Long Game 66: A Struggle for Power

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 minute ago, Elandera said:

Yes, but are the elim and Kandra win-cons compatible if the Kandra is an elim, and is the last one standing?

Ah okay I see what you mean now. The elims would not also win in that scenario.

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

I think no matter what I say, my offer to try to prove I’m not lying about my role won’t be taken up. So in an act of self-preservation I’ll vote on Karnage. The vibes being my other reason of course .

Edited June 11, 2020 by Ventyl

[Walin he/him]

I'll return tomorrow, but first I'll offer my two cents by saying Ventyl can roleblock me. I'm sure my role won't be of a whole lot of use, technically, though I'd like to keep it secret until the day is more over than it is now. Also, having procrastinated the whole day, I'm going to plan for tomorrow on reading the past two cycles if I can. What it seems like from my current skimming, Ventyl and Ash are the two most under-suspicion, while we don't have a whole lot of evidence saying that one is elim and one is village. Is that right?

-------

Lerin probably did interesting stuff. To him, it was interesting. But to others, perhaps it would not be.
You see, with all of this stuff about the Loyalists and Faceless Immortals, it would be kind of strange to suggest something else as a course of discussion to follow. And no, Lerin was not thinking about instruments nor mayonnaise; neither zinc nor brass would tell you someone's thoughts. No, tin could not let you read someone's mind by studying their mannerisms and facial expressions. No, Lerin had not started thinking about mayonnaise and instruments when he thought the conversation was over.

Lerin stalked away from the room despite not actually having that conversation with anyone. He'd find mayonnaise somewhere else, without all these pestering thoughts.

[Mat he/him]

Just now, Walin said:

I'll return tomorrow, but first I'll offer my two cents by saying Ventyl can roleblock me. I'm sure my role won't be of a whole lot of use, technically, though I'd like to keep it secret until the day is more over than it is now. Also, having procrastinated the whole day, I'm going to plan for tomorrow on reading the past two cycles if I can. What it seems like from my current skimming, Ventyl and Ash are the two most under-suspicion, while we don't have a whole lot of evidence saying that one is elim and one is village. Is that right?

Pretty sure we're all thinking one is village and one is elim based on how contradictory they are to each other, though they both just as easily could be confused villagers.

Signing off for the night.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

@Walin, also XP has been under a fair deal of suspicion, as well as Karnage.

In terms of town, there is not really any consensus reads, though people are leaning village on me due to my actions in regard to Drake and Coda. The Kandra bit really shook everything up. 

Everyone not mentioned is pretty neutral, though I was leaning village on Mage before the Kandra Catastrophe. Not sure about other's opinions though, as town reads haven't really been discussed.

If you want to dive into the world of PMs, Matrim and I appear to be the most active there, though it is possible I missed someone due to, you know, PMs being private messages.

There was some shenanigans with Hatz/Kidpen that the Karnage lynch will hopefully shed light on. If you're going to analyse something, read that.

Try to get at least one PM/vote at least once per cycle, for boxing reasons. 

Hm, trying to get to 200 words...

We shouldn't lynch Ventyl this cycle, as Emi has not responded. They could be employing a trap to fake their role, so if Wallin is roleblocked, that doesn't mean they were telling the truth either. 

I agree with Magestar about fake claims being NAI, but when I PMed him privately to ask if he was lying, he said he swears on his life he's telling the truth. So if he lied, we should lynch him, if just for that. I understand that not everyone will back a meta-reason like that, but if Ventyl's being dishonest, he's basically ASKING us to lynch him here.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Well, that’s pretty much all the analysis I have. Now it all rests on Emi’s post. I’ll try to do some RP tomorrow instead of analyzing every detail.

In the meantime...

(Part the Thirty-first, in which someone forgot that THE COFFEE MACHINE’s new capabilities allowed the part titles to contain numbers, and so defaulted to the old letter-based organizational system.)

 

Confident Indecision Maker: I've got my rotation ready to go!!!

But since I just already double posted I'm going to hold off on posting it until somebody else posts to avoid making a triple post!!!

By the way!! I did not know!! That BANANAS were FIREPROOF!!!

 

THE COFFEE MACHINE: The COFFEE MACHINE quickly relabeled its coffee as "BANANA-FLAVOURED!!!", although on there was the FLAME-RETARDANT coffee which had the natural flavoring. 

The COFFEE MACHINE was able to quickly seperate the banana flavoring and banana fireproofing, to create a great banana-flavored coffee that WASN'T fireproof and a great fireproof coffe that WASN'T banana-flavored!!!

 

Confident Indecision Maker: EXCELLENT WORK, COFFEE MACHINE!!!

We must send the samples to DOC GOOGLE at once for ANALYSIS!!! This could be the makings of an IMPORTANT SCHOLARLY DISCOVERY!!!

 

The Intern: COFFEE MACHINE! It is your turn to implement the RBP with Part the Fourteenth! 

INDEED! THE SHOUTY-SHOUT AGENCY!!! must analyze the BANANA and FLAME-RETARDANT COFFEE! 

CAN SOMEONE DISABLE THE CLAXONS AND FIRE ALARMS?!?

(The rest of the page is filled with drawings of the SHOUTY SHOUT AGENCY!!!’s members searching fruitlessly for an off-switch)

[|TJ| he/him]

Emi did not target anyone last cycle. Whether she was role-blocked or simply did not use her actions, I cannot say. I cannot, for obvious reason, cite my sources or how I got knowledge. Just know that this information is 100% accurate. That does not mean Ventyl is not elim though. Just that he wasn't (possibly) lying about his role. 

Also @Ventyl, why would you buy steel trap if you have role-block action? And why did you target Emi last cycle?

[Emi she/her]

Well, I think that I didn't got roleblocked, but I will look one more time

Edit: If it is in messages I don't see it

Edited June 11, 2020 by Emi

[|TJ| he/him]

17 minutes ago, Emi said:

Well, I think that I didn't got roleblocked, but I will look one more time

Edit: If it is in messages I don't see it

Did you submit an action? Do you know if the action was completed successfully?

@StrikerEZ, will the players get a message if they are role-blocked?

[Emi she/her]

1 minute ago, TJ Shade said:

Did you submit an action? Do you know if the action was completed successfully?

Nope, I forgot, whoops 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Emi

[|TJ| he/him]

Well, there you have it folks. Now that that's been dealt with, let's see what to do with Ventyl.

Elim behaviour:

1. Asked Lahilt to withdraw vote on Experience
2. Changed vote from Experience right at the death
3. Prompting information

Village Behaviour:

1. Not a single player jumping to their defence 

Ventyl trying to prove their role by doing the village's bidding is NAI as an elim would certainly try that as well. My reading on them is slightly elim, but again, everything depends on the alignment of Experience.

[Kidpen he/him]

So uh. I may have made a huge mistake. My dad informed me a couple hours ago that we're going on a work trip, to a place I won't have any service. I realize this puts me as overall not that great of a pinch hitter, but if I'm lucky I'll be able to comment right after rollover tomorrow and then be back halfway through the day. If I'm unlucky I'll be unable to see the shard well before rollover and I'll get back well after rollover the following day. I'll try as hard as I can to make the first scenario the thing that happens. I really am sorry about this, sometimes my schedule does things that I couldn't have predicted.

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

9 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

Emi did not target anyone last cycle. Whether she was role-blocked or simply did not use her actions, I cannot say. I cannot, for obvious reason, cite my sources or how I got knowledge. Just know that this information is 100% accurate. That does not mean Ventyl is not elim though. Just that he wasn't (possibly) lying about his role. 

Also @Ventyl, why would you buy steel trap if you have role-block action? And why did you target Emi last cycle?

I have a roleblock, but why wouldn’t I want two? I knew Ash was a Pulser and I’ve had suspicions of them for awhile, so why wouldn’t I want a why to make sure I don’t get Pulsed. I’m glad I did, because know I can hopefully use it to prove my role. Also if no one believes me, I know a Sparker who can role scan me this turn, they should have two charges by now.

11 hours ago, Walin said:

I'll return tomorrow, but first I'll offer my two cents by saying Ventyl can roleblock me. I'm sure my role won't be of a whole lot of use, technically, though I'd like to keep it secret until the day is more over than it is now. Also, having procrastinated the whole day, I'm going to plan for tomorrow on reading the past two cycles if I can. What it seems like from my current skimming, Ventyl and Ash are the two most under-suspicion, while we don't have a whole lot of evidence saying that one is elim and one is village. Is that right?

Thank you Walin, I’m automatically getting a village read on you just for being willing to help me. I’m going to clarify that I’m going to be roleblocking Walin with my role. Then, I’m going to use my Steel Trap on Ashbringer to make sure they don’t Pulse me. I hope everyone understands why I’m taking that precaution. I’m also praying no one else has any roleblocks or I’m going to die day four.

(This whole thing ruined my plans to make analysis )

[Ashbringer he/him]

I mean, if Emi never submitted an action than this whole thing kinda lacks a point, because there's no evidence to say whether Emi got roleblocked or not. I'm still not sure about alignments, but now one of us doesn't have to be elims for this situation to be possible. And I still think Ventyl is acting a little suspicious.

I'm not planning on Pulsing anyone this cycle, or at least this night, because I don't want to end up messing up an attempted exoneration and I don't really have any more leads. Although I agree that Roleblocking as the Village says doesn't really prove anything, as I think everyone believes that you're a Leecher, its just whether you're a PRE or Loyalist Leecher. And Steel Traps do make it hard to prove.

I, of course, may get Elim-killed this night for doing all of this if you are an Elim, but that devolves into a IKYK rabbit hole real quick. Hopefully tonight I can get a Vest or charged spike or something, but I don't know if Roleblocking will stop me from buying anything.

TJ, did you have both Emi and Ventyl tracked last night? Or just Emi? It seems... convenient that you can back this up. NAI, but convenient.

[|TJ| he/him]

1 hour ago, Ventyl said:

Thank you Walin, I’m automatically getting a village read on you just for being willing to help me. I’m going to clarify that I’m going to be roleblocking Walin with my role. Then, I’m going to use my Steel Trap on Ashbringer to make sure they don’t Pulse me. I hope everyone understands why I’m taking that precaution. I’m also praying no one else has any roleblocks or I’m going to die day four.

I really hope you do not do this. It's an utter waste of your actions as well as the Steel Trap. Your attempt to prove that you're telling the truth does not alleviate our concerns that you may be elim. If you're truly a villager, I'd rather you help the village by actually role-blocking some elim you believe might be up to something. Again, you proving that you were telling the truth can be seen as appeasing the village to make yourself less elim-y, and if you're willing to waste your actions for that, I'd be concerned.

15 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

TJ, did you have both Emi and Ventyl tracked last night? Or just Emi? It seems... convenient that you can back this up. NAI, but convenient.

As I said, I do not know anything Ventyl did or did not do. I just said I knew Emi did not target anyone last cycle. Whether role-blocked or simply not taking an action, I cannot say. We will have to (or not) take Emi's word for it. I'm not 'backing' him up. I'd rather have kept this information for myself, but since you all were asking for it, and Emi did not seem to be coming on, I felt compelled as a villager to provide all the necessary information pertaining to the situation before it was too late.

Quote

I don’t think it’s sad. I sort of have a reputation among the more experienced players as not being very chatty in PMs, and I suspect my more aggressive play style makes the newer players less likely to message me. That’s fine though, since unless you are in a doc, the heart and soul of the game happens in the thread. I prefer using PMs for dastardly schemes rather than plain old chit chat.

 In other news, I've completely managed to distract myself by focusing on the new Bleeder and how Araris might have chosen them, and  found this little piece. Was it possible he was grooming a successor, potential by outing himself and making a deal that the successor gets to be the kandra when he dies? It seems like a risk, but c'mon, if Araris had asked you guys, would you have really told no? As such, I ask Windwhisperers (village or elims, doesn't matter) to consider targeting Araris' PMs as it might reveal if he was scheming with someone else. 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

8 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

@StrikerEZ, will the players get a message if they are role-blocked?

If they submitted an action, yes. If they did not submit an action, no.

Also, I feel like I should clarify this: black market transactions (buying/selling an item) do not count as one of the two actions per cycle. It also can't be roleblocked.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

34 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, I feel like I should clarify this: black market transactions (buying/selling an item) do not count as one of the two actions per cycle. It also can't be roleblocked.

...Well that changes things.

[Ashbringer he/him]

50 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

As I said, I do not know anything Ventyl did or did not do. I just said I knew Emi did not target anyone last cycle. Whether role-blocked or simply not taking an action, I cannot say. We will have to (or not) take Emi's word for it. I'm not 'backing' him up. I'd rather have kept this information for myself, but since you all were asking for it, and Emi did not seem to be coming on, I felt compelled as a villager to provide all the necessary information pertaining to the situation before it was too late.

That's fine. I just couldn't tell if you meant that you knew Emi didn't visit someone and were asking why Ventyl targeted Emi, or if you knew from somewhere out-of-thread both that Emi visited nobody and Ventyl visited Emi. Thanks for clearing it up.

...

Faleast stood in a near-standoff. He'd decided he was done with playing the waiting game, and had accused Lafay Etteax of being a Loyalist. He'd had proof of a direct lie; he thought he'd found another with the evidence of a Steel Trap, but now he was aware that yes, someone had in fact bought something on the Black Market last night.

What's the point of the Black Market if everyone knows when something's bought on it? It doesn't make any sense.

Then came the evidence, from a girl named Lorinne. She had earlier testified that Lafay had never acted against her, as Lafay had earlier told him. Faleast had thought this meant that Lafay was a liar.

Then Lorinne testified that she had, in fact, done nothing that Lafay could have acted against in the first place. The fight drooped from Faleast's limbs. He had been so sure, and, once again, he was wrong.

Well, wrong in evidence. But he still suspected Lafay for the defense that had been given. It was now much more possible for Lafay to be innocent, but Faleast wasn't done yet. There was still the possibility that he was right; perhaps Lorinne had been in on it, or had chosen to defend who she saw as innocent. Faleast wasn't sure, but this whole situation was tainted by something.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

13 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

What's the point of the Black Market if everyone knows when something's bought on it? It doesn't make any sense.

I mean, to be fair, there are several parts of this game that don't make sense flavorfully. The flavor's just a window dressing for the mechanics, and doesn't really matter.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Aye. That's just Faleast's old-man-take on all of this.

Edit: RP!

Raow wandered through the legs of the wandering people. There seemed to be a great debate going on, while a ring of onlookers surrounded a cantankerous old man and another man who smelled of whiskey and... rainwater? There also seemed to be a lot of people searching around for someone.

Suddenly the crowd parted for a girl. Someone called out something to her. Lorinne. That was her name, Raow supposed. She didn’t seem to say it much.

She said something profound, that was not her name, and the crowds slowly dispersed. The two men were still standing off, staring at each other.

Raow wandered over to them, twisting around the old man’s legs, then wandering over to the other and scratching his head on his boots. Faleast and Lafay, he thought their names were. They also didn’t say it much.

He looked up at the two, rotating his head between the pair. There didn’t seem to be much keeping them at each other’s throats, now that the crowd was gone. He decided to twist around Lafay’s feet. He looked up.

“Mroaw?” he asked him. He was curious to see what was going on, and there didn’t seem to be any beginning or end to this standoff.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Ashbringer
RP

[Magestar he/him]

10 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

1. Not a single player jumping to their defence 

Oy.  What am I, chopped liver? 

So, the assuming the previous vote count was correct, this is the current one.

Karnage (4) - Elandera, Pyro, Kidpen, Ventyl
Lahlit (1) - TJ Shade
Kynedath (1) - Magestar
Ventyl (3) - Experience, Ashbringer, Karnage

I personally am beginning to doubt I can do much to sway any of you in any direction.  But hey, I might as well give it a shot.  First, I'm gonna talk a bit about the Karnage lynch.  Then I'm gonna present some other options.

Ok, so the suspicions of Karnage.  Most of them are inconsequential.  Pyro's vote is because they want info on Elandera, Kidpen's is because of the vibes, and Ventyl's is self preservation.  So all we've really got is Elandera.

So, what I got from Elandera is that their vote on Karnage is basically similar to my vote on Drake; it hinges on the idea that we'll get info on a number of people depending on which way Karnage flips.  Additionally, it assumes that Xino's vote against Karnage was a distancing tactic gone wrong.  It's connection to Pyro is based on the fact that despite voting on Karnage, Pyro questioned Xino's vote on Karnage, not once, but twice.  The first problem with this is that Xino actually only posted his reasoning for voting on Karnage after Pyro questioned it twice.  So if the Elims were planning that switch, it wouldn't make any sense for Xino, a known Elim, to back up his vote after Pyro questioned it.  Furthermore, the switch to a Hats lynch was supposedly sparked by Drake, IIRC, who is confirmed village.  This doesn't necessarily mean that Karnage isn't an Elim, but does mean that the shenanigans around the switch to hats was likely not an Elim play.

There's still the weird one-off soothing that happened.  I can't explain that.  But I don't think the Karnage lynch makes a lot of sense, as much as I'd like it to.  It'd be great if Karnage was an Elim and then Pyro was too.  I'd love that.  But I don't think it's all that likely, given everything.  Pyro's fought too hard to protect some villagers.

I'll present some alternate lynch options in my next post, to keep my count up.   

Edited June 11, 2020 by Magestar

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

14 minutes ago, Magestar said:

There's still the weird one-off soothing that happened.  I can't explain that.

Could just be someone storing a metal that cancelled their vote.

[Magestar he/him]

Ok so on to some other lynch options.

There's the Kynedath option, which I've already presented.  I've given that one some time, and it hasn't gone off, unfortunately.  So I'll give it up for now, especially since Kynedath is nearly inactive at this point.  Kynedath.

I'm curious what people think of an Ashbringer lynch, which I think would give us some good information.  Additionally, Ash has been involved in a bunch of the iffy stuff that's gone on so far.  He was involved in the weird ILuvHats voting nonsense, which, as has been noted before, he really had no reason to be.  His vote was claimed to be for "self preservation" which didn't make a lot of sense given the context of the game at the time.  Ash was also involved with Drake Marshall lynch.  He was also one of the people I was suspicious of at the beginning of the game for playing things too safe.  Even now, there's weird stuff going on.  I looked through the thread for any Ash interaction with Xino, and I didn't really find anything except for this post:

which sort of dismisses Ash's weird stuff in the beginning as new player weirdness.  Nothing especially indicative.  But Ash has often been mentioned in other people's theories about the shenanigans that went on, as I've noticed as I analyze people.  Enough times that it made me look into Ash as well.  So.  There's that.

There's also Experience.  I hesitate to mention lynching them again, since it's come and gone a couple times now, but, as I believe I said earlier in the cycle, it would provide us with quite a bit of information.  I've just finished looking over their posts for the first time, and I haven't seen anything super duper iffy... I did get a bit of a weird gut feeling, so I can see where other people's suspicions have come from in the past.

So yeah.  There's two alternative options right there.  I'm gonna drop a vote on Ash for now, see where it goes.  Kind of hard to get any lynch pressure going when there's two other lynches already on their way, but here we are.  Might as well give it a shot.

Just now, The Young Pyromancer said:

Could just be someone storing a metal that cancelled their vote.

Yeah, that's what I thought earlier in the game.  After some thought though, I felt like it would be kind of weird for someone who's active in the lynch to knowingly cancel their own vote.  It feels like it would have to be part of some ploy or something.  Otherwise what's really the point of even voting?

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

1 minute ago, Magestar said:

Otherwise what's really the point of even voting?

...to get the boxings?

I've relaxed a little on the Karnage lynch now that I've had a chance to look things over. Lynching people just because they'll provide info isn't something I'm super fond of, even if it would clear me in the process. Ventyl's probably not lying, but that doesn't mean much. The eagerness that other people have spoken of that occurred in PMs is a little weird, but I'm willing to chalk that up to them trying to get discussion flowing within that group for now.

@Ventyl, you shouldn't use your trap. Save it. Elim!ash pulsing you here would be a silly move, as if you flip villager, they're immediately going down next. Also, walin being blocked the NEXT cycle would immediately clear you.

[Elandera she/her]

44 minutes ago, Magestar said:

So, what I got from Elandera is that their vote on Karnage is basically similar to my vote on Drake; it hinges on the idea that we'll get info on a number of people depending on which way Karnage flips.  Additionally, it assumes that Xino's vote against Karnage was a distancing tactic gone wrong.  It's connection to Pyro is based on the fact that despite voting on Karnage, Pyro questioned Xino's vote on Karnage, not once, but twice.  The first problem with this is that Xino actually only posted his reasoning for voting on Karnage after Pyro questioned it twice.  So if the Elims were planning that switch, it wouldn't make any sense for Xino, a known Elim, to back up his vote after Pyro questioned it.  Furthermore, the switch to a Hats lynch was supposedly sparked by Drake, IIRC, who is confirmed village.  This doesn't necessarily mean that Karnage isn't an Elim, but does mean that the shenanigans around the switch to hats was likely not an Elim play.

I went back to see if I'd missed something, and found Drake's post where he was hesitant to lynch Karnage because of another game. To counter your point of Xino's reasoning, though, he quoted a previous post of his when Pyro prompted him. So his reasoning was already in the thread, but not as clear until after the prompting.

I'm still suspicious of Karnage, but I would be willing to lynch Ash if we can get more support. Considering the current layout of votes, I'm leaving my vote on Karnage for now. I really don't agree with the Ventyl lynch, and switching my vote now would put them in the lead. (Yes, I'm aware there's time, but I'm being overly cautious at the moment.)