Long Game 48: The Terris Synod

[Steeldancer]

A- Why did we have to kill the steelrunner? I have a thing for steelrunners, no particular reason why. In all seriousness though, this means there easily could have been eliminators on both votes day one. They wouldn't have cared, so I'm going to go back and see if there was anyone who subtly redirected the lynch away from anyone else.  
B- Fantastic, the spiked managed to kill a really good role. That has to be luck, I assume, unless I'm forgetting about a scan ability that would have been able to be used before the kill would be submitted. 
Right now, my only read that I have to report on is an elim gut read on Rand. Not because of his suspicion on me, I honestly didn't even notice that at first. This is based on nothing solid, so I'll likely change my mind later. Despite that, I'll start with Rand to get things moving.
Oh, and I'm disappointed no one opened any PMs. 

[Worldhopper From Yolen]

Darn it, three villagers down, no Spiked down. This is distressing. I'll just vote with @Steeldancer and go with Rand.

[Araris Valerian]

You know, I really want Rand dead too.

[DeTess]

WfY, if you're voting with someone, its generally better to vote with someone that's voting with arguments, rather than their gut. (Araris, I figuratively don't even...)

@Steeldancer, If possible I'd like to hear you expand a bit on your gut-read. its obviously something from D1, as you mention that you hadn't seen my accusation of you yet when this gut read came up.

@_Stick_, why did you mention Coop being part of the Synod? That's a role, right, and nothing of the sort has been revealed about him.

Anwyay, ITIAH ended up being village, which expands the group of potential elims significantly (namely, everyone who isn't dead yet), and weakens the case against Steel, Kidpen and Snipexe somewhat, though I still remain suspicious of the first two. It also means that the elims had no particular reason to be voting one way or another last cycle. I'll start by taking a look at those late on the ITIAH bandwagon in a bit (probably this evening, about 10 hours from now).

One thing of note is the suspicions based on last-minute claims. I've been thinking back to the last bunch of games, and I can't remember a single instance of an elim trying to survive by false-claiming something (while I can remember several instances of a villager claiming to try and survive). I'm sure it happened in the past, but it seems to be a bit of a dead horse trope these days. Am I wrong?

[CadCom]

4 hours ago, randuir said:

@_Stick_, why did you mention Coop being part of the Synod? That's a role, right, and nothing of the sort has been revealed about him.

It was shown in the write up

Quote

The Gods of Luck and Chance have condemned Coop772! He was a Village Copper Ferring (Archivist) and a Synod member!

(Bold added by me.)

Anyway, The death of Itiah makes it much more difficult. I originally had suspicions on Snipexe, and Steel mostly. Now I am more doubtful. I don't trust myself to vote for either of those. Steel offered some defense of himself yesterday, But I still haven't heard from Snip, so I will remain silent for now, and review the thread some more to see if I have any further suspicions. 

--RP--

Business must go on. If everyone left their day jobs every time a crisis occurred, society would crumble. Unfortunately, due to the current situation in Tathwingden, Ethin had more than one duty to perform. It was the responsibility of all the citizens to find out who was the spiked among them. But at the same time, he had to make a living. So far the signs regarding SCUBA diving classes had attracted no one. Ethin stored Cadmium, so SCUBA diving was easy for him. He could go down for over an hour, as long as he had a couple days to prepare. For those who were not Cadmium feruchemists, Ethin had a way. 

Reeds collected from the southern dominance were malleable and hollow. However, when sprayed with an epoxy, they would stiffen up. This provided a breathing tube for others to breath with. He had tubes that varied in length, all the way from some that weren't even an arm's length, to some that were as tall as a building, thus allowing his students to dive at different depths, up to the depths of a building.

None of that mattered though, if he couldn't get people to step back and relax. Somehow, Ethin had to convince them that sometimes the best way to catch an infiltrator is to make it look like you aren't actively searching for them, and instead silently observe as everyone goes about their day to day activities. 

[Rathmaskal]

OK folks, and I know this shines a bit of suspicion on me, but as has been mentioned, the elim team didn't have any reason to vote on either Itiah or Coop...so don't let people sitting in the shadows escape your gaze.

Abstentions d1 (unless I missed something)

• Rath
• Bort
• CadCom
• Jondesu
• Ark

~~

Sorry for the lack of RP so far...job has a lot of peaks and valleys in business...ramping up a bit right now unexpectedly...maybe I should just start going with "Laksam had a broom..."  That seemed to work pretty well last game

[DeTess]

Thanks for that explanation @Cadmium Compounder. I'd like to ask the Synod to consider the possibility that coop had been identified in the Synod doc, and could have been a prime target for elims to lynch because of that. If you find that is the case, and you can figure out some way to let the thread know without risking revealing yourselves, I'd appreciate it.

@Rathmaskal, of those abstentions, only Jondesu had actually posted in the thread during D1. They're definitely worth keeping an eye on, but of the 5, I only consider Jondesu's abstention to be premeditated (which does not mean its suspicious in and of itself).

[Steeldancer]

Um, ok why did two more people vote on Rand? Araris, could you explain your vote? 

Um, I’m afraid I don’t have much of an explanation for why I find you a bit suspicious? Just this uncomfortable feeling about you in my gut. I would prefer to vote on someone I have a harder reason to vote on, though. So I’ll change my vote Rand Araris . Not sure I like how you just followed me on Rand for no reason. I was hoping for alternate Lynch targets, not a following of votes. 

[Araris Valerian]

I’m sorry, Randuir. I’m too busy right now to look over last cycle, but I thought it would be funny to have the first three posts in a cycle be votes on a player for no reason.

[Sart]

"Well, um, that didn't work. We're not, like, out of options, but it's hard to tell anything from that. Cuz like, the bad guys would be on both lynches, y'know? Well, at least everyone was here tonight, so, um, that's good. Um... so... I'm suspicious of Era, I guess? I mean, my last suspicion was a total dud, y'know? But like, she's been..."

"Oh. Um, okay, so Era was a villager. So, like, my suspicion meter is like, way off. I'm suspicious of Ereheman Tresni (Xineoph) but I don't really have any evidence. So, um, that's kind of where I'm at right now. Yeah."

[DeTess]

So, the votes on ITIAH. Actually, before we get there, @phattemer, why exactly did you vote on Araris? You stated that he was one of the few people you could read, but that's not a reaons in and of itself. If anything, it'd be more logical to start out trying to get rid of people you can't read so you have a better chance at properly judging those remaining.

Now, on to the votes on ITIAH. Sart made the first vote, and provided some reasoning. To summarize, I believe Sart was suspicious because ITIAH discouraged being suspicious of people talking in docs (because of the synod), cautioned against villagers putting in the generic kill, suggested lynches should be big wagons and because ITIAH hadn't actually voted yet. (that about right, @Sart?)

I don't agree the all of those reasons, but they're better than just bandwagoning*. Speaking of which...

Araris...wasn't actually wagoning. He provided a single reason for his vote, which was one of the reasons Sart brought up as well. What's odd is that Araris actually played in MR30 and was part of the village doc there, so it should have been fairly obvious where ITIAH was coming from with that comment, since he even referred to that game. Hindsight might be 20/20 though. @Araris Valerian, what made you dismiss ITIAH's referral to MR30 when he made that comment about the synod you found suspicious?

Now we do get to the wagon though. First on was Elandera, but we already know what her alignment is. (but if I hadn't known, I'd have found the way she jumped on it slightly suspicious. That should tell you all you need to know about the accuracy of my elim-radar in the early game.)

Next was stick. She expresses some worry about the wagon, but also states that she was going to vote even if the wagon hadn't been in place. She makes no real attempt to unload the 'blame' on others, but I am curious to know if she had anyone else in mind as a suspect at the time ( @_Stick_)?

Xinoeph on the other hand is wholly committed to the bandwagon, citing a lack of other ideas. I'd already brought coop up as a serious lynch at the time, though it hadn't gained any momentum yet. Based on this post it seems like Xinoeph just jumped on the established wagon without looking if anyone was bringing any other options up, which makes me a bit suspicious. A villager, even one without ideas, would take the time to read the ideas of other people first, I'd imagine.

Alvron decided to tie the vote. It's Alvron, so that's NIA.

Phattemer then broke the tie, but didn't explain why he favored the ITIAH lynch over the coop lynch. He didn't have much time to provide those reasons, so I'd like to hear them now ( @phattemer), before I decide what I think about his vote.

Of those voting for ITIAH, I like Xinoeph's vote the least right now. Araris vote also looks off to me given the reasoning he provided.

 

*I agree that him opening up the generic kill IKYK rabbit-hole wasn't helpful and slightly suspicious, but the other read as fairly NAI to me, in part because I was part of the Scadrial game in which the doc-users where a village faction that ITIAH referred to.

Edited August 14, 2018 by randuir

[Rathmaskal]

Laksam had gotten up early today to start sweeping.  He'd decided to focus on sweeping ash around the temple today.  After all, there had been a decent amount of commotion there the past couple days.  As for the city-wide lockdown?  He'd never really had any aspirations of leaving the city anyway.  There was always plenty of ash to sweep.

~~

Sart just ninjaed me...  Was also going to throw a vote onto Xinoehp.  The casual nature of the vote was kind of odd.  Don't think I'm quite convinced enough to start a bandwagon though...Xinoehp.  So, we'll go with my second suspicion here.  WfY also seems a bit too casual on the bandwagon vote from d1.

A couple of other thoughts...

• Steel's rationale for deciding not to defend accusations doesn't make a ton of sense.
• I have a slight gut elim read on Rand as well...I know a couple other people have noted the same thing...oddly Steel.  The fact that rand got that first vote out on Coop and just chilled on it as two bandwagons were running kind of seems like a "job well done" elim move.
• Araris seems all over the place with votes so far.  Araris has been in both other games I've played so far...and gotten killed rather early in both of them...so I don't know what to think of this.
• I'm going to keep pushing abstentions as a group of people to look at especially on days where all of the votes were piled on (now) confirmed villagers.
• Based on how discussion went d1, I'm guessing the kill on Itiah was actually a village-submitted action.  Not that that's a bad thing, I just don't think the elims would have submitted one on someone who could have easily been lynched d2.
• I would like to understand Snipexe's rationale on the d1 "I like this bandwagon but I'm voting here instead" vote (For some reason the quotes aren't working for me right now...otherwise I'd actually quote)

Just to clarify, yes, I left this sitting for about 30 minutes while I had to handle something for work...so Sart's ninja was when I was initially typing this out.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Rathmaskal
Last line

[DeTess]

@Rathmaskal, I didn't 'chill' on my vote on coop. I went to bed about 40 minutes after making that vote. If I hadn't, I probably would have retracted after he claimed, but hindsight is 20/20.

[Rathmaskal]

I'm assuming you mean you went to bed ~40 minutes after posting vote count (which would have put you offline prior to the bandwagoning)...your vote was made ~16 hours before the cycle ended and ~12 hours before that post.  Makes sense though.

[DeTess]

Right, sorry. I was referring to the post with the vote count and me confirming I was still suspicious of Coop, not the one in which the actual vote was made (those got blurred in my memory).

[CadCom]

12 minutes ago, Rathmaskal said:

I'm going to keep pushing abstentions as a group of people to look at especially on days where all of the votes were piled on (now) confirmed villagers.

I am one of the people that abstained D1, mostly due to lack of activity, but this cycle, I am going to abstain from voting for now, so that I can get better reads, without tunnelling anyone. Hopefully tomorrow, I can place a vote. 

There are some roles where not voting might be advantageous, so that their vote doesn't get manipulated or anything, So I am not going to push those that have so far abstained. 

[DeTess]

Actually, if your fill condition does something with your vote (negates it, redirects it), you have to vote to fill your metalmind.

Edit: that's one of the reasons I urged people to seriously consider voting last cycle, because if they don't, things like copper, zinc and tine will be very obvious.

Edited August 14, 2018 by randuir

[Araris Valerian]

I acknowledge the reference but this game has completely different rules than the MR. A village confirmed doc is a separate world from an anonymous doc almost guaranteed to have an eliminator. That reference was what I found suspicious, because the distinction was pretty clear to me, and seemed like a way to get the village to be too trusting.

[DeTess]

Well, as I said, hindsight is 20/20. It still seems rather obvious why he'd make that link, given that he'd only played a couple of games (right? or is this once again a case of someone that I think is new has actually been around for 6+games)?

[+Ark1002]

I just realized that Kidpen is a Kandra, technically meaning he is spiked by definition... I'm voting for Worldhopper from Yolen, I don't know why, she just seemed suspicious. 

Edited August 14, 2018 by Ark1002

[Rathmaskal]

@Ark1002 - I'm not sure how strict they are being this game, but putting the name of the person you're voting for in red is the usual standard...makes it easier to see who votes are for as you scroll through.

[+Ark1002]

Changed it. THis is fun. I've never played an RP like this...

[Worldhopper From Yolen]

Rand, because there was literally no proof. (@Ark1002, I'm a girl.)

[Kidpen]

41 minutes ago, Ark1002 said:

I just realized that Kidpen is a Kandra, technically meaning he is spiked by definition... 

See my first post.

[Steeldancer]

Also, as a note to new players, we tend to try and let new players live for at least a few cycles before we go after them.