Long Game 67: The Road to Urithiru

[Gears]

1 minute ago, TJ Shade said:

No I took both the votes off myself. One using Adhesion and one using Tension. I was scared of getting role-blocked or someone voting late on, so I didn't want to take my chance. What use is an extra charge if I'm dead?

Ah. Thank you for clarifying. However, as you have claimed to be a Bondsmith and are completely out of Stormlight, you are now extremely vulnerable to elim kills. If anyone wants to protect TJ, go ahead. This makes me trust TJ a little more, since if TJ and Striker were elims, TJ would probably only use one charge of Stormlight to save himself [and keep an elim Knight in play]. As such, I will not vote for TJ. @Ventyl, squire someone tonight.

[Mat he/him]

Yeah, someone with Progression should protect TJ. If he dies tonight we have a confirmed elim Gravitation.

[|TJ| he/him]

I'll explain why I role-claimed. Since the elims will notice the two votes missing, and know that they didn't do it, and they would have seen me talking about claiming hypothetically, they will put two and two together to deduce I'm KR. And they knew I was under too much suspicion for another village vote manip to have saved me. Meaning I would be the likely target for elim kill today. Hence I'm giving you the info as well, hoping I could ask one of the village protect roles to protect me if they feel I'm innocent. Even if they don't actually protect me, this puts enough doubt in elims mind that they might not waste their kill on me as there's a chance that I might be protected. 

[Gears]

People with Progression, consider protecting TJ. This will allow us to know if the elims have Gravitation. Do not tell the thread you are doing so. 

[Mat he/him]

8 minutes ago, Gears said:

People with Progression, consider protecting TJ. This will allow us to know if the elims have Gravitation. Do not tell the thread you are doing so. 

I already said that 

[|TJ| he/him]

Wait, Progression will still stop Gravitation assisted kill right? It says Gravitation is immune to all effects that would alter the vote/action. Progression isn't altering. It's stopping, right? If not, I made a big mistake of claiming. @Straw

[Gears]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

I already said that 

I didn't reload the page before posting. It didn't exist before.

[Straw he/him]

2 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Wait, Progression will still stop Gravitation assisted kill right? It says Gravitation is immune to all effects that would alter the vote/action. Progression isn't altering. It's stopping, right? If not, I made a big mistake of claiming. @Straw

TJ is correct here. From the changes/clarifications:

Quote

Gravitation assisted kills no longer bypass Progression.

Progression does not actually "alter" a Gravitation boosted kill, it just heals the person who was hit by the kill.

EDIT: To clarify what Gravitation does stop: Adhesion, Transportation, Cohesion, Tension.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Straw

[Gears]

1 minute ago, Straw said:

TJ is correct here. From the changes/clarifications:

Progression does not actually "alter" a Gravitation boosted kill, it just heals the person who was hit by the kill.

Ah. That makes things simpler. TJ is probably village [see above], so people with Progression, protect him. We really need a way to coordinate things.

[|TJ| he/him]

Well that's a relief. We'll probably have PMs open from D2. I'll make some analysis post based on Striker's flip and post it this cycle itself in case I die. Main thing is I survived D1, and now I can do some analysis. 

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

My own brother! An elim!

[Mat he/him]

At this point I trust TJ and Ventyl. It would be wicked if they were both elims who claimed as a strategy but I doubt it.

Can someone not on mobile go through D1 and identify the bussiest vote on Striker, so we have a general idea of what to do next cycle?

[|TJ| he/him]

I think we can sort-of clear Joe because he literally had no incentive to vote on Striker is Joe was an elim. He could have just claimed inactivity and not voted at all. It will be very interesting to see the list of active people who did not vote, instead. I am also on my phone, but I'll make a proper post some time later. 

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

At this point I trust TJ and Ventyl. It would be wicked if they were both elims who claimed as a strategy but I doubt it.

Can someone not on mobile go through D1 and identify the bussiest vote on Striker, so we have a general idea of what to do next cycle?

Well, I mean I never claimed my actual role... I just said I’m not a Willshaper...

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Valas was shocked that the women that was supposed to become her sister in law, was a Diagrammist. Sure, she had never really been interested in the politics of her family, but still. The women her younger brother was to marry, a Diagrammist. Could her brother be one too? No, he just had poor taste in women. Which was not a new fact know to Valas.

Though Bavenor had always said she’d had bad taste when marrying Lafay, but he didn’t know the full story behind her husband. The man had died than been brought back by a similar force to Honor and Cultivation. Which he’d said was called Harmony, who was two Shards combined into one. He’d come to Roshar to explore the Cosmere, and when he’d somehow bonded a Lightspren he’d drunk himself into despair. 

Valas had found that odd, usually when one bonded a spren they were anything but sad, so she’d gone and drank with him. She eventually got him drunk enough to spill some of his secrets, and when he said, “I wish I’d never come to this rusting planet,” It had immediately caught her attention. After a year of her desperate attempts, he’d finally caught on and married her. 

She loved him. And when this war is over, she’d convince him to show her the Cosmere.

[Gears]

The following is an analysis of the votes on Striker:

Sart: Disliked the distracting discussion concerning mechanics.

TJ: Self-preservation.

Joe: Didn't want to vote TJ.

Matrim: Didn't want to vote TJ.

The following is an analysis of the votes on TJ:

Araris: Found TJ more suspicious than Ventyl [at the time, Striker was not a contender for the lynch

Elbereth: Found TJ the most suspicious out of the contenders for the lynch at the time [Ventyl, Striker, Gears, TJ]. Notably, El read Striker as very mild village.

Eternum: Didn't like TJ's retraction off of Ashbringer.

Striker: Self-preservation and didn't like TJ's votehopping.

[|TJ| he/him]

So my paranoid self was sorta right.My initial two suspicions were Ashbringer and Striker. Striker because he asked that specific question about Abrasion-Progression-Kill. He gave a very clear answer so I was convinced. I'll have to go back and check what exactly the question was.

[Gears]

2 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

So my paranoid self was sorta right.My initial two suspicions were Ashbringer and Striker. Striker because he asked that specific question about Abrasion-Progression-Kill. He gave a very clear answer so I was convinced. I'll have to go back and check what exactly the question was.

The question was what would happen if a person using Abrasion was targeted by Progression and a Gravitation-boosted kill. The answer was that the person would die because Progression wouldn't work.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

Agree re:the Joe clear.

To screw with the numbers a bit, Progressionists, consider protecting Joe, as it's likely the elims'll attack them since TJ'll be protected.

[Gears]

2 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Agree re:the Joe clear.

To screw with the numbers a bit, Progressionists, consider protecting Joe, as it's likely the elims'll attack them since TJ'll be protected.

Actually, Progressionists, flip a coin. Heads, protect TJ. Tails, protect Joe. Odds are both of them get protected.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

Depends on how many there are, but I love it. 

The fact that they do it or not matters less than the fact that I said it, as I figured they probably wouldn't listen to me, but the elims would be less likely to attack Joe.

Also, TJ, the honorblades bit was just me trying to come up with possible elim team compositions, since I think that, as this is a rerun, making the elim team more interesting makes sense. I thought that honorblades were unlikely, but possible, and that a team with more radiants than vanillas (to lead to elims squiring villagers, which would be SICK) and a large team with all vanillas would make sense. That's part of why I'm sus of Ventyl, as an elim team of mostly radiants would make sense with their statement. And TJ, as I've said before, I'm 'chaotic,' not 'crazy'; all my plays have logic behind them, and I will usually provide it if asked.

[|TJ| he/him]

17 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Depends on how many there are, but I love it. 

The fact that they do it or not matters less than the fact that I said it, as I figured they probably wouldn't listen to me, but the elims would be less likely to attack Joe.

Also, TJ, the honorblades bit was just me trying to come up with possible elim team compositions, since I think that, as this is a rerun, making the elim team more interesting makes sense. I thought that honorblades were unlikely, but possible, and that a team with more radiants than vanillas (to lead to elims squiring villagers, which would be SICK) and a large team with all vanillas would make sense. That's part of why I'm sus of Ventyl, as an elim team of mostly radiants would make sense with their statement. And TJ, as I've said before, I'm 'chaotic,' not 'crazy'; all my plays have logic behind them, and I will usually provide it if asked.

Huh? I don't ever recall calling you 'crazy'. Sorry if I seemed to imply it. Yes, I did indeed mean you were being your usual chaotic self. 

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

33 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Depends on how many there are, but I love it. 

The fact that they do it or not matters less than the fact that I said it, as I figured they probably wouldn't listen to me, but the elims would be less likely to attack Joe.

Also, TJ, the honorblades bit was just me trying to come up with possible elim team compositions, since I think that, as this is a rerun, making the elim team more interesting makes sense. I thought that honorblades were unlikely, but possible, and that a team with more radiants than vanillas (to lead to elims squiring villagers, which would be SICK) and a large team with all vanillas would make sense. That's part of why I'm sus of Ventyl, as an elim team of mostly radiants would make sense with their statement. And TJ, as I've said before, I'm 'chaotic,' not 'crazy'; all my plays have logic behind them, and I will usually provide it if asked.

Haha, I guess that means I’m crazy, and not chaotic!

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Wow, go to sleep and the world up and changes on you. I honestly didn’t think the lynch on Striker would stick, since half the votes on him at the time were caused by confusion.

Probably the two strongest village reads I get here are Sart and Joe. I mentioned during the day that I thought the tone of Sart’s post where he voted Striker didn’t seem like distancing (too aggressive). I’d probably soft-clear TJ as well, for a couple of reasons. For one, the double vote manip would seem excessive if he was elim, and a E/E lynch train is very unlikely for D1.

Probably my two strongest (still not super strong) elim reads are Gears and Truthwatcher. Gears wanted to maintain a tie, which is a way to stay neutral. Easy place to hide as an elim. Truthwatcher didn’t participate in the lynch, and was against either lynch, but also didn’t vote Ventyl or me, the two people that they expressed a willingness to lynch. Again, it seems like an elim trying to remain neutral. I also continue to have a mild elim read on Devotary, due to the positive interaction with Striker and overall neutrality.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

So my paranoid self was sorta right.My initial two suspicions were Ashbringer and Striker. Striker because he asked that specific question about Abrasion-Progression-Kill. He gave a very clear answer so I was convinced. I'll have to go back and check what exactly the question was.

I’d like to point out that elims can (and tend to, in my experience) ask rule questions that may incriminate them either in the elim doc or their PM. So I’d be careful in the future about thinking of this as AI.

Also, for everyone hesitant about D1 lynches, here’s a bit of proof that they aren’t totally useless .

[|TJ| he/him]

4 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I’d like to point out that elims can (and tend to, in my experience) ask rule questions that may incriminate them either in the elim doc or their PM. So I’d be careful in the future about thinking of this as AI.

Yeah, the thought crossed my mind. I think it even slightly contributed to me reading Striker as mild village.  

[Elbereth she/her]

Warning: This post is probably going to be quite long. Might split it into two parts. (yup doing that) I’m glad (and surprised) to see Striker was evil; that gives us far more information to go on analysis-wise. I’ll do that after this post, but off the top of my head Ventyl looks better (iirc Striker made a comment that was very wishy washy about Ventyl, like ‘I could see what he’s doing from either alignment’ which feels to me like the elims were trying to shade him and make him less obviously village) and the counter lynch on TJ (including me) looks worse assuming he’s good (reserving judgement there atm until I can read through how the votes etc went) and same for Gears. 

I haven’t read through the Night thread yet, but here are thoughts/responses from the rest of D1. 

Splitting TJ's long post into sections, because if I were to try to reply to it all at once the only thing I'd be able to do is scream in frustration.   

Quote

Let me quote a post of mine from the very next page after the post your quoted. This is in response to Eternum's justification of his vote on Pyro in response to my post quoted above:

So the post you quoted was largely specific to Pyro, not other players. I wouldn't find Pyro jumping on a bandwagon to be an elim indication for him, since he does that a lot. But I do find jumping on bandwagons, in general, to be elim-y. 

Yes, that was my point! Your defense of your vote on Ash was essentially 'but why would I have done that when I could've just hidden in the wagons already formed? why would I do something that's a known elim tell?' and yet here (and in the QF post I quoted) you're explicitly saying that jumping on wagons is something you view as elim-y. That's a pretty significant contradiction. 

Quote

I appreciate your attempt to go through previous games in an attempt to understand my actions, though your conclusion was not exactly what I expected. There are a lot of similarities between that game and this which you probably missed (or deliberately ignored). I voted for xino in C1 because he changed his style and attempted stab voting. I got heavy suspicion from Eternum for that. I changed my vote to Silber in the same cycle, who ended up getting lynched, and I drew a lot of suspicion despite the fact that people who voted after me had no better reason as well. So it's safe to say that I've been suspected a lot  for my C1 reads being flimsy. 

I mean. Yes, I saw that happen, especially re: the Xino vote. (I would say 'a lot' is an exaggeration, though. Two instances in a single game is decidedly not statistically significant.) And if you flip good, I'll be more careful in the future. But I can say that I personally would not have suspected you for either of those votes, nor did I particularly think they were flimsy. The Xino vote was on very thin grounds, yes, but you were also very explicit in saying that, and that you didn't have anything better. And with the state of that game at the time, I completely agree. With this game, however, I felt that your vote on Ash came at a time where far more alignment-indicative discussion had occurred than in the QF, and so expected somewhat more reasoning from you which the suspicion of Ash and Striker(?) did not deliver. 

There's also.... I really need to ISO you if time permits. Going to hold onto the other thing that pings me about this paragraph until I can confirm it's not just my brain making stuff up. 

Don't have anything to say about them, but I do like your comments about the vote trains and the people voting on you. 

Quote

Reads:

Striker: I liked his answer to my question, but other than that, his discussion is largely not related to the lynch. I'd like to see some reads from him. Very mild village. 

Araris: Claims he voted for Ventyl because it seemed Ventyl pseudo-justified his poke-vote on Joe. But in doing so, isn't Araris providing a pseudo-justification for his vote on Ventyl? Having a strategy such as his, it makes it very easy to deflect D1 suspicion with others defending him because it's his style. But can it be he's using this style on the occasion that he's elim to escape suspicion? His vote on Devotary only had reasoning that she did not have a previous vote on her, but this gets chalked up to his style. Mild elim. 

Devotary: Similar to Araris, I believe they could be hiding behind their 'usual style' to avoid suspicion, but no strong indications so far. Null.

Leaving the Striker read there just to note it. 

I'm somewhat confused by your read on Araris, especially when contrasted with the one on Devotary - yes, it's entirely possible that Araris is hiding behind his normal style. (Also, I'm pretty sure his vote on Devotary was not just that she didn't already have a vote on her? I'll go back and check but I'm nearly certain that's not the case.) But shouldn't that, like with Devotary, make him a null read? What makes you lean mild elim on him? 

Quote

Eternum:

He voted on Ventyl despite having a gut village on him. 

He immediately retract his vote, but shouldn't he have waited if he wants to see the momentum the train would gather?

I said I hesitate to lynch Ventyl on the possibility of his claims being true, but still said he might be an elim. In the next post, I expanded why we need to be wary of him since everyone were jumping to give him 'strong village' reads. You just voted for Ventyl because you wanted to see my reaction for it? Seems like an excuse for your vote-hopping. 

Am I not supposed to retract my vote when I see people not agreeing with my opinion or if they change my mind or if I see other players not adding to my vote? How is this any different to how Araris retracted his vote on Ventyl? Besides, you pushed a lynch on me for 3 whole cycles before backing off. Moderate elim. Make it strong if Ventyl flips elim.

Sooo first off, you left out a part of Eternum's post where he seemed to change from the gut village read to 'confusion'. Secondly, he explained in the next post you quoted exactly why he voted Ventyl despite that village read. So why does 'he voted on Ventyl despite having a gut village on him' seem suspicious to you? Does it seem suspicious? You're pointing out a contradiction here, but not strictly saying what you think about it. 

He wanted to see your response in particular, as he specified in that post. You posted three times between the two quoted posts, so I think he got what he wanted.  And there were two or three vote changes between those posts as well - I don't know, I just don't at all think it was a weird thing to do. 'Seems like an excuse for your vote-hopping' especially - what's your world, here? If he's evil, why did he vote Ventyl? Why did he change onto you? You and I both changed votes significantly more times than Eternum; why do you feel this change in particular is suspicious? 

Not gonna lie, that retraction post gave me a weird vibe as well. I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't retract when you change your mind, but the tone of it was off to me. (Admittedly I can't tell if I'm tunneling, so I'm not paying that much heed, but I see where Eternum was coming from here.) Araris' retraction was completely different, too? He referenced a specific post that gave him a village read on Ventyl. 

Anyway. I like this case a lot, lot better than your earlier ones; I also think it's wrong (partially also based on my read on Eternum last night in comparison to his behavior in the QF).  Conclusion: ????

10 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

Ventyl:  The main problem I have with Ventyl is he's so adamant to prove his role, but not his alignment. He did the exact same thing in LG66, where he swore he was a Leecher and even wanted to waste his actions to prove that he was one, but the fact that he's telling the truth about his role does not translate to his claim as a villager. Here are a few warning signs I saw from his posts:

• Makes a claim despite being warned not to. Gives no good reason as to why he claimed. 
• Main question to Ventyl supporters: Why would he intentionally put himself in harms way from the elims by claiming? What could he possibly gain?
• His willingness to Squire someone to prove his role (again, role, not alignment) is suspicious. He seems to have no qualms of Squiring an elim by chance.

This! Why did everyone brush it off? Am I the only one seeing it as an attempt to bait out a claim from Elbereth? Why no worries that elims might read and attempt to block? Even if they don't, everyone would know Elbereth's role or the lack of it after his attempt to Squire as it seems he intended to reveal if it was success or not. As for him asking to be alignment scanned, someone already deduced he might be an Edgedancer, so he could make himself untargetable and waste a charge of the alignment-scanner. 

On the bulleted points, my impression was that he interpreted the warnings differently than most (ie don't claim your specific role vs the actual meaning of don't claim KR/refugee at all) and so didn't actually realize he was saying something that significant. And on your question - you're assuming that he knew at the time he was putting himself in harm's way. He clearly does now, but I don't think he had any idea at the time how big of a target he was painting on his back (because of his comment about thinking most players are KRs). 

....if he made himself untargetable despite having asked to be scanned, we'd lynch him? That wouldn't be a waste of a charge, given it'd be nearly as damning as scanning him as evil. And I don't disagree with the claim-baiting possibility (I certainly had to be very careful in my response), but I just... I think that it's far more likely this is a chaotic villager doing chaotic thing than a master plan by the elims. If I'm wrong, I'll be impressed and surprised, but that kind of play is something I find to be very rare (and even when elims do decide to be extremely clever, it's usually in a role/mechanics-based way and not just... this). 

 

So, basically, I have no idea what to think of TJ whatsoever.  Well - if he hadn't been one of the primary counter wagons against Striker, I'd 100% still be going after him; the fact that he is makes me worried I'm tunneling. More on that later, probably. 

10 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Well, I don't have a lot to say. I trust Orlok, Araris, Elbereth and Sart, and would happily lynch Gears or [ Striker ]. I'm going with mr EZ because it seems like several others want to lynch him but don't think there will be enough votes to do it. I don't really know where to go from here. I don't think TJ is suspicious enough to lynch just yet. I also don't think we should lynch Ventyl.

Also, does anyone have a Votecount? @Straw

Mostly like the look of this, especially choosing Striker between Striker/Gears. Hard to see a world in which Joe is evil unless Striker planned to be bussed at this point (which is possible, I think, especially with the probably fairly large elim team + that he was roleless; if TJ or Gears flip evil then this especially bears revisiting). Net positive for now. 

5 hours ago, Magestar said:

Could someone explain the reasoning behind the Striker lynch to me?  I kinda get the TJ and Ventyl suspicions, but the Striker lynch I'm not really understanding.

edit:  And does anyone care about lynching Ventyl, or should I just move my vote.   

This makes me read Mage as village, I think. Fairly bold question for an eliminator who knows how Striker will flip - is there a word for the opposite of distancing? 

And the Shard won't let me put text below this quote because it's being silly, but I'm pointing it out because that edit reads very genuine to me and pushes me a little more towards village on TJ. 

3 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

I'm usually very very careful about people who defend me( Eg. Fifth in QF45). That's like the first step towards pocketing. I don't think you're pocketing me though. But as you said, you're vote on Joe is weak. 

Edit: I'm very scared of a late hammer. Mage will probably shift his vote back to me. There's Devotary waiting to play the executioner. So many people unwilling to vote. Jeez.