Anniversary Game 5/Anonymous Game 4: One Final Blaze of Light

[Onyx Flamingo]

Vote tally:

Indigo Weasel (2): Cream Tuatara, Indigo Weasel

Scarlet Octopus (1): Magenta Albatross

Magenta Albatross (1): Scarlet Octopus

Sapphire Elephant (1): Quartz Zebra

Ok, so Indigo’s being voted on because he might have Odium in his faction, Octopus is being targeted because he pushed the Toucan lynch, Magenta is being targeted for pushing a lynch against Octopus, and Sapphire is being targeted because they’re inactive. Order of who I want to lynch:

1. Magenta

2. Indigo

3. Sapphire

4. Octopus.

Octopus’ reasoning seems to make sense, I believe Sapphire will probably die anyway to an inactivity filter and I’d prefer to get information from a lynch, I want to look into Indigo more before assuming he’s in the same faction as Odium and lynching him.

That leaves Magenta, who pushed on a lynch to Octopus, who has explained himself in what I think is a reasonable way. It seems odd to me. This vote is not final.

I will RP later.

Vote tally:

Indigo Weasel (2): Cream Tuatara, Indigo Weasel

Scarlet Octopus (1): Magenta Albatross

Magenta Albatross (2): Scarlet Octopus, Onyx Flamingo

Sapphire Elephant (1): Quartz Zebra

Edited January 18, 2019 by Onyx Flamingo

[Saffron Iguana]

For the sake of adding discussion to the Weasel question, I would prefer a question along the lines of what Axolotl said. "Does your faction posses Shard X".

Naturally, this will have to faction approved before answered, and I wouldnt expect it to be. However, whether or not it is answered could give us information on the faction.

The info doesnt give us an immediate gain, but gets better over time. It also means we know who to contact if we want to get a message/request to a particular shard. 

[Indigo Weasel]

1 hour ago, Ivory Dragonfly said:

 

@Indigo Weasel, does the win condition that your faction chose(not the win conditions standard to all factions) immediately end the game upon completion?

 

Maaaaybe.

If it did though, that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try to get more players to win.  The more players win, the better!

btw, if that ends up being the question, I’d have to ask my teammates, and then wait like 12 hours to get their response on whether or not I could tell you.

[Cream Tuatara]

@Indigo Weasel Indigo weasel is Odium in your faction?

[Indigo Weasel]

You’ll find out if you Lynch me

Why don’t you try?

[Violet Axolotl]

16 minutes ago, Indigo Weasel said:

You’ll find out if you Lynch me

Why don’t you try?

Indigo Weasel. 

[Indigo Weasel]

If I were you guys, I would use the question to see if my wincon requires me to be lynched.

Or I could have realized that I shouldn’t have given you guys such a good advantage, and I’m trying to get you to waste the question on determining something like this.

Either one.

[Violet Axolotl]

Just now, Indigo Weasel said:

If I were you guys, I would use the question to see if my wincon requires me to be lynched.

Or I could have realized that I shouldn’t have given you guys such a good advantage, and I’m trying to get you to waste the question on determining something like this.

Either one.

I’m not a fan of mind games so you know. This will only help me lynch you. If you win from it, so be it. I don’t think the game will end on the second day. 

[Indigo Weasel]

 

17 minutes ago, Violet Axolotl said:

I’m not a fan of mind games so you know. This will only help me lynch you. If you win from it, so be it. I don’t think the game will end on the second day. 

That’s a very good stance.

Any last requests before I go?

EDIT: guess that’s a no.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Indigo Weasel

[Ivory Dragonfly]

There's almost certainly not going to be a mechanic where somebody wins immediately by being lynched. Even a win condition like "Prevent X lynches" seems a bit too easy with the proper Shards. More likely than Weasel having a win condition that is specifically helped by him being lynched, his faction has access to some power that protects from lynches, such as Devotion's Shardic power. There would probably be some motive beyond just wasting a lynch for Weasel to be doing this, though I have only speculation on what that could be. Perhaps his faction simply benefits from a longer game. Regardless, while it's still worthwhile to ask Weasel the one question, it is probably not worthwhile to investigate, for example, Weasel seeming to claim Odium(unless the Odium question is asked and receives the answer of yes).

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

We are about halfway through Day 2 folks, remember to get your orders in. We have less than half of our orders, and we appreciate not having a huge influx of changes at the last minute..

[Magenta Albatross]

7 hours ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

Octopus’ reasoning seems to make sense, I believe Sapphire will probably die anyway to an inactivity filter and I’d prefer to get information from a lynch, I want to look into Indigo more before assuming he’s in the same faction as Odium and lynching him.

That leaves Magenta, who pushed on a lynch to Octopus, who has explained himself in what I think is a reasonable way. It seems odd to me. This vote is not final.

It obviously doesn't seem odd to me. I don't think Octopus has really explained themselves in a way I thought was satisfactory (Saying any more than the absolute minimum to get my way is wasted tipping space doesn't really fly in SE, I think). As I've brought up before, he seemed to be pushing really hard for a lynch on Toucan for the crime of maybe lying, even while waiting on an explanation from the DM's.* At least some of the others suspicious of Toucan where providing reasoning why something fishy was going on, beyond 'the rules say this', even though "there's always another secret" was rather prominent as a thread-tag, and this game already has plenty of hidden stuff.

I'm starting to become more suspicious of weasel though, with the way they're hopping around it feels like they're going for some sort of safety-in-confusion/chaos play? I'll chip in my question, at any rate. @Indigo Weasel, does your win-con require the death of characters in this game?

 

edit:

*and in particular, they where stating that in a way that tied to make it obvious that lynching them was a good plan, without really going into in-depth arguments. For example:

Quote

If a player belongs to a faction, then by definition they are not neutral. If they claim to be, then there is no point in trying to work with them. A quiet disposal by mob rule would be best in that case.

He immediately goes from 'he might be lying about being Neutral' to 'therefore they can't be worked with and must be lynched', which seems like a pretty big stretch to me.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Magenta Albatross

[Mint Heron]

21 hours ago, Cream Tuatara said:

If my eyes don't deceive me, we are still waiting to hear from @Emerald Falcon, @Fuchsia Ostrich, @Mint Heron, and @Pearl Chameleon.

What are your thoughts on the game so far?

I have technically made a single post, in my defense. 

Toucan's claim of being a neutral (or at least the only member of some faction) seems reasonable.  I'd prefer not to lynch them, because I've lynched actual neutrals in anonymous games before, and because they generally feel honest.

Am I allowed to say who I think a player is? My thoughts on Weasel primarily depend on that.

[Amber Vulture]

I have to say, of all the major candidates, I'm not particularly inclined to lynch any of them. If I had to pick someone, I'd probably choose Axolotl, but that's a fairly weak leaning even for Day 1 (well, 2, but you know what I mean).

OK, I've gone back over, and a few people have not yet posted.

Amethyst Scorpion - 1 single line post
Azure Mouse - 1 single line post
Amber Vulture - 1 multi line post (mostly RP) - something I intend to amend from now on.
Charcoal Hyena - 2 posts, 1 mostly RP
Chartreuse Penguin - Active, mostly through RP. Expressed suspicion of Toucan's neutral claim (which I don't agree with, but I'm not inclined to view as particularly suspicious in isolation.)
Coral Swan - Quite active. Expressed suspicion of Toucan, but softened after Joe's clarification, which struck me as genuine. In an ordinary game, I'd have a soft trust read on them - shame this is a faction game.
Cream Tuatara - Quite active. I just saw they did exactly the same thing I did (calling out inactives), which means I don't need to look through the rest of the list anymore. It wouldn't make me trust them anymore, but it does make me relieved - I was going to see how I felt about each of the candidates, but in a faction game, I'm less sure about what the point of that is (there's Odium, Autonomy and Ruin, but when I read through the thread the first time, I didn't see anything in particular that seemed like their kind of actions, particularly without knowing their wincons, and I doubt I will over a second reading, either.)

So... the people who hadn't posted as of a day ago were Emerald Falcon, Fuchsia Ostrich, Mint Heron, and Pearl Chameleon. All four of those accounts have been logged into since the start of the game.

Emerald Falcon and Fuchsia Ostrich have both logged in, but not posted. Mint Heron was about to go on that list, but they posted just this second.

@Emerald Falcon, @Fuchsia Ostrich

Regarding various things that have been discussed:

Toucan claiming neutral - I don't see anything suspicious about this, particularly given Joe's clarification.

One of the Shards beginning to Invest Yolen - I'm not surprised this happened, but I'm surprised it happened so soon. This seems more like a late game kind of action, as people mentioned. Either they're preparing early, they're new and chose something fairly randomly, or they just had a free action. Hard to say which, really.

Axolotl's analysis - This is probably the most suspicious thing I've seen - they claimed (or at least heavily implied) to have extra information from somewhere, then seemed to back away from that statement and claim otherwise, which strikes me as suspicious. Still, faction game and all - it's most likely something from their faction doc (or me misreading that whole exchange).

Weasel being aligned with Odium - I... think this is a stretch - I read it as Weasel just wanting to form contacts and get information for their faction (to be honest, I want to do the same) - if I were Cultivation, I wouldn't reveal myself to Weasel (or anyone else besides my faction at this stage), but I wouldn't be worried about them in particular either.

I feel like I've missed something big, but I'm not sure what. I hope to post again today with RP, so whatever I missed I can hopefully respond to then.

[Magenta Albatross]

25 minutes ago, Mint Heron said:

Am I allowed to say who I think a player is? My thoughts on Weasel primarily depend on that.

You are allowed to say who you think someone is iirc, they just can't confirm it, but I'd check with the GM's just to be sure (@Seonid/ @A Joe in the Bush)

[Violet Axolotl]

18 minutes ago, Amber Vulture said:

 

Axolotl's analysis - This is probably the most suspicious thing I've seen - they claimed (or at least heavily implied) to have extra information from somewhere, then seemed to back away from that statement and claim otherwise, which strikes me as suspicious. Still, faction game and all - it's most likely something from their faction doc (or me misreading that whole exchange).

Making sure my position is clear, I’m not backing off my analysis, I just recognize that it was premature now. The data I was using to analyze is accurate. I shared it here only because I thought it may help other factions as well. If I had known it would make me suspicious I wouldn’t have shared. I’m thinking twice when I share more in the future. 

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

38 minutes ago, Magenta Albatross said:

You are allowed to say who you think someone is iirc, they just can't confirm it, but I'd check with the GM's just to be sure (@Seonid/ @A Joe in the Bush)

Quote

3) Do not tell any other player or individual associated with SE, whether you are playing or not playing the Anonymous Game. Player identities will be revealed after the game, not on the death of their avatar. Players must not reveal their own identity after their death, until the end of the game, including in the dead/spec doc. Part of the attraction of anonymous games is keeping identities obscured, and we'd like to eliminate any chance of information becoming known that undermines the integrity of the anonymity.

From the Anonymous Account Rules post. If you have not read that post yet, please do so now.

You are allowed to guess who a player is, but honestly, I find that to be breaking with the spirit of the rules and of the game. Players cannot confirm or deny their identity, so I would rather you did not reveal who you think someone is. You won't be punished if you do, but in the spirit of the fun of being anonymous, please don't.

[Indigo Weasel]

27 minutes ago, Violet Axolotl said:

Making sure my position is clear, I’m not backing off my analysis, I just recognize that it was premature now. The data I was using to analyze is accurate. I shared it here only because I thought it may help other factions as well. If I had known it would make me suspicious I wouldn’t have shared. I’m thinking twice when I share more in the future. 

Aww.

 

48 minutes ago, Amber Vulture said:

I feel like I've missed something big

You have!   Well, it's not THAT big.

I offered to answer any one question honestly, but people haven't come to a consensus on what it should be.

53 minutes ago, Amber Vulture said:

Weasel being aligned with Odium - I... think this is a stretch - I read it as Weasel just wanting to form contacts and get information for their faction (to be honest, I want to do the same) - if I were Cultivation, I wouldn't reveal myself to Weasel (or anyone else besides my faction at this stage), but I wouldn't be worried about them in particular either.

That is true.

I got a PM out of it!  I won't say whether it was with Culty/a representative or not.

Does anyone have any suspicions on which Shards are aligned?  I think it will divide based on the books: Odium and Autonomy, Honor and Cultivation, Preservation and Ruin, ect.

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

Ostrich here. Sorry I couldn't reply earlier. My head was buried in the sand, you see?

12 hours ago, Indigo Weasel said:

You’ll find out if you Lynch me

Why don’t you try?

Why not?
Jokes apart, Weasel's behaviour has been slightly unsettling for me.
(For the sake of simplicity, I shall be referring to them as she. If anyone has any problems, let me know)
It started with this post: 

I don't see why saying "I have not used process of elimination only" (albeit a little more obfuscated) makes Axolotl very suspicious. 
In the subsequent post, she explains her reasons for worrying a little further. Specifically, she says "And that's what's scary.  You are probably lying, but there is no reason for you to!  Or at least that I can see."  
A few things to note -- Weasel assumes she should be able to see the reason for Axolotl's 'gambit' and that the apparent lack of reason is scary. In a game with hidden rules. And hidden win cons. I don't think it might be unlikely that Axolotl was simply trying to bait for responses and such. Or maybe they were simply trying to sow confusion. Who knows? But I find Weasel's 'worry' a little overinflated. It's not entirely unlikely that Axolotl is a very good player (someone specific comes to mind here) but I don't see reason to lynch axolotl over it; especially if the little farce may have been designed to elicit a response.
Now, here there's a few possibilities:

1. Axolotl was right and weasel was spooked by their uncanny accuracy, herself being in contact with the shard (Devotion or Odium) that invested in Yolen.
2. Weasel has no idea whether Axolotl is right, but wanted an easy lynch target. Or something. I don't know. 
3. This is an elaborate gambit to distance Weasel and Axolotl (Highly Unlikely, I think. But with experienced players, who knows? )
4. I can't remember the other possibilities. 

 

Lastly, what exactly does Weasel think Axolotl has become suspicious for? I mean, this is an anonymous game with secret rules. Of course people are doing things you'll only comprehend in hindsight. I see no reason to panic over this. As such, I find weasel's reaction out of proportion here.

If I have missed something here, I apologise. I'm in a sort of rush, given that I have had sudden workload dumped onto me due on the 22nd or 23rd of this month. So yeah. I may not make another big post until then. This post itself has been rushed and is not very good. (I'll admit, I fear I might have missed something very big and will look very stupid in hindsight.  But so be it)

Anyways, I'll be on once again before rollover to see any responses to this post. As such, I'll be casting my vote for Indigo Weasel.

That is all, I think? 
Also, Yolen? Bad idea. But it might be interesting to see what events lead to its creation. 

[Salmon Meerkat]

37 minutes ago, Indigo Weasel said:

Does anyone have any suspicions on which Shards are aligned?  I think it will divide based on the books: Odium and Autonomy, Honor and Cultivation, Preservation and Ruin, ect.

If I were a GM and this game shared factions with past iterations, I might try to work things based on how those ended or at least establish some kind of narrative that dictated which ones ended up where. Alas, I am not the GM (:P), and thus have no idea, and I don't really think anyone has enough information at this stage to try determining if the shards are aligned in any specific way, let alone issued non-randomly. This is a better subject to bring up a few cycles later, I think.

1 hour ago, Amber Vulture said:

I have to say, of all the major candidates, I'm not particularly inclined to lynch any of them. If I had to pick someone, I'd probably choose Axolotl, but that's a fairly weak leaning even for Day 1 (well, 2, but you know what I mean).

OK, I've gone back over, and a few people have not yet posted.

Amethyst Scorpion - 1 single line post
Azure Mouse - 1 single line post
Amber Vulture - 1 multi line post (mostly RP) - something I intend to amend from now on.
Charcoal Hyena - 2 posts, 1 mostly RP
Chartreuse Penguin - Active, mostly through RP. Expressed suspicion of Toucan's neutral claim (which I don't agree with, but I'm not inclined to view as particularly suspicious in isolation.)
Coral Swan - Quite active. Expressed suspicion of Toucan, but softened after Joe's clarification, which struck me as genuine. In an ordinary game, I'd have a soft trust read on them - shame this is a faction game.
Cream Tuatara - Quite active. I just saw they did exactly the same thing I did (calling out inactives), which means I don't need to look through the rest of the list anymore. It wouldn't make me trust them anymore, but it does make me relieved - I was going to see how I felt about each of the candidates, but in a faction game, I'm less sure about what the point of that is (there's Odium, Autonomy and Ruin, but when I read through the thread the first time, I didn't see anything in particular that seemed like their kind of actions, particularly without knowing their wincons, and I doubt I will over a second reading, either.)

So... the people who hadn't posted as of a day ago were Emerald Falcon, Fuchsia Ostrich, Mint Heron, and Pearl Chameleon. All four of those accounts have been logged into since the start of the game.

Emerald Falcon and Fuchsia Ostrich have both logged in, but not posted. Mint Heron was about to go on that list, but they posted just this second.

@Emerald Falcon, @Fuchsia Ostrich

 

I just want to say I appreciate this effort, Vulture. It's something I'd do if I had more time to spare.

• 3 Indigo Weasel: Indigo Weasel, Violet Axolotl, Fuchsia Ostrich,
• 1 Scarlet Octopus: Magenta Albatross,
• 2 Magenta Albatross: Scarlet Octopus, Onyx Flamingo, 
• 1 Sapphire Elephant: Quartz Zebra, 
• 1 Emerald Falcon: Amber Vulture, 

Regarding the lynch options, I really liked Indigo's posts on Day 1 (while reading them, I often found myself agreeing or having a similar mindset). It seems I liked them enough that while he's being exceptionally weird this turn, I'm unwilling to vote for him. I am tempted to vote for Dr. Octagonopus since I jokingly did D1 for something that legitimately bothered me, but I'm a little suspicious that Magenta coming into this turn with that vote was because he thought it'd be an easy lynch to rally for (my support + Toucans, I presume he would presume). I may still vote for Scarlet anyway but I want to consider it more. As for Magenta, I think Scarlet's vote is fair at best, silly at worst, but lynching Magenta doesn't have any merit outside of that. On that note, I don't really get Onyx's follow up vote. I think voting for Magenta there is essentially hypocritical. Finally, regarding Sapphire Elephant and Emerald Falcon... I have 0 intention of targeting inactives this game. Not while there are pinch hitters on the sidelines who I'm sure are eager to join us. I also don't feel very inclined to lynch anyone at all since my faction's win condition doesn't require killing anyone.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Salmon Meerkat
ninjaaaaaaaa

[Indigo Weasel]

I didn't actually vote for Axolotl btw, and like I said later, my reaction was mostly to bait them into saying more.  Which they did, kind of.

[Cream Tuatara]

Vote count: (Let me know if I'm missing anything)

Indigo weasel (2): Indigo Weasel, Violet Axolotl
Scarlet Octopus(1): Magenta Albatross
Magenta Albatross(3): Scarlet Octopus, Onyx Flamingo, Cream Tuatara
Sapphire Elephant(1): Quartz Zebra
Emerald Falcon(1): Amber Vulture

I still find Indigo's posts dangerous and suspicious, but also intriguing and interesting, and I'm curious to see where it goes, so I am willing to not vote for him. 

On 1/17/2019 at 7:36 AM, Magenta Albatross said:

And I might as well put in a vote of my own to get discussions started. For starters, I propose we lynch Scarlet Octopus for the way they pushed for the lynch on Sunburst Toucan when they claimed Neutral. Irrespective of the claim being believable or not, it struck me as very noteworthy that he immediately tried to drum up support for a lynch because of what was at worst a lie. This makes me suspect that he's directly interested in the elimination of either lots of players, or something along the line of  'wipe out X unique factions' or 'have X players from unique factions among the dead'. (Emphasis added by yours truly)

I think that trying to lynch someone because they could possibly be lying is a good thing. Usually it is beneficial to a player or their team to get people out of the game who are openly deceiving others. On the contrary, attempting to protect an open deceiver smells of bad intentions to me. So with that in mind, Magenta Albatross

Edited January 18, 2019 by Cream Tuatara

[Indigo Weasel]

You're missing Fuscia Ostrich and Magenta Albatross on me.

[Cream Tuatara]

I just reviewed again, and I do see that fuchsia voted for you, but I can't find Magenta's vote for you.

[Indigo Weasel]

Oh, I thought they did, my mistake.

Note that I haven't taken my vote off of myself yet