tomorrow despite there only being two conversions. This strikes me as a little unusual. In any of our games, we have eliminator counts between 15 and 25%. 4 of 22 gives us an eliminator percentage of 18.18, which is hardly unusual. I'm interested in your phrasing, which seems to indicate that we shouldn't be worried about eliminator numbers, or that we're being particularly adventurous in lynching tomorrow.

The more interesting point you make, though, is in suggesting that we prevent the release of shards this night cycle. This, I think, is a very dangerous view to take. If shards are removed today, with such a strong incentive for Hoid and Khrissala to convert, shards are very nearly guaranteed to be in village hands. This reduces the pool of shards that can be taken with a concerted effort by Hoid and Khriss' respective teams in future cycles. If we delay taking shards, we make it more likely that the conversion factions have their pick of shards through coordination, which does not seem sensible to me. Further, declaring the shard we want investment from gives everyone some degree of information as to our priorities in the shard we'd like to go for in further turns. This further helps target conversions, and increases Odium's ability to shatter the shards he wishes to target first.

On which note, I'd strongly advise everyone to refrain from declaring that they're taking investiture from Cultivation. It doesn't seem likely that everyone follows Bard's plan, and given the usefulness of Cultivation's ability, I wouldn't be surprised if it's released. Giving the holder of Odium a couple of the potential holders of the one shard able to undo his shattering seems like a very poor move on the village's part.

@Megasif, I would certainly like to see your own reasons for your misgivings in how Bard made his point on lynches, but as set out do agree with you.

@_Stick_, I wouldn't be surprised if Survival had their win condition from the beginning of the game, given their pre-emptive release, and the previous incentive to return the shard immediately otherwise. I do agree with your point that if we knew which shard everyone had taken investiture from, we'd be better able to predict actions. I don't necessarily think that this helps the village, and think it serves as a further argument against mass claiming.

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I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Knowing which people have taken from which shard is potentially very useful information, both for the village and the elims. I'm personally of the opinion that we should be working to contain information away from the elims, but I also understand that the downsides of this might be outweighed by having more village access to information.

@randuir, whilst I agree with the point you were making here, I want to highlight the equivocal way you make that point. This strikes me as slightly uncharacteristic of you to me.

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This is true, however, I'd say that information generally helps the Village more than it helps the Eliminators. A one-time charge isn't especially going to be an important factor in conversions, and as I said, I doubt they'd choose to steal a Charge instead of convert someone tonight. (The same can't be said tomorrow, of course - I'm hoping someone else will have come up with a smarter solution by then. ) But for tonight, I think it will be fairly beneficial for us to declare what we're doing.

Following Rand's post, Bard once again defends declaring the investiture we take tonight. The thrust of his argument this time is that it's unlikely to hurt the village, and that conversion decisions won't be made on it. I disagree that the declaration won't hurt the village for the reason stated above - I think it reduces the number of the more powerful Shards that will be in village hands. @Young Bard, why do you think that preventing Shards being taken will help the village?

@Steeldancer, wonderful though it is to see RP, and the activity benefits RP often brings, it would be good to see your thoughts on the game. Using RP as a smokescreen doesn't help us solve the game.

@MonsterMetroid, Seonid said in the signups thread that one shard would start out of containment.

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Okay, I've gone through the rules, and there might be one shard that the village would benefit from freeing above all others, being Ambition.

There are two reasons for this: first of all, the investiture from ambition is very useful to the two elim factions, as it allows them to set up hammer turns with lots of kills, or double the amount of investiture they drain from a single shard to increase their chances of freeing and getting it. Getting ambition out of containment will stop them from being able to harvest her investiture.

The second reason is the Shardic power itself. Allowing people that have died, and have been confirmed good, to affect the living once more can be very useful. It's not as useful in this regard as endowments power which resurrects them, but it also doesn't carry the risk of the newly returned player getting converted. If someone with a bit of Odium dies and gets turned into a Shade, it effectively gives the dead-doc as a whole a kill, which can be game-changing if employed wisely and at the right moment.

@randuir then suggests that we should encourage Ambition to be released, to reduce the effectiveness of conversion factions working in concert to guarantee themselves Shards. This I think I agree with wholeheartedly, and as such would encourage a large number of people to consider taking investiture from Ambition tonight, without declaring it.

The last post so far is from Drought, in which he declares that he's taking investiture from Cultivation, and wants to use it to create PMs such that we have avenues to communicate with dead players or Shades.

I'm honestly not sure how this is a viable strategy. PMs are likely to be hugely limited this game as it stands anyway, and unless Drought has some way of predicting the deaths of players, I don't see how he's going to ensure that we have confirmed good players in PMs with those likely to die. Far more useful in my mind would be using PMs as normal, and if we happen to get a dead player in a PM, then making use of it if possible. 

 

Overall, my current reads as they stand are as follows:

Randuir: Likely village
Megasif: Mild Village
Bard: Mild Hoid/Khrissala

This is a conversion game. I'd strongly suggest that all players try to declare their current suspicions in the thread as much as possible, to make any volte-face they commit much more obvious.

[Young Bard]

3 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Hoid already has an investiture charge of each Shard, though. So he'd have an advantage over the village if all of us state which Shard we're stealing from, because then he can basically choose who to roleblock/attack if he believes their action could possibly be a threat to him.

That's... fair, I suppose. Our main advantage against Hoid is the one action limit - if he roleblocks us, then he's not converting or using any other of his many possible actions.

1 hour ago, randuir said:

Okay, I've gone through the rules, and there might be one shard that the village would benefit from freeing above all others, being Ambition.

There are two reasons for this: first of all, the investiture from ambition is very useful to the two elim factions, as it allows them to set up hammer turns with lots of kills, or double the amount of investiture they drain from a single shard to increase their chances of freeing and getting it. Getting ambition out of containment will stop them from being able to harvest her investiture.

The second reason is the Shardic power itself. Allowing people that have died, and have been confirmed good, to affect the living once more can be very useful. It's not as useful in this regard as endowments power which resurrects them, but it also doesn't carry the risk of the newly returned player getting converted. If someone with a bit of Odium dies and gets turned into a Shade, it effectively gives the dead-doc as a whole a kill, which can be game-changing if employed wisely and at the right moment.

You have a point, but I'm worried. For one thing, the second reason will only work a few times, and then Ambition will form their own win con, which could cause more problems then it fixes. While Ambition might be the best Shard to release if we have to release one, I think keeping them all contained, and hunting for Hoid and Khrissalla, might be our best shot in the early game, because it will be a lot easier to achieve our Sudden Death win con before we start releasing Shards then after. If we reach Night 3 or so, and we haven't caught either Hoid or Khrissalla, I'd probably be happy to go with this suggestion.

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

The amount of investiture stolen requisite to release a Shard is not specified, thus, I'm not sure how we should plan investiture-borrowing. I have a suspicion that different Shards might require different amounts of simultaneous stole investiture to be released, or that the amount changes on the ratio of Elims-Villagers. Additionally, there is no indicator of what the current amount necessary is. That value is somewhat crucial to any plan, because it determines the difficulty of releasing a Shard tonight.

If we consider that different Shards require different amounts, the only logical trend to this is that Shards with a greater desire to be free, my example: Autonomy, will require less simultaneous weakening of their protective field for them to escape. Survival, I suppose, has a very low requirement, hence already being free.

The other possibility I suggested, Elim-Villager ratio, has two options for the current standing. One, it is quite easy to break a Shard free, because it gives the two conversion factions more wiggle room to start their win-cons, or two, it is quite difficult to break a Shard free, on the basis that the most players possible are alive at the moment, and thus have the possibility to break a Shard out by sheer numbers.

There is of course, a terrible and trolly possibility, and that is "X" refers to the Roman numeral X, which stands for 10. Which provides a baseline for all Shards, all the time.

[Steeldancer]

Fear not, Orlok, if I come up with any suspicions or ideas, i will share them. But I'm not going to be beating my head against a wall figuring out a strategy. I joined this game to do my RP, because strategically I've felt burned out.