Long Game 46: A Land War in Asia

[Eternum he/him]

I didn't suspect all of you at different times, I suspected all three of you at the same time for different reasons, Len. It's just a matter of which suspicions I decided to voice. For example, my suspicion that you were trying to pocket Araris has only grown stronger on a reread of the thread. 

You say you had a village read on him, but Araris.. really had said nothing alignment-indicative. Some RP, a little bit of distribution discussion with Rand and an explanation of what LYLO means when @Rebecca asked. (Speaking of which, I'd like to hear more from you, @Val, @Dalinar Kholin

@Snipexe and @Coop772, who I for some reason seem unable to tag..)

So, I don't really understand why you immediately jumped to his defence when you're not Roberts.

EDIT: Also, @Rathmaskal, @ElephantEarwax, any thoughts?

Edited June 5, 2018 by Eternum

[Mr Doctor]

-------------------------------------RP-------------------------------------

The Dead Private Hobbert lingered in the doorway as the Captain wept over the body of Buttercup. He considered offering some comforting words, but he knew that the last thing that a grieving lover wanted to hear was the wet, grinding tones of a walking corpse. Maybe once things had settled down, Hobbert would recommend a place where the soil was soft and the beetles didn’t bite too hard, where Buttercup could be buried. Yes, the Captain would like that. He was sure of it.

And if he got offended…well, it took a lot of stabbing and dismembering to make Hobbert stay down. He was sure that any man would give up after the corpse they were beating kept talking even after head had been severed from body.

Hobbert turned away and walked after the others. He found himself walking in step with the Shree King Eelz. Hobbert said,

“Good day, Majesty,

One known as Shree.”

The Dead Private paused for a moment, having not quite affiliated the words in his head with the ones on his tongue. He tried again regardless.

“Do you think that the murder

Which has just transpired

Was caused by an error

Or by villains, devised?

I’d hate to suggest

And point fingers (or mouse)

But if traitors exist

And already they pounce...

We cannot let them persist

Lest it is us that they trounce!”

The small part of Hobbert that held his last dusty vestiges of decency let out an agonised gurgle. Had he really just rhymed “pounce” with “trounce”? And it wasn’t even in any decent meter!

But…at least he was free of that blasted lisp. He was sure that this “True Love” was affecting them all somehow, and now he feared that his mouth would begin spouting elegiac couplets.

Maybe the Shree King would offer something on the matter, or perhaps that strange little girl with the crayons who kept following them around.

As Hobbert limped after the group, he glanced back at the kitchens. A sad thing indeed, their love cut short. But sadder still that Buttercup’s tendons had proven too difficult to detach quickly. Ah, well, it would have been strange to wear a woman’s leg anyway.

-------------------------------------RP-------------------------------------

Wow, I am...very bad at poetry. If you survived reading that, here are my thoughts and analyses insofar:

 

Elenion

Currently on my suspicion list. Of all the players who have been active so far, Elenion is the most suspicious. As I’ve said, Elenion actually had reasons to vote against Bugsy, whereas regardless of Araris’s alignment, Araris seemed like too much of a risk to keep around, hence the way that I voted. I can see now that it really wasn’t worth the lynch, but I suppose that it happens.

Quote

I'm generally of the opinion that lynching very-actives D1 is not as good as lynching less-actives, ceteris paribus, but actives should be lynched if they are more suspicious.

 - Elenion, here

This seems logical, but Bugsy wasn’t suspicious. He clarified himself, but Elenion didn’t withdraw his vote. However, Elenion does have a good point about Bugsy creating a target of opportunity, and his vote against Bugsy does seem to be based on some logic.

Elenion is acting aggressively, but if this was Elim behaviour, then I think he’d be a lot more careful. In the space of a single cycle he’s created a division between himself and Bugsy, which either looks like distancing or genuine distrust.

8 hours ago, Bugsy said:

While this was my initial thought, I'm not really sure now. If Len were the Man in Black, I feel as if he'd likely have killed me last night, and that he'd have claimed this morning. Since neither of those is the case, I'm thinking it's someone else.

It would certainly explain why he jumped so quickly onto Araris’s side. However, he also distanced himself somewhat from Araris by going after Bugsy, rather than immediately defending Araris. Ignoring Araris’s reveal, I would say that it would be a very blatant (almost too blatant) act of Elim protecting. But since Araris was Buttercup, that naturally doesn’t hold. I don’t trust Len to not be the Man in Black, as it’s the only way to explain why he was so aggressive, other than an Elim tying himself to a sinking ship. But that also seems overly aggressive, especially in the first Cycle. Given that there were two vigilante kills hanging around, if it didn’t work out then Elenion paints a target on his back.

3 hours ago, Elenion said:

I am not Wesley/Dread Pirate Roberts and I've had no PM contact with Araris. I defended him because had a good read on him and a bad read on Bugsy, so I followed through with that. It looks like my read on Araris was right--I'm not really sure about the one on Bugsy. I'm getting a villagey vibe from his reaction to the news about Araris. Ditto with Fifth Scholar, but I didn't suspect Fifth yesterday. If Bugsy comes up again in my analysis I'll bring this debate back up, but bashing about opportunism right now isn't really getting us anywhere.

It’s a bit strange to see him suddenly turn around and start to act like a regular analyst after taking a lead role in the crem-show of the previous Day. But I suppose that he might have been doing something similar to what I did: taking a side not because the person on the other side is bad, but because the person on his side is good. In this case, he would have had a better read on Araris than Bugsy, and took sides accordingly. Just because he didn’t spent time lamenting the loss of the other person on his side doesn’t mean that he’s an Elim. I have to say that the change in gear is good, because as I said earlier, having this escalate would have just ended badly.

 

Bugsy

Seems genuine to me. His reactions are defensive, as one would expect, which is either masterful acting or actual innocence. The shape of the interactions so far has all been a result of a small disagreement between him and Araris. I think that it’s too much of a stretch and has too many variables to consider that to be setup for a vote. I don’t believe that he could have known that Araris would have jumped on what he said and had it lead to this.

However, I wonder if his original statement was a bit of a bait to see who would jump on him. He got Elenion and Araris, but Araris was Village. So that might mean that he and Elenion were working together to try and bait Araris, but that really feels like a stretch. Given the developments of Araris’s alignment reveal, I would say that it paints Bugsy in a bit of a negative light solely because of how quickly things spiralled out of control. It’s hard for me to tell, though, because it seemed like Araris was the instigator, and I don’t believe that Araris would let himself be baited so easily.

Logically, then, there was something happening on the other end, and some of the votes on Araris might have been coordinated to ensure that he went down. So either Bugsy was the one chosen to escalate the situation, or everyone took advantage of a genuine disagreement between two Villagers.

 

Doc12

Nothing solid so far. He’s completely neutral as far as his posts go, and his actions seem reasonable. I would be a bit hypocritical if I said that his justification for voting on Araris was suspicious since some of my own reasons were based on his analysis.

Something that is bugging me is the neutrality of his arguments. Do players often sit in the background and offer analysis like this? Doc seems very nice and entirely neutral, which is making an alarm bell ring somewhere for me. Almost everyone else who posts an equivalent amount justified their votes a decent amount. Doc didn’t spend especially long on his initial argument against Araris, and spent far more time on analyses of everyone else. That looks like him focusing more on building trust and interaction with everyone else, and less on the outcome of the initial lynch.

As for what that means, either he is Village and wants to prove that he’s engaged and trustworthy to everyone, or if he’s Elim then he’s trying to do the same thing to tie himself to everyone and become harder to lynch, and he also wasn’t especially concerned with Araris going down because he knew that Araris was a Villager.

…Argh, this is doing my head in. I want to trust you, Doc, but I don’t know what to think.

 

Randuir

Another neutral, albeit more focused on game mechanics rather than individual posts like Doc is. I’m not getting anything on Rand, other than the fact that I’m not getting anything on him. It’s a similar situation to Doc, where I’m not hugely aware of his alignment because the predominant focus of his posts has been elsewhere. Is that what experienced players tend to do? Since the first lynch is always based on very little information, is it best to just let it happen and accept that you can’t really get much out of arguing it?

So far, he’s seemed a lot like a mediator and facilitator of the argument, and not tried to swing it either way. It seems innocent enough, but as I said similarly about Doc, playing neutral analyser also sounds like a nice cover for justifying Elim-like behaviour while still seeming neutral. I’ve noticed myself falling into the bias of "no-read == Village" when a base case should really be distrust. I wonder if Rand is aware of that, and is attempting to escape attention by staying close to the wall.

At the same time, Elim-like behaviour would have likely been an attempt to sow discord among existing arguments, and I think that Rand’s distance from it probably means that he’s clean. Either that or he’s thinking at a level higher than me and wants me to think that.

I know, extremely helpful analysis: “This person could be an Elim. OR they could be a Villager!”

 

That’s everyone that’s posted enough for me to say anything meaningful about. The others I haven’t noticed quite so much, at least not enough to say anything more than “seems neutral”. I’ll grace you with my unfounded ramblings soon enough!

 

5 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Vague suspicion on Eternum for this post and this one. Ish. Reading them over again, they're not so bad as I initally thought (as they do show progression of thought), but within the three he places suspicion on all three major suspects of yesterday. It reads  as trying to cast suspicion, realising that suspicion is infeasible, and reaching for a different easy target. Eternum. 

I agree with some of your points here. He’s been quiet enough that it might be an Elim trying to read the field before stepping in, and hoping that his vote gets ignored under the weight of more vocal players. If someone like Elenion or Bugsy had done something like this, it probably wouldn’t be suspicious, because they’re so active. But someone hiding in the background and only remaining active enough to determine easy targets smells fishy to me. Claiming to have only skimmed the thread, and claiming to have only skimmed it when Doc called him out on it, sounds like he was only too glad to accept an excuse for staying quiet. From that, Eternum is either acting like a hunting Elim or he’s genuinely quiet. I’ll leave it up to experienced players to give a verdict about whether this is in-character or not.

I disagree that progression of thought is any sort of tell for Village. An Elim naturally has more information to go on, and so they are more likely to have solid progression of thought. Something that I would consider to be a Village tell would be acting sporadic and focused on individual interactions. Calculatedly revealing pieces of a plan over time sounds more suspicious to me. If anything, this condemns him more in my eyes.

However, I don’t think that he’s Elim. Any Elim worth their salt iocaine would probably become uncomfortable after wavering on an issue like that, and the safest option is to back away, which would be in-character for a quiet Elim player. And suspecting each of the three core members is frankly quite reasonable. I’ve certainly suspected all three of them, and I think that it’s healthy to suspect anyone that takes a solid stance that quickly, since there isn’t anything else to go on.

I don’t think that this is sufficient evidence to vote. It might be that I want to be less quick-firing with my votes, but I feel like stating your opinion and discussing it before voting is a better approach than starting more discontent. While attempting to galvanise the discussion with a vote is certainly effective, it didn’t do us much good last time.

 

5 hours ago, Elbereth said:

On the subject of elims contacting me, I would have preferred to be village this game (the last time I was village for more than a day, and active, was literally over a year ago >>), so will be trying to find you through analysis just like a normal villager. So please don't contact me, or at most one of you, and ideally when someone's going to die.

Seems…convenient. That can protect you as an Elim because you’re trying to proactively reduce suspicion, and it can also protect you as a Villager because the Elims don’t want to get rid of Max given the two revives. But I suppose that is the point of Max.

But over a year always being the bad guy sounds a bit rough, so I’m willing to believe you in the interest of letting you actually play. The fun of the game is, of course, why we are doing this. Except for those who draw their daily energy from misleading other people, of course…

 

3 hours ago, Elenion said:

Mr. Doctor: Third vote on Araris. This and HH's vote are in the positions that I'm most used to seeing elims in: 3rd and 4th. He clearly chooses a side on the issue (supporting Bugsy because he didn't see anything wrong with Bugsy's post). He justified voting on Araris over me because I was contributing more (for which I am grateful). I don't use contribution to tiebreak votes unless everything else is mostly the same, but that's a matter of priorities. Gun to head I'd say he's village, but this isn't as solid of a read as I have on Doc (see below).

Woohoo, the first official analysis on me! For whatever reason that makes me happy, even though it’s not quite as stellar as I’d like. Only 5.5? Ah, I’ll take it .

It’s not quite that I didn’t see anything wrong with Bugsy, it’s more that I felt like he was being unfairly vindicated for stating a technical truth: suspicion went up by 1%. When there was an overreaction against him, I sympathised and took the side that I believed was the underdog. When Araris didn’t back down after Bugsy justified himself, and Bugsy acted as I would expect of a Villager, then I decided that there wasn’t much to be suspicious of. But the greater part of it was that I believed Araris was either (to use D&D alignments ) Chaotic Neutral and therefore unreliable, or was an aggressive Elim. As it turns out, he wasn’t the latter, and I’m still not sold that I was wrong for the former.

As for the contribution factor, it’s partially that, and partially a case of a greater dataset versus a smaller one. I had more from you than I did Araris, and since what Araris said painted him in a bad light, I voted accordingly. I simply had more to go on from you, and read it better (although there might have been a bias towards helpfulness there, I recognise that). I was hoping that he would defend himself more, and if he had the same amount of content as you, my average read across all of his posts would likely have leaned more towards Villager. Since he didn’t, all I had to go on was the worse stuff and the intent which I gleaned from it, which is naturally unreliable. Hence my vote on your side of the debate.

 

3 hours ago, Elenion said:

Voting HH, because he joined in at a good time to ensure the bandwagon on Araris didn't break up (4th vote of 5, and about 2-2.5 hours before turnover), and did so after only considering a small portion of the players and not taking sides on the individual issues discussed.

Uh…this is a bit premature, isn't it? As I said about Elbereth’s vote, I think that given what happened on Day One, voting on quiet players without opening it up to discussion first is just going to end up with more mislynches. I feel like you’re firing blindly in the dark, and we only need to look at the Araris bandwagon to see how quickly that spiralled out of control. We’ve seen the price of being willing to vote on a player to initiate discussion.

 

Also, why is no one talking about Kidpen’s death? What happened there? They barely said anything, and now they’re gone. Unless I missed something, that was completely unjustified, unless something happened in a PM. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

[DeTess she/her]

First of all, Mr. doctor, have you played Maffia before elsewhere? This was a pretty insightful post, especially if you're new to this game. Regarding  my own more Neutral stance, that's mostly the consequence of an initially fairly quiet, and then very narrowly-focussed D1. I should be stepping out of that this cycle now that there's a lot more to look at.

5 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Uh…this is a bit premature, isn't it? As I said about Elbereth’s vote, I think that given what happened on Day One, voting on quiet players without opening it up to discussion first is just going to end up with more mislynches. I feel like you’re firing blindly in the dark, and we only need to look at the Araris bandwagon to see how quickly that spiralled out of control. We’ve seen the price of being willing to vote on a player to initiate discussion.

I don't think early voting is in any way pre-mature, as votes are not 'locked' and can be changed. Getting an early vote out does promote discussion if reasoning is provided.

5 minutes ago, Mr Doctor said:

Also, why is no one talking about Kidpen’s death? What happened there? They barely said anything, and now they’re gone. Unless I missed something, that was completely unjustified, unless something happened in a PM. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

My guess would be that Kidpen was Wesley's kill. I don't think it's that odd of a shot. I agree that Kidpen barely said anything, but she had a lot of posts in which very little was said. let's wait and see what her actual alignment is before we mourn her, shall we . 

[Steeldancer he/him]

So rollover will be a little weird at the end of this turn. I have a recital during rollover, so I’m not entirely sure how available I’ll be. I’ll keep you guys informed, and try to be as timely as possible.

[Mr Doctor]

34 minutes ago, randuir said:

First of all, Mr. doctor, have you played Maffia before elsewhere? This was a pretty insightful post, especially if you're new to this game.

Well, first of all, thank you! 

No, I haven’t. But I’m really enjoying the mystery and analysis so far. I have Steel to thank for convincing me jump into this.

35 minutes ago, randuir said:

I don't think early voting is in any way pre-mature, as votes are not 'locked' and can be changed. Getting an early vote out does promote discussion if reasoning is provided.

Hmm, I suppose. Then the difference here is that Araris’s was entirely to generate discussion, whereas now there is actual evidence. I guess that any vote does seem pretty damning to me, even if you can rescind it. Personally, I think that voting intention should be all that is required, and voting itself can come later once it’s been discussed a bit. That’s how I want to play for the moment, as hindsight is making me feel like I jumped onto the Araris bandwagon when I really shouldn’t have.

 

Good to hear that you’re coming into the fray this cycle .

[Straw he/him]

@Elbereth After your win condition is complete, do you still plan on reviving people?

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

@Elenion In regards to your suspicion of me, what can I say? Your thought process is very rational, it just seems I was unfortunate enough to vote at the wrong time. As for defending evidence, I'm not sure exactly what I can say except I'm a villager. I don't have anything that can really prove that to you. I can, however, poke holes in your logic. On the premise that I am an Elim, and banded together with my evil friends to do nasty deeds, in this case, lynch Araris, and timed my vote so that the bandwagon wouldn't die and give Araris enough votes to actually die.

This, frankly, gives me too much credit.

I returned Saturday from a week-long vacation, and I was too tired to look through the thread or bring my mind to do comprehensive analysis. Come Sunday, I didn't want to read through the rest of the accumulated thread, so I based all of my opinions on a very narrow selection of posts (the most recent). This is obviously the worst way to do anything in SE, but i wasn't feeling not-brain-numb enough to bother.

[Eternum he/him]

By the way, a quick question. When I first voted for Araris, what did you all think the vote was?

For example, Doc immediately took it as a random vote, and while it was a joke on my part, it's curious that he considered it a, and I quote, "Self-stated random vote" when I hadn't stated anything.

This isn't exactly alignment-indicative, not yet at the very least, but I found it curious and worth mentioning.

[DeTess she/her]

6 minutes ago, Eternum said:

By the way, a quick question. When I first voted for Araris, what did you all think the vote was?

I thought it was semi-serious, given that I can see why someone could see Araris statement when he voted for bugsy as something worth slapping a vote on if they where just catching up and had no other suspicions.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

 @Mr Doctor That’s some pretty solid analysis, and a lot of it. That’s great for your first time in SE. Bravo. I’ll respond to some of it, though.

1 hour ago, Mr Doctor said:

Elenion is acting aggressively, but if this was Elim behaviour, then I think he’d be a lot more careful

I’d point out that Len typically uses a more aggressive playstyle, regardless of his alignment, so I wouldn’t draw too much from this. 

1 hour ago, Mr Doctor said:

I don’t trust Len to not be the Man in Black, as it’s the only way to explain why he was so aggressive, other than an Elim tying himself to a sinking ship. But that also seems overly aggressive, especially in the first Cycle. Given that there were two vigilante kills hanging around, if it didn’t work out then Elenion paints a target on his back.

Elim!Len, as stated before, is still aggressive. While it may seem disastrous for an Elim to strongly defend a player, keep in mind that this only holds if the player who is defended flips as an Eliminator, and since Elims already know who is who, they can come to the defense of a doomed villager without worry that the villager’s alignment will cast a negative light on them. 

Quote

[analysis of Bugsy]

I mostly agree with this—I don’t see any way for this to be a setup, and Bugsy seems village to me, so I don’t see anything malicious about the argument itself. I’m still wary of an Elim!Len trying to pocket Araris, though. 

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

At the same time, Elim-like behaviour would have likely been an attempt to sow discord among existing arguments, and I think that Rand’s distance from it probably means that he’s clean. Either that or he’s thinking at a level higher than me and wants me to think that.

 

You, my friend, have just encountered one of the most fundamental tenets of SE: a game of I Know You Know. You will forever be lost in its depths if you don’t withdraw immediately.  Jokes aside, I’m mostly seeing Rand as village but given his skill at obscuring his alignment I’m taking my read with a grain of salt.

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

I disagree that progression of thought is any sort of tell for Village. An Elim naturally has more information to go on, and so they are more likely to have solid progression of thought. Something that I would consider to be a Village tell would be acting sporadic and focused on individual interactions. Calculatedly revealing pieces of a plan over time sounds more suspicious to me. If anything, this condemns him more in my eyes.

I think progression of thought is associated with villagers because Eliminators cannot have it; they begin the game with perfect information about alignments, while villagers have to stumble around blindly trying to acquire this information. Therefore, villagers are more likely to progress in their reads as they receive more information and get past the initial stumbling stage. 

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

Seems…convenient. That can protect you as an Elim because you’re trying to proactively reduce suspicion, and it can also protect you as a Villager because the Elims don’t want to get rid of Max given the two revives. But I suppose that is the point of Max.

If El is lying about being Max, the real Max will counterclaim and we can lynch her for her dishonesty. As for now, though, I’m of a mind to trust El’s claim, unless someone else refutes it. El is not the type of person to lie about something like this (I think). 

2 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

Also, why is no one talking about Kidpen’s death? What happened there? They barely said anything, and now they’re gone. Unless I missed something, that was completely unjustified, unless something happened in a PM. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

You do bring up a good point here. This is another reason our former Man in Black should claim, to see what the thought process behind killing Kidpen was.  

All in all, that was excellent analysis from Doctor and I’m very tempted to just write him off as village for effort (I see at least three or four hours’ work behind that post). However, it’s SE, so I can’t trust anyone, though I maintain a strong village read on Doctor. 

[Eternum he/him]

Interesting. @Fifth Scholar, why are you assuming Kidpen was the vig kill? Looking at it from an elim's perspective, Kidpen is a great target for the elim kill. She had only posted RP and other, non-game-related things, so killing her would get rid of a villager and give us little to no information at all. I've used this exact strategy as an elim before-- It's an effective means of starving the village of information. So I'd like to hear your thought process behind this.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

I was going based off the writeup  

[Eternum he/him]

@Steeldancer How accurate is the writeup? Are you differing between the vig and elim kills, or should we not trust anything that comes out of Grandpa Steel's mouth?

[Steeldancer he/him]

Just now, Eternum said:

@Steeldancer How accurate is the writeup? Are you differing between the vig and elim kills, or should we not trust anything that comes out of Grandpa Steel's mouth?

I am differentiating. I said that in the rules. 

[Eternum he/him]

I missed that. Huh.

Well, that means I should start reading the writeups

In that case, sorry for baselessly accusing you, Fifth

[CadCom he/him]

2 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

4 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

At the same time, Elim-like behaviour would have likely been an attempt to sow discord among existing arguments, and I think that Rand’s distance from it probably means that he’s clean. Either that or he’s thinking at a level higher than me and wants me to think that.

 

You, my friend, have just encountered one of the most fundamental tenets of SE: a game of I Know You Know. You will forever be lost in its depths if you don’t withdraw immediately.  Jokes aside, I’m mostly seeing Rand as village but given his skill at obscuring his alignment I’m taking my read with a grain of salt.

So, are you saying that SE is just a large Battle of Wits?

It's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man that would put the poison into his own goblet, or his enemies cast suspicion on yourself or your enemies? Now a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet  cast suspicion on himself, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given.

I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.  to suspect you. But you must have known that I was not a great fool. You would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me. trust myself to be villager.

 *Have you made your decision then?*

Not remotely, because the Iocane in this game comes from New Zealand, as everyone knows, And New Zealand is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them as you are not trusted by me Hobbits, and Hobbits are used to eating two breakfasts, which allow their minds to be more enlightened. And I have had two breakfasts today, so I can clearly not suspect you

*Truly you have a dizzying intellect.* Wait till I get going! Where was I? *New Zealand.* Yes, New Zealand, and you must have suspected I would have known the powders origin, so I can clearly not trust myself. *You're stalling now*

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you! You've beaten my giant lynched Buttercup, which means you're exceptionally strong wrong. So you could have put the poison in your own trusting on your strength to save you, intentionally made yourself looks suspicious so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you  start a lynch on you. But you've also bested my spaniard, mostly killed Roadwalker, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal It takes two turns to be totally dead. So you would have put the poison suspicion as far from yourself as possible. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me to vote for me

*You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work* 

It has worked. You've given everything away! I know where the poison is! who the Elim is! *Then make your choice* I will, and I choose-- What in the world can that be? *What? Where? I don't see anything* Oh, I could have sworn I saw something. No matter, *What's so funny* I'll tell you in a minute. First Let's drink, me from my glass, and you from yours. vote. Me for myself, and you for yourself. 

*You guessed wrong* You only think I guessed wrong. That what's so funny. I switched glasses our votes when your back was turned! Haha you fool!!! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia LG46. But only slightly less known is this: Never go in against a Cicilian Fifth Scholar, when Death is on the line!! Hahahaha ahahahah hah-----

(I apologize for going against the daily fashion. 

But this is still worth a laugh, I imagine.)

(Analysis to come soon,

I must first request my bane and boon)

Edited June 5, 2018 by Cadmium Compounder
Content error

[Rathmaskal he/him]

I'll (try to) be brief...but most of my employees will probably say that's not really possible:

My initial read on day one is very similar to Elenion's...However, I know that many of you are experienced enough to not give away Elim alignment on day one...HOWEVER, I know that many of your are experienced enough to not just get caught up in group think and lynch someone day one due to their actions in previous games...HOWEVER, Occam's Razor would state that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one and what appears to be a fairly-well-coordinated attack on day one is more likely to be due to there actually being coordination in the attack than it just being random chance...HOWEVER, the people on the Elim side probably know the basics behind Occam's Razor and would hope to use that against anyone who might try using logic to determine who is on which side...HOWEVER, I know that you know that I might know to think about using logic so I should know to think about using more than just logic...  I'M JUST GETTING STARTED!!  (Yes, if you're a purist for quotes, that's a horrible attempt at channeling the Sicilian)

I wonder what people are thinking

Were 5 people really out drinking

And choosing to lynch the princess

Regardless of their mental presence

Would imply to me

That they could see

Something about about her alliance

I'll vote Fifth for now...might change it later, but changing to solidify the vote on Araris seems highly suspicious to me.

Edit: Hey, that was actually kind of brief.  Good job me!

 

Second Edit: Now that the Princess is dead, if it was Wesley who killed the second person last night, it would be useful to know who was killed - you're now just a villager, so that was your last special action...not like you can draw any additional attention to yourself.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Rathmaskal

[Elbereth she/her]

5 hours ago, Mr Doctor said:

Elenion

Currently on my suspicion list. Of all the players who have been active so far, Elenion is the most suspicious. As I’ve said, Elenion actually had reasons to vote against Bugsy, whereas regardless of Araris’s alignment, Araris seemed like too much of a risk to keep around, hence the way that I voted. 1. I can see now that it really wasn’t worth the lynch, but I suppose that it happens.

2. This seems logical, but Bugsy wasn’t suspicious. He clarified himself, but Elenion didn’t withdraw his vote. However, Elenion does have a good point about Bugsy creating a target of opportunity, and his vote against Bugsy does seem to be based on some logic.

3. Elenion is acting aggressively, but if this was Elim behaviour, then I think he’d be a lot more careful. In the space of a single cycle he’s created a division between himself and Bugsy, which either looks like distancing or genuine distrust.

It would certainly explain why he jumped so quickly onto Araris’s side. However, he also distanced himself somewhat from Araris by going after Bugsy, rather than immediately defending Araris. 4. Ignoring Araris’s reveal, I would say that it would be a very blatant (almost too blatant) act of Elim protecting. But since Araris was Buttercup, that naturally doesn’t hold. I don’t trust Len to not be the Man in Black, as it’s the only way to explain why he was so aggressive, other than an Elim tying himself to a sinking ship. But that also seems overly aggressive, especially in the first Cycle. Given that there were two vigilante kills hanging around, if it didn’t work out then Elenion paints a target on his back.

5. It’s a bit strange to see him suddenly turn around and start to act like a regular analyst after taking a lead role in the crem-show of the previous Day. But I suppose that he might have been doing something similar to what I did: taking a side not because the person on the other side is bad, but because the person on his side is good. In this case, he would have had a better read on Araris than Bugsy, and took sides accordingly. Just because he didn’t spent time lamenting the loss of the other person on his side doesn’t mean that he’s an Elim. I have to say that the change in gear is good, because as I said earlier, having this escalate would have just ended badly.

I've got a lot of thoughts on this post! It seems on balance village, somewhat flip-floppy, and in general an excellent post for a first-game player. (bolded numbers are mine, clearly)

1. Why do you say that Araris wasn't worth the lynch? Clearly his role is unfortunate, but with only the evidence from Cycle 1, why was his lynch not worth it? 

2. First flip flop! You imply Len was illogical because Bugsy wasn't suspicious (which I disagree with, because Len clearly found him suspicious at that point even if you didn't), then give Len's point for him and end up saying Len's vote 'does seem to be based on some logic'. 

3. As has been noted, Len is always aggressive. I will agree that last cycle has me reading very slightly village on him, though. 

4. This isn't exactly a flip flop, but it's close. It feels like you're casting suspicion on Len without appearing to - you implicate him in something, and then go 'but that couldn't possibly be true'. Why bring it up in the first place, then? It doesn't help your point, and it makes me think you're looking for reasons Len could be suspicious rather listing out the reasons you have. 

5. I don't think Len was taking a side just because he preferred Araris - I'm fairly sure that Bugsy was in fact his biggest suspicion. It being Day 1, 'biggest suspicion' is still pretty small, but it got discussion going, and that's what matters. 
5a. By the way, lamenting the loss of a good player overmuch is actually one of the traditional elim tells.  
5b. Also, yesterday wasn't heated at all, in my opinion - it was a few people debating, all of whom enjoy debate (speaking of which, @Bugsy, I could really hear the MUN in your voice). I was never worried about it escalating further. 

Overall, I'm not sure I see a single place where you actually lay out the reasoning for your claim that Len is the most suspicious of the active players. Your first and second paragraph mildly defend him, the third outright says you can't see elim!Len being so careless, the fourth paragraph doesn't really give much opinion either way, and the fifth provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for him switching back to being "regular" (though, as I mentioned above, that's just a pretty normal thing). Why is he actually suspicioius? 

I'm going to split this post up so it's not quite so hard to read... 

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Bugsy

Seems genuine to me. His reactions are defensive, as one would expect, which is either masterful acting or actual innocence. The shape of the interactions so far has all been a result of a small disagreement between him and Araris. I think that it’s too much of a stretch and has too many variables to consider that to be setup for a vote. I don’t believe that he could have known that Araris would have jumped on what he said and had it lead to this.

1. However, I wonder if his original statement was a bit of a bait to see who would jump on him. He got Elenion and Araris, but Araris was Village. 2. So that might mean that he and Elenion were working together to try and bait Araris, but that really feels like a stretch. Given the developments of Araris’s alignment reveal, I would say that it paints Bugsy in a bit of a negative light solely because of how quickly things spiralled out of control. It’s hard for me to tell, though, because it seemed like Araris was the instigator, and I don’t believe that Araris would let himself be baited so easily.

3. Logically, then, there was something happening on the other end, and some of the votes on Araris might have been coordinated to ensure that he went down. So either Bugsy was the one chosen to escalate the situation, or everyone took advantage of a genuine disagreement between two Villagers.

1. I think this unlikely - it doesn't feel like bait at all, and isn't something I would normally comment on. It honestly felt exactly normal for anyone D1, regardless of alignment, to me. 

2. As you note, this is highly unlikely. I'm confused about the negative light bit, though - why does the spiralling out of control imply he's evil, in any way? He wasn't the one spiralling it, and I don't think it benefits elim!Bugsy in any way for that spiralling to occur. 

3. I'm confused again. Maybe you're assuming the elims knew Araris' role and were specifically trying to drag him down? Because without that assumption, they have no particular reason to want him dead over anyone else, nor to escalate. 

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Doc12

Nothing solid so far. He’s completely neutral as far as his posts go, and his actions seem reasonable. I would be a bit hypocritical if I said that his justification for voting on Araris was suspicious since some of my own reasons were based on his analysis.

Something that is bugging me is the neutrality of his arguments. 1. Do players often sit in the background and offer analysis like this? Doc seems very nice and entirely neutral, which is making an alarm bell ring somewhere for me. Almost everyone else who posts an equivalent amount justified their votes a decent amount. Doc didn’t spend especially long on his initial argument against Araris, and spent far more time on analyses of everyone else. That looks like him focusing more on building trust and interaction with everyone else, and less on the outcome of the initial lynch.

As for what that means, either he is Village and wants to prove that he’s engaged and trustworthy to everyone, or if he’s Elim then he’s trying to do the same thing to tie himself to everyone and become harder to lynch, and he also wasn’t especially concerned with Araris going down because he knew that Araris was a Villager.

…Argh, this is doing my head in. I want to trust you, Doc, but I don’t know what to think. 

Yes. Not everyone, but I used to do so a lot, singificantly more neutrally than Doc currently is. Doesn't mean it's helpful to the village, though. It's good for individual players to make them harder to catch when evil, but isn't so great for other villagers trying to figure out who's evil. 

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Randuir

Another neutral, albeit more focused on game mechanics rather than individual posts like Doc is. I’m not getting anything on Rand, other than the fact that I’m not getting anything on him. It’s a similar situation to Doc, where I’m not hugely aware of his alignment because the predominant focus of his posts has been elsewhere. 1. Is that what experienced players tend to do? Since the first lynch is always based on very little information, is it best to just let it happen and accept that you can’t really get much out of arguing it?

So far, he’s seemed a lot like a mediator and facilitator of the argument, and not tried to swing it either way. It seems innocent enough, but as I said similarly about Doc, playing neutral analyser also sounds like a nice cover for justifying Elim-like behaviour while still seeming neutral. 2. I’ve noticed myself falling into the bias of "no-read == Village" when a base case should really be distrust. I wonder if Rand is aware of that, and is attempting to escape attention by staying close to the wall.

1. No, not in general. Rand provided a fine explanation for why he didn't get too involved last cycle, but generally there's no point in sitting back during the first cycle - we need to generate discussion, and just letting a lynch happen because it has to is exactly the opposite of what generates discussion. 
1a. And we did get a lot out of arguing it, I'll note. People are already starting to use that information this cycle. It's unfortunate that Buttercup was the one to die, sure, but we actually created discussion and that's a very good thing. 

2. This is a good point! I meant to bring this up regardless, because it's important to remember: just because Rand (or any other player, but particularly Rand) is very good, that does not mean everything he says is automatically NAI, nor should he be assumed village. Both of those are potentially wrong and definitely dangerous assumptions. I caught myself reading him as village, as well, and have forced it back to a firm neutral because I don't think anything he's said merits the village read I had. 

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I agree with some of your points here. He’s been quiet enough that it might be an Elim trying to read the field before stepping in, and hoping that his vote gets ignored under the weight of more vocal players. 1. If someone like Elenion or Bugsy had done something like this, it probably wouldn’t be suspicious, because they’re so active. But someone hiding in the background and only remaining active enough to determine easy targets smells fishy to me. Claiming to have only skimmed the thread, and claiming to have only skimmed it when Doc called him out on it, sounds like he was only too glad to accept an excuse for staying quiet. From that, Eternum is either acting like a hunting Elim or he’s genuinely quiet. I’ll leave it up to experienced players to give a verdict about whether this is in-character or not.

2. I disagree that progression of thought is any sort of tell for Village. An Elim naturally has more information to go on, and so they are more likely to have solid progression of thought. Something that I would consider to be a Village tell would be acting sporadic and focused on individual interactions. Calculatedly revealing pieces of a plan over time sounds more suspicious to me. If anything, this condemns him more in my eyes.

3. However, I don’t think that he’s Elim. Any Elim worth their salt iocaine would probably become uncomfortable after wavering on an issue like that, and the safest option is to back away, which would be in-character for a quiet Elim player. And suspecting each of the three core members is frankly quite reasonable. I’ve certainly suspected all three of them, and 4. I think that it’s healthy to suspect anyone that takes a solid stance that quickly, since there isn’t anything else to go on.

5. I don’t think that this is sufficient evidence to vote. It might be that I want to be less quick-firing with my votes, but I feel like stating your opinion and discussing it before voting is a better approach than starting more discontent. While attempting to galvanise the discussion with a vote is certainly effective, it didn’t do us much good last time.

(this is the response to my vote on Eternum, for context)

1. I disagree - if an active player tried to cast suspicion on all three of the main players last cycle, I'd be just as suspicious as of Eternum doing it, and I'm not sure why you think otherwise. 

2. Fifth already said this succinctly, but I strongly disagree here. Progression of thought is one of the more difficult things for elims to fake because it's something they don't have. Villagers will reevaluate (hopefully) and move on to different suspicions because they don't know who's evil. Eliminators do, and so don't care so much who they cast suspicion on, so don't have reason to change. Someone is far more likely to be changing their opinion than 'calculatedly revealing pieces of a plan over time' - people who try to do things like that tend to end up overcomplicating things and dying, in my experience. If you're consciously thinking 'time to manipulate someone to follow my master plan', balance of probability is that you will not succeed. 

3. Ooh, another flip flop! You say progression of thought condemns him more and then immediately say you don't think he's evil. Because he would back away after wavering like that, you say - could you provide evidence that he hasn't done so? I don't really understand why you think he's not evil given what you've said. 

4. Disagreed. I probably would have taken as solid a stance as any of the others on D1 had I been around. That doesn't mean I'd have actually been certain, but it's a lot less useful to put on an uncertain vote that you drop as soon as the other says anything, which an elim won't feel any pressure about. Being certain gets a lot more reactions. (See: Meta, in earlier games. He would do this a lot, and was very good at aggressively pushing on someone for the smallest thing, just to see what people would do.)

5. I have problems with that on two points. First, you say that galvanising discussion with votes didn't do us much good last time, with which I strongly disagree. We got discussion, which we're already analysing. You may not have seen other games with bad D1s, but some games have a D1 that was like ours was before that discussion got started - a few random poke votes, none with any intent to kill behind them, and nothing really... happens. And then someone dies, basically at random. That's not what we got here, and that's worth an awful lot. So galvanising discussion definitely turned out well, in my opinion. 

Secondly, as I mentioned above, voting puts pressure on people. If you politely discuss who you'll vote for for most of the cycle without actually voting, elims won't feel in any danger of being lynched, and we'll get less information out of them. It's also a lot easier for them to hide if everyone is only voicing soft suspicions and not actually putting down votes to back them up. Waiting on voting creates less discussion and just makes things easier for the elims (and were this not your first game I might vote on you for that suggestion). 

Quote

Seems…convenient. That can protect you as an Elim because you’re trying to proactively reduce suspicion, and it can also protect you as a Villager because the Elims don’t want to get rid of Max given the two revives. But I suppose that is the point of Max.

But over a year always being the bad guy sounds a bit rough, so I’m willing to believe you in the interest of letting you actually play. The fun of the game is, of course, why we are doing this. Except for those who draw their daily energy from misleading other people, of course…

That was my intention, yes.  Though for all I know the elims will kill me anyway, given that they killed Roadwalker. I'm not sure why they'd do either, given in my opinion Max help the eliminators more (which is partly why I'm still acting as a villager), but... their choice, not mine. 

Well, ish. That's only six games, as I haven't been playing much recently, and of those, one was village-but-inactive, one was evil, one faction, and two neutral. So I haven't really been evil a lot, just not-good. (And greatly enjoyed that, except for the fact that I didn't know how to act village in LG43 and got caught immediately by Orlok. Oops.)

Quote

Uh…this is a bit premature, isn't it? As I said about Elbereth’s vote, I think that given what happened on Day One, voting on quiet players without opening it up to discussion first is just going to end up with more mislynches. I feel like you’re firing blindly in the dark, and we only need to look at the Araris bandwagon to see how quickly that spiralled out of control. We’ve seen the price of being willing to vote on a player to initiate discussion.

I mostly covered this earlier, but will reiterate a bit: Yes, we're going to have more mislynches. That's an unfortunate fact of SE. But the price of being willing to vote to kill is worth it, because that what really helps. I fully intend to lynch Eternum this cycle, unless he convinces me he's village or I find someone more suspicious. Without him having a reason to care about my suspicion - a vote with intent to kill - I won't get nearly as much information from him or anyone else. 

Quote

Hmm, I suppose. Then the difference here is that Araris’s was entirely to generate discussion, whereas now there is actual evidence. I guess that any vote does seem pretty damning to me, even if you can rescind it. Personally, I think that voting intention should be all that is required, and voting itself can come later once it’s been discussed a bit. That’s how I want to play for the moment, as hindsight is making me feel like I jumped onto the Araris bandwagon when I really shouldn’t have.

(this is from the next post down, but my multiquote got messed up so it's in a blank quotebox anyway)

One more thing on this, and then moving on. There's now actual evidence - yes, exactly. And people are using it. If there's actual evidence, why do you think we shouldn't be voting anymore? 

4 hours ago, Straw said:

@Elbereth After your win condition is complete, do you still plan on reviving people?

Good question. I don't know. Maybe, if I make a deal with one side or another. Maybe, if I want to try to keep the game as balanced as possible so it comes down to the wire, because that sort of game is fun. Maybe I'll start giving pills to people? But alternatively, maybe not, if the game feels like it's been dragging on forever. Basically, I'll use my judgement when we get there, but don't know yet. 

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

If El is lying about being Max, the real Max will counterclaim and we can lynch her for her dishonesty. As for now, though, I’m of a mind to trust El’s claim, unless someone else refutes it. El is not the type of person to lie about something like this (I think). 

The only time I would lie is if a) I was evil, b. my team was already in contact with Max who had agreed not to claim, and c) I was a better player than I currently am. It's the sort of gambit I might have tried under those specific circumstances a couple years ago, but not now, and I'm not sure even then it'd be worth it. (I guess I could also claim as a villager to cover for the reasl Max if I were in contact with them, which I won't confirm or deny.)

That took too long. >> I'll be back in several hours once work is done. 

Elenta wandered through the castle gates,
And hoped that she would not be too much late. 

[DeTess she/her]

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

You, my friend, have just encountered one of the most fundamental tenets of SE: a game of I Know You Know. You will forever be lost in its depths if you don’t withdraw immediately.  Jokes aside, I’m mostly seeing Rand as village but given his skill at obscuring his alignment I’m taking my read with a grain of salt.

An interesting thing I learned during the championships is that IKYK is known on some forums as WIFOM, or 'wine in front of me'.  The Ethymology of that expression is becoming quite clear to me now  .

I'da lso like to say that I think it's a bad idea for Wesley to claim. Yes, he's currently without powers, but his role still makes him confirmed good. I'd rather have him reveal himself when it's actually going to do us some good to have a 100% cleared villager, then now, where revealing will just put a target on his back.

Anyway, Let's go do a review of everyone. I'm sure that'll take  no time at all...

Walin

Hasn't really spoken much since last I mentioned him, but I find it interesting that the person who claimed Max after Walin asked for a Max claim ended up dead. I don't want to speculate on this right now as that would be the epitome of WIFOM, but I'll be keeping an eye on him.

Bort

Bort has only a bit. His first post was a random vote on Walin, and posts after that where him explaining that vote, and asking some questions of participants in the Araris wagon. I don't have a proper read on him yet, but I do have a question. @Bort, in hindsight the Araris lynch is obviously a mislynch. If you where to look purely at C1 without that knowledge, do you think the Araris lynch had merit?

Elephant

Has said two sentences, neither of which are related to finding the elims. @ElephantEarwax, is there anyone in particular you suspect or think is likely village right now?

Anyway, my trains is about to reach the station. I'll be back with moer thoughts (and hopefully more interesting thoughts than 'didn't post much. next!') in about an hour or so.

[Rathmaskal he/him]

7 minutes ago, randuir said:

I'da lso like to say that I think it's a bad idea for Wesley to claim. Yes, he's currently without powers, but his role still makes him confirmed good. I'd rather have him reveal himself when it's actually going to do us some good to have a 100% cleared villager, then now, where revealing will just put a target on his back.

From the initial post for the game:

Quote

The Princes Men have to outnumber the village, so no one can tell the truth, and Gilder can once again be framed for the death of Buttercup! They have a night kill; the night kill being put in counts as an action. The night kill sends the victim to the Pit of Despair, where their life force is drained away by the machine of the Count. They also have the Pit to conspire in.

I took that to mean that the Prince's Men have a doc like those that have existed in other games of SE, so they would already know who is bad or not bad.  So, now that Wesley is just a normal villager (no more night kill/PM with Buttercup), he or she wouldn't be painting any additional target on his/her back and would only be providing additional information.  Additionally, like any other information that we have to work with, it's all up to how much you believe the person who states it.

[DeTess she/her]

5 minutes ago, Rathmaskal said:

From the initial post for the game:

I took that to mean that the Prince's Men have a doc like those that have existed in other games of SE, so they would already know who is bad or not bad.  So, now that Wesley is just a normal villager (no more night kill/PM with Buttercup), he or she wouldn't be painting any additional target on his/her back and would only be providing additional information.  Additionally, like any other information that we have to work with, it's all up to how much you believe the person who states it.

The elims know who is good and bad, yes, but the village doesn't. Anyone attaining a status of 'confirmed villager' will become a major target for the elims as that person is highly unlikely to be lynched. If Wesley instead remains alive untill the late game, revealing his role could help narrow down the suspect list even more.

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Ahh, I just re-read the post to start the day and realized that it states who was killed in which manner.  I did not notice that at first.  So the information I was looking for already exists.  I was still skeptical of your argument without that piece of information.

[Elenion he/him]

@Elbereth You said in your post that you'd be willing to lynch Eternum for his suspicions last Day, but I find HH more suspicious based on his position in the bandwagon and the reasoning he gave for it. Why do you find Eternum more suspicious than HH?

(I'd ping Randuir with a similar question but he's probably going to cover HH in his analysis soon.)

[CadCom he/him]

So, I've had suspicions of Fifth this game. The following is an in-depth, progressive analysis of his posts, pertaining to how I view his different posts, or posts about him.

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Fifth Scholar: Posted Saturday at 04:05 PM 

I’ll vote Devotary of Spontaneity for now, since I never got a chance to return the favor last game  This will probably change once I read the thread properly. 

I don't know Fifth extremely well, but He has been one of the people I have paid close attention to throughout. Being a new player, I try to look to the players that seem like they know what they're doing, and Fifth has been one of those players. This seems out of character for what I usually see from him. he doesn't usually vote for someone from previous games. 

That being said... This is obviously a joke vote, and it will be changed. The post gave a mild elim vibe, but not enough to worry about, because it's a joke post. 

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Fifth Scholar: Posted Sunday at 10:58 AM 

Well. Since the thread is now mostly a heated exchange between Bugsy and Araris/Elenion, I feel I should chip in my two cents. 

I think Bugsy is being misunderstood here- he’s not actually attributing real suspicion to Araris for his comment, merely pointing something out, and the subsequent attack on him for pointing out something to Araris as a clarification is slightly disconcerting. I particularly don’t like the way Len jumped on him after his comments, and his suspicion of Bugsy reads as more opportunistic than Bugsy’s “suspicion” of Araris. I also fall closer to Bugsy’s view on Elim behavior- they generally want to take a backseat and cut ties to their fellow teammates, not push mislynches on villagers that they in turn may be killed for. 

I’m still having an issue reading the thread in full, particularly with the w’s layered over it, but I’ll place a serious vote soon.  

This post made my previous mild elim vibe go back towards mild village. Bugsy, Araris, and Elenion had been discussing elim behavior, and Fifth didn't see it going anywhere, so he put an end to it. I still found it a bit suspicious that he would want to put an end to it though, as he usually tends to try to foster discussion.

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Fifth Scholar: Posted Sunday at 04:53 PM

I’ll retract from Devotary because my joke vote puts her closer to death than I realized. I suppose I’ll cement the vote on Araris Valerian, to hopefully get solid information to work with from the huge Bugsy debate.

Fifth's style is usually one of wanting to get information to work with, so this seems like it would reflect his normal style. However, It didn't feel right to me. Fifth tends to vote on people more often because of mild suspicion, plus good information. This time, it seemed to be fully for the purposes of more information. I began to lean back more towards Elim here. 

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Mr. Doctor: Posted Sunday at 06:28 PM

Did Fifth Scholar get two votes? He’s listed as voting for Devotary and Araris, despite rescinding his vote on Devotary in the same post as voting for Araris. And speaking of, it was a little strange to see Fifth get on that bandwagon despite having said virtually nothing all game. I suppose that it’s reasonable that he wanted to cement the vote, as he said, but I haven’t seen any other evidence of him wanting to gather intel. It’s not condemning, but I think that it’s worth pointing out.

So the first part of this post can be ignored, because it was later confirmed to be GM Error. I have also been noticing that fifth has been quieter than normal, and I will address that later.  Cementing a vote just seems out of Fifth's style, because he usually tries to gather more information, before cementing a vote. 

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Fifth Scholar: Posted yesterday at 04:32 AM

Okay, to explain my vote last cycle a bit more: I had a fairly busy weekend, and not much time to pore over the thread in exhaustive detail (especially with my mind still half in the MR that was wrapping up). The joking around and prevalence of w’s was making it hard to understand the initial section of the posts, which I basically wrote off as NAI, and I focused my time on the big Araris/Bugsy conflict. I didn’t really blame Araris for his slightly indignant reaction, as what Bugsy accused him of wasn’t really great evidence, but given the tone of Bugsy’s post it seemed fairly clear that he was joking. Araris put a vote on Bugsy (I think...did he?) and then Len jumped on Bugsy immediately afterwards, accusing him of being opportunistic. I found this slightly hypocritical, as Len’s vote felt way more opportunistic, but by the time I had left to vote (7 minutes into the cycle) there was basically nobody on Len so I voted on somebody within the three I had been looking at, to hopefully generate information for us to analyze as well as to protect the Araris wagon from vote manipulators. 

I don’t have two votes, but if Steel wants to give me an extra vote, I certainly won’t object.

 

Perfect! Fifth's response to everyone's criticism of him! I was in this position last game, and a little bit this game as well, Last game, I was village, so I know what it feels like to be put under suspicion when being innocent. I am going to analyze this post compared to what I would have said, having been put under similar suspicions. 

1. Blame it on IRL stuff. I definitely did that. What can I say, it was the truth. Most of the time my posts were less frequent, or less thought out, it was because I was busy. 

2. Hypocracy. He pointed out that he thought Len was being hypocritical. Then he proceeded to vote on Araris... What?

3. Oh, an explanation. Thanks again Fifth, for answering my questions when we need them. Len didn't have any votes, and it was too late to vote on him to get him lynched. So Instead make sure we get a lynch vote. 

4. Personally, I prefer closer votes. I think we can learn more from closer votes, that could potentially become ties. We would learn more about vote manipulation, and someone would die anyways to do analysis. I would have thought that Fifth would have thought the same, but Who knows? The explanation seems pretty innocent to me.

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Fifth Scholar, in response to me during N1

I say that my activity has been dampened by a more sporadically busy summer, and that I’m having trouble getting reads due to the sheer size of the player base and my unfamiliarity with the rules. (The latter is actually fairly easy to rectify, and I’ll look at the rules and get a good grip on them tonight, if I can.)

Ok, this seems fair. If you're busy, it makes it hard to post. Plus when you can get on, your first priority is most likely to catch up on the thread/PMs/Docs. So it takes more time to get to the rules. I think that the excuse is valid. However, it's equally valid if you are Elim, or if you are village, so it doesn't change my read of you.

16 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Well, that’s awkward, the princess wasn’t supposed to die.

I could say my hands are clean, but that would be a lie. 

I suppose little Alv couldn’t hear such a terrible story,

Since Buttercup died before reaching her full glory. 

Now the rate of attrition will drastically decrease,

As Westley’s nightly kills have completely ceased. 

So I would advise our Miracle Worker, Max,

To perhaps take a day or two off and just relax. 

For if every person is resurrected after being killed, 

This game could go on for as long as Max willed. 

I suppose I’ll cast a vote later on in the turn;

However, first I shall simply watch the thread and learn

What other people think of this most tragic death,

And if we should make Max draw his final breath. 

Fourteen lines is awkward, so I’ll just add two more

To bring this poem four lines short of a full score. 

---

Yay for bad poetry! TL;DR—Buttercup died, I suppose I’m partially to blame, and without Westley killing people things will go much slower. Max should abstain from giving out a ton of pills so we can get information at a faster rate. I’ll put down a vote later but will wait for now and see what other people think. 

Great poem! I should give it an upvote. I haven't done so yet. If I remember, I'll do it after I finish my analysis. Also, thanks for the summary at the bottom. That's the part that I want to analyze more. 

Admitting guilt is a pretty vilage thing in my opinion, unless it's a confession post. Because you have so far only been under mild scrutiny, that's obviously not what you're doing. But You do know how a battle of wits works. Once a battle of wits has begun between any two people who know how a battle of wits works, it essentially becomes random, and no answer can be 100% satisfactory until the results are revealed. So you could be an elim, doing something that looks villagey, or a villager, doing something that looks like an elim doing a villagey thing, or just a villager doing a village thing...You get the idea.

10 hours ago, Elenion said:

I am not Wesley/Dread Pirate Roberts and I've had no PM contact with Araris. I defended him because had a good read on him and a bad read on Bugsy, so I followed through with that. It looks like my read on Araris was right--I'm not really sure about the one on Bugsy. I'm getting a villagey vibe from his reaction to the news about Araris. Ditto with Fifth Scholar, but I didn't suspect Fifth yesterday. If Bugsy comes up again in my analysis I'll bring this debate back up, but bashing about opportunism right now isn't really getting us anywhere.

So Elenion doesn't suspect you. But maybe he doesn't know you as well as I do. Or maybe he knows you better. Who knows?

10 hours ago, Elenion said:

Fifth: The last vote on Araris. The lynch was already decided when Fifth piled on, and Fifth gave good reasoning for it, so I don't think Fifth was an elim looking to solidify the vote. Maybe they're an elim for unrelated reasons--I don't get much hard evidence for villageness from their post--but this vote doesn't mark them as elim, and I have a good toneread on them. Maybe tied with or just above Mr. Doctor on my trust scale.

Tone, in my opinion can easily be faked, if you attempt to put effort into your posts. I agree that There isn't much hard evidence for villageness in their posts at all. 

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

 @Mr Doctor That’s some pretty solid analysis, and a lot of it. That’s great for your first time in SE. Bravo. I’ll respond to some of it, though.

You, my friend, have just encountered one of the most fundamental tenets of SE: a game of I Know You Know. You will forever be lost in its depths if you don’t withdraw immediately.  Jokes aside, I’m mostly seeing Rand as village but given his skill at obscuring his alignment I’m taking my read with a grain of salt. 

I agree, So far, I have a village read on Rand. If Fifth is an Elim, they is not trying the strategy of causing confusion. They are trying the "Be agreeable" strategy

Fifth is also right, @Mr Doctor If you don't stop, you will be stuck like us. When you try to stop later, you will experience withdrawal symptoms and be drawn back in. It's a death trap.

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

I think progression of thought is associated with villagers because Eliminators cannot have it; they begin the game with perfect information about alignments, while villagers have to stumble around blindly trying to acquire this information. Therefore, villagers are more likely to progress in their reads as they receive more information and get past the initial stumbling stage. 

Right, Elim's can't have progression of thought on anyone, except for trying to determine who Miracle Max is, so they would try to obscure their progressions of thought regarding that. But Elims would know to fake it. 

(All of a sudden, it sounds really bad that I started my post out by saying that this is a progressive analysis)

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

If El is lying about being Max, the real Max will counterclaim and we can lynch her for her dishonesty. As for now, though, I’m of a mind to trust El’s claim, unless someone else refutes it. El is not the type of person to lie about something like this (I think). 

No, I don't think the real Max would necessarily counterclaim yet. If El is Max, why didnt they counter-claim last cycle? 

Ok, granted, El already explained why they didn't claim until now. But perhaps the Real Max is doing the same thing El did. 

Actually, I think the El is likely the real Max too. Now that he has made it very difficult for him to be killed, he decided to reveal himself now. 

3 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

You do bring up a good point here. This is another reason our former Man in Black should claim, to see what the thought process behind killing Kidpen was.  

All in all, that was excellent analysis from Doctor and I’m very tempted to just write him off as village for effort (I see at least three or four hours’ work behind that post). However, it’s SE, so I can’t trust anyone, though I maintain a strong village read on Doctor. 

I don't think the Man in Black should claim. He now no longer has his kill ability. If I recall from MR 29, I had the tiebreaker role, and no one asked that person to role claim so people could know who he was. Obviously, needing to know someone's reasoning can be important, but N1 kills are likely "I had a little bit of suspicion, plus I wanted to use my power" Especially if the player is newish. That's what I ended up doing in MR 29.

Honestly, I haven't looked much at the long posts from this cycle yet, I've been spending too much time doing an analysis of Fifth. But that's next on my list, re-analyze everything this cycle so far. But I am fairly certain that Fifth is correct. Excelent Analysis Doctor! Thank you for your insight. 

So I did this analysis of Fifth because I was suspicious of him. I intend to to more analyses as the game continues, I just wanted to do his first. I still have that suspicion, so Fifth Scholar. Depending on your response, I may remove my vote, but for now it is stuck right there.

[Elbereth she/her]

@Elenion, Short answer is that I haven't been looking closely at HH and his reasoning. Longer answer is that I'm rather sceptical of bandwagon-positioning reasoning as a rule, and really wish that getting data on every vote ever cast wouldn't take hundreds of hours. I'll go back and look at his reasoning, as I didn't look carefully at that, but my vote is staying on Eternum for now (also partly because even if I find HH suspicious, Eternum should answer as well). 

@Cadmium Compounder, I'm female, by the way.