Long Game 67: The Road to Urithiru

[Mat he/him]

Hear me out folks. Here is my true defense of Ventyl.

He squired me.

He is an Edgedancer.

I am village. He squired me. There is literally no reason for Ventyl to have squired a villager as an elim. Ventyl is village. Any questions?

@TJ Shade, @Orlok Tsubodai, @The Young Pyromancer, @The_Truthwatcher-what do you have to say about this? Let's lynch Gears! C'mon!  

Edited July 6, 2020 by Matrim's Dice

[Gears]

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Hear me out folks. Here is my true defense of Ventyl.

He squired me.

He is an Edgedancer.

I am village. He squired me. There is literally no reason for Ventyl to have squired a villager as an elim. Ventyl is village. Any questions?

@TJ Shade, @Orlok Tsubodai, @The Young Pyromancer, @The_Truthwatcher-what do you have to say about this? Let's lynch Gears! C'mon!  

An argument could be made for the fact that Ventyl squired you to gain your trust and create an adamant defender. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Gears

[Mat he/him]

Just now, Gears said:

An argument could be made for the fact that Ventyl squired you to gain your trust and create an adamant defender.

That sounds very complicated. Coming from you, who I greatly suspect, it’s not a good look.

[Gears]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

That sounds very complicated. Coming from you, who I greatly suspect, it’s not a good look.

In addition, Ventyl and I could both be villagers. If you wish to lynch me, you have my consent to proceed, but you need a plan for when I flip village. I recommend lynching Ventyl and Matrim posthaste.

[Magestar he/him]

Ok, so I just went over TJ's posts, since I've got my vote on him at the moment.  I hope to do the same thing with Ventyl and Gears, then with some of the less-focused-on players, to get some more options out there.  Here's what I've got so far.

In TJ's very first post of the game, he responds to El's poke vote on him by saying he shouldn't be lynched because he's been useful to the village in the past when he's been village.  Kind of a weird thing to say.  I guess it makes sense to defend yourself, but he responded rather thoroughly to what amounted to nothing more than a poke vote.

He's also swapped around a bit on the Ventyl lynch; at first, he agreed with my position that Ventyl's actions wouldn't make a lot of sense for an Elim:

On 7/2/2020 at 7:18 AM, TJ Shade said:

I don't feel Ventyl would try the same thing twice if he was an elim. He also would have simply role-claimed in PMs rather just giving it out in-thread that he has a KR role. 

On 7/2/2020 at 7:18 AM, TJ Shade said:

But, I do think Matrim is right to be apprehensive about Ventyl, since Matrim did in fact fall in to role-claim tactic by Ventyl in the previous LG. If you fall for a particular kind of trick, it's only natural to be cautious the next time you feel something similar is happening. For these reasons, I would not like to lynch either Ventyl or Matrim in D1.

Now, obviously, he's changed positions.

On 7/2/2020 at 4:13 PM, TJ Shade said:

I asked Striker what I thought was a fair question, and when he gave a satisfactory answer, I accepted it. Surely I could have added to the trains of Gear/Striker/Ventyl instead of drawing suspicion for a vote on Ashbringer if I was an elim, yeah? I was trying to see who defends him and who joins me in voting for him, but that didn't happen. 

This was interesting to me.  This almost looks like an attempt at distancing with Striker.  I said D1 that TJ's reasoning for being suspicious of Striker didn't make a lot of sense to me;  asking an easy question and having Striker answer it would be a super easy to do some distancing and make both of them look better to the village, IMO.

I did notice that TJ mentioned when he claimed that he claimed even though he knew it would make him look suspicious, because he couldn't exactly keep quiet as a village KR about to die... that in particular is more of a village thing to say, IMO.  But it's also just good cover.  I'm also realizing that the thought process people are applying to Ventyl - that they let Striker get lynched to protect an Elim KR - could be applied to TJ as well, who's basically confirmed as a KR with his vote shenanigans.

TJ also expressed some confusion with my suspicions of him early D1, in a way which didn't make a lot of sense.  It seemed like he was trying to say I looked suspicious for expressing suspicion on him this game, and he mentioned something happening in LG66 which I'm fairly certain didn't happen. 

In conclusion, I think he was acting frantic and odd before he was even really up for lynch.  I think some of his votes seemed really flimsy, and some seemed like an Elim trying to drum up a lynch.  I think there's reasonable evidence for my suspicion of him.

---

Alright now for some responses. 

22 minutes ago, Ventyl said:

3. My thinking was, if I give away some of my role, piece by piece then the people that push strongly for my lynch, could be elims. Because, what elim team wouldn’t want to kill a very likely village Radiant? So, I did think it’d be a great way to start a lot of discussion about who to lynch. Which I generally think is bad for elim teams, because it makes it harder for them to hide, because they’ll have to contribute or they’ll be seen as suspicious. But them contributing also gives them a chance of slipping up and being able to be lynched. 

4. If you see a perfect way to guarantee a village KR gets lynched, wouldn’t you do it? If you see that if you defend someone who as roleclaimed while knowing that you’ll die and flip elim, it would make that person seem very suspicious. So, I don’t know if it was him just trying to get me lynched Day 1 since I’m his brother or if he was actively trying to make me look super suspicious. If it’s the latter, than I’ll be very angry at him when the game ends.

This... actually makes a lot of sense.  I can see this being a reasonable thought process for a villager.  My only thing is that my paranoid half is feeling like this explanation doesn't sound like Ventyl to me.  Part of me is feeling like it could be an Elim teammate giving instructions trying to do damage control...  That might be too paranoid.    I don't want to cast aspersions on Ventyl's abilities.

14 minutes ago, Gears said:

An argument could be made for the fact that Ventyl squired you to gain your trust and create an adamant defender.

12 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

That sounds very complicated. Coming from you, who I greatly suspect, it’s not a good look.

Eh.  I think this actually makes a lot of sense.  I could see myself doing this as an Elim.  It's fairly simple and it's a really good way to try and pocket a villager (is that how you use "pocket"?  Last game was the first time I've seen it used.  )

And that's probably all I'll be able to do this cycle.  I've just learned that I have a morning shift tomorrow so I won't be back home till after the cycle ends.  -sigh-

[Mat he/him]

17 minutes ago, Gears said:

In addition, Ventyl and I could both be villagers. If you wish to lynch me, you have my consent to proceed, but you need a plan for when I flip village. I recommend lynching Ventyl and Matrim posthaste.

I’d almost endorse this if you flip village. I’d be so shocked I wouldn’t know what else to do. 
Ventyl first though 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Matrim's Dice

[Gears]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I’d almost endorse this if you flip village. I’d be so shocked I wouldn’t know what else to do. 
Ventyl first though 

I would indeed endorse Ventyl first, as you being an elim only makes sense if Ventyl is an elim.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

So this is what I think's up.

The elim team is mostly radiants, per Ventyl's comment. Matrim was squired by Ventyl because the other radiants are aready squiring the vanillas.

[Ookla-son-son-Ventyl]

21 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

So this is what I think's up.

The elim team is mostly radiants, per Ventyl's comment. Matrim was squired by Ventyl because the other radiants are aready squiring the vanillas.

You act like my statement about the role distribution of the elim team is fact, when in reality it’s a total guess. After seeing the lynch on Striker and Sarts death and they both flip village I’m starting to think that there is only one player of each role, and maybe a two of some. In all of the alignments. So if there are twenty four players, and probably 5-6 elims. Assuming that there is around 12-13 Radiants, I think a more accurate guess is that the elims have 2-3 Radiants. Remember my guess cycle one was based off of very little knowledge, but after seeing the two people who have died so far flipping vanilla, I’m going back on what I said before.
 

 

32 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Alright now for some responses. 

This... actually makes a lot of sense.  I can see this being a reasonable thought process for a villager.  My only thing is that my paranoid half is feeling like this explanation doesn't sound like Ventyl to me.  Part of me is feeling like it could be an Elim teammate giving instructions trying to do damage control...  That might be too paranoid.    I don't want to cast aspersions on Ventyl's abilities.

Eh.  I think this actually makes a lot of sense.  I could see myself doing this as an Elim.  It's fairly simple and it's a really good way to try and pocket a villager (is that how you use "pocket"?  Last game was the first time I've seen it used.  )

And that's probably all I'll be able to do this cycle.  I've just learned that I have a morning shift tomorrow so I won't be back home till after the cycle ends.  -sigh-

Thank you for seeing the logic behind my words, and being the only one to acknowledge my response so far. If you’re wondering why it doesn’t sound like me, it’s because I really don’t want to die. So I put a lot of effort into that post to try and make it seem as logical and reasonable as possible to accurately get my thoughts to everyone.  I may have eaten a large sum of ice cream, so the sugar might have something to do with the quality of the post as well.

55 minutes ago, Gears said:

An argument could be made for the fact that Ventyl squired you to gain your trust and create an adamant defender. 

Yes, I can see this. But also, would I risk such an obvious play? I mean if you noticed it only a few minutes after Mat posted, so I’m sure that the other elims, if they are in the right mind that is, let elim!Ventyl go through with the idea. I mean, storms, would any elim team, in the right mind, let me do what I’ve done? Maybe if I was Aman, but I’m nowhere as skilled/clever as them.

This is my true defense against me being elim. In LG66, sure I roleclaimed. But I only did in PMs. The only reason I did it in thread was because Ashbringer forced it out of me basically. What I’m trying to say is that, if I was an elim, would I actually be going for plays this risky. Not to mention I’ve misunderstood things twice now, if I had teammates, wouldn’t they have told me about my mistakes before I made the post?

At this point Gears, I’m not as suspicious of you. I still think there is a possibility of you being an elim, but I also think there is a chance of you being a villager. So right now, my vote on you is more of a self preservation vote. 

DISCLAIMER: I still want to lynch Gears, I’m just a little more hesitant about it now.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Brightlord Faleast stared at the squabling travelers. They had put up two individuals who claimed to be Radiants, heading to the city of Urithiru to sanctuary. The man Galatar, the purported Bondsmith who had used his abilities to save his life in yesterday’s brawl.

And Brightlady Valas Etteax. Edgedancer. Lighteyes of an obviously high dahn. And wife of the man he had murdered.

Lafay. He hadn’t seen or heard of the Willshaper since the People’s Republic of Elendel finally took root in Scadrial. Lafay had opposed it, and he had killed him for it.

He had. Faleast, not AraRaash. At the time of the man’s death Faleast’s bones were already worn by the kandra, but the plot to kill him had been started by the real, living Faleast, and his Shadow made sure to finish it.

And he had enjoyed it. AraRaash and Faleast were almost indistinguishable at that point, but Faleast had still been strong. He had enjoyed rousing the mob against Lafay. He has enjoyed watching Elandra being killed by Kynedath and killing Kynedath in return, regardless of that Coinshot’s interference. He had enjoyed planning the hunt for Reginald, until...

Until Pyria. That had turned enjoyment into revulsion, and yet he could not muster that revulsion into regret.

And now, the dead man’s wife was suspected of being a part of the Diagram, of being a murderer.

It was so similar to his own past. Lafay or Valas, Loyalist or Diagrammist, Willshaper or Edgedancer, what did it matter? History was repeating itself, and Faleast wanted no part of it.

That isn’t your choice to make, AraRaash’s voice whispered. She’s a suspect, and she will need to be dealt with if that suspicion bears fruit. And we may be the best to do the deed.

No, Faleast thought, I think you would be. It’s not the-

Someone stood up, yelling at the crowd that had turned in anger to Brightlady Valas. “Wait! She tells the truth! She has squired me with her powers!”

Faleast smiled. Perhaps we won’t have to do it this way after all.

...

Okay, lets see where we stand now. I’m a little off-put by Pyro for defending Ventyl on a “mistaken” premise and now wanting his lynch, although it reads more odd than Elim. Matrim being the squire is a gambit that I think will keep my vote off Ventyl for now - although @Ventyl confirming that Mat’s the squire would be nice (just to get it on the record).

And I think Gears has been pushing Ventyl’s and TJ’s lynches too much, and being contradictory in his pushing as well. For example:

1 hour ago, Gears said:

In addition, Ventyl and I could both be villagers. If you wish to lynch me, you have my consent to proceed, but you need a plan for when I flip village. I recommend lynching Ventyl and Matrim posthaste.

While I agree with the basic premise that Elim!Ventyl could squire Village!Mat to pocket him, this post makes no sense. You state that Ventyl could be village alongside you, but then say we should lynch Ventyl immediately after you flip Village? Why?

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I want to do a readthrough of Gears’ posts.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Ashbringer

[Gears]

6 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

While I agree with the basic premise that Elim!Ventyl could squire Village!Mat to pocket him, this post makes no sense. You state that Ventyl could be village alongside you, but then say we should lynch Ventyl immediately after you flip Village? Why?

Non-sequitur. If I flip village, the best course of action is to investigate those who voted on me, and the most suspicous of those is Ventyl.

[theTruthshaper]

Well, people did make good points against Ventyl being an elim. Matrim's Dice has been squired by Ventyl and this point I am inclined to trust them. Would an elim be so aggressive in defending their teammate? I don't know but I think it is unlikely. More experienced people, feel free to correct me.

One thing I am feeling weird about is the number of times that people have misunderstood Gears posts. Is this simply because of their language? Can anyone offer a reason for this? It feels deliberate.

[Gears]

2 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Matrim's Dice has been squired by Ventyl and this point I am inclined to trust them. Would an elim be so aggressive in defending their teammate?

Elim!Ventyl could have squired village!Matrim to appear more trustworthy. 

[theTruthshaper]

3 minutes ago, Gears said:

Elim!Ventyl could have squired village!Matrim to appear more trustworthy. 

I know this, I am inclined to trust Matrim. I still think it is likely for Ventyl to be an elim but Matrim is leaning village.

[Gears]

1 minute ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

I know this, I am inclined to trust Matrim. I still think it is likely for Ventyl to be an elim but Matrim is leaning village.

Ah. Language is difficult at the best of times. My apologies.

[Ashbringer he/him]

51 minutes ago, Gears said:

Non-sequitur. If I flip village, the best course of action is to investigate those who voted on me, and the most suspicous of those is Ventyl.

Non-sequitur, you say...

*Looks up what non-sequitur means*

*Spends 10 minutes looking at comics*

*Realizes he has a post to make*

...Perhaps? But I still find it odd to have “Ventyl and I could both be Village. Let’s lynch Ventyl!” to be an unusual contrast in statements, even if it’s not meant to be a correlation.

Also, Ventyl’s vote on you is easily explained as self-preservation, which shouldn’t be a main reason to lynch anybody. You are still the main lynch alternative.

53 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

One thing I am feeling weird about is the number of times that people have misunderstood Gears posts. Is this simply because of their language? Can anyone offer a reason for this? It feels deliberate.

How they speak is definitely part of it. Gears’ formality is something new to me, especially due to being an Elim in the QF where my analysis was biased to say the least. But I’m also seeing suspicion in how they try to steer the lynch and their apparent contradictions in statements.

[Gears]

2 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Also, Ventyl’s vote on you is easily explained as self-preservation, which shouldn’t be a main reason to lynch anybody. You are still the main lynch alternative.

Out of all the players, I find Ventyl most suspicious, with Matrim in a distant second. However, the possibility that Ventyl is a villager should not be ignored. My suspicions can and will be wrong [as evidenced by QF45]. All eventualities should be planned for. To better explain my thought process, I have made a decision matrix based on the 2 axis of lynching Ventyl and Ventyl being an elim.

Ventyl is lynched, elim: We get an elim. Very good.

Ventyl is lynched, villager: We mislynch, but we have a lot of material to work with. Not that awful.

Ventyl is not lynched, elim: We have let an elim slip under the radar. Very bad.

Ventyl is not lynched, villager: We have let a villager live. Moderately alright. 

In my opinion, it is better to lynch Ventyl. The worst scenario occurs when we do not lynch, the best scenario occurs when we do lynch, and the other two scenarios aren't that bad.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

I'm actually a little more suspicious of Matrim than ventyl right now, but I don't see a matrim lynch taking off today, so I'll keep my vote where it is.

[theTruthshaper]

19 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

I'm actually a little more suspicious of Matrim than ventyl right now, but I don't see a matrim lynch taking off today, so I'll keep my vote where it is.

Matrim is being suspicious, but I don't think that Ventyl and Matrim both could be elims. There is a high chance that Ventyl might be lynched this cycle and I doubt that an elim would stick their neck out this much. I will be more suspicious of Matrim in Ventyl flips village.

[Ashbringer he/him]

45 minutes ago, Gears said:

To better explain my thought process, I have made a decision matrix based on the 2 axis of lynching Ventyl and Ventyl being an elim.

Uh... 

... aside from whatever that matrix means, your argument makes more sense. But even if lynching a Village!Ventyl isn’t “that bad”, it’s still not preferable. (I missed something else you said, so it does make more sense than I had thought.)

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

11 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Uh... 

... aside from whatever that matrix means,

It is this:

                     Ventyl is elim  | Ventyl is not elim

     Lynched | Killed elim       |    Not that bad

Not Lynched|  Live elim        |   Lynched Later

Did that help?

EDIT: Gears was using this to say the lynched row is better than the not lynched row, and so therefore we should lynch Ventyl

Edited July 6, 2020 by The Young Pyromancer

[Elbereth she/her]

Hey. So, mental illness sucks and shouldn’t exist, and in related news I will be around for the next hour and no longer because apparently breaking my sleep schedule and forgetting my meds results in Not Being Able To Do Anything syndrome. Who knew?  

So I’m here, though splitting my time between this and the MR and fixing all the threads so they’re not a complete mess (by which I deduce Fifth hasn’t been around yet?). I haven’t read through the pages since I’ve been gone; I’ll skim the last couple pages if possible but mostly I’m here to check in, see if there’s anything I should reply to / comment on, and say I hope to be around more tomorrow but can’t promise anything because promises are stressful and my brain thinks stress must be avoided at all costs.  

Looking at literally only this page, I’d be fine with a Matrim lynch (and much more so with that than a Ventyl lynch (which seems to still be happening?). Mostly because I think Ventyl is village, a little bit because I feel like (and I can’t back this up without reading the intervening pages) this might be turning into lynching someone for non-optimal play and I would very very would rather not do that. 

So Matrim I guess? 

EDIT: Oh, and my laptop charger is broken and I won’t get a replacement for another week, so I’m going to be on mobile from now on I guess. :)) 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Elbereth

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

35 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

Looking at literally only this page, I’d be fine with a Matrim lynch (and much more so with that than a Ventyl lynch (which seems to still be happening?)

...????

Okay, this seems like distancing to me.  How in the world could you gather that Ventyl is a worse lynch candidate than matrim here? Also, like you say in that same post, the Ventyl lynch seems pretty solid, so I doubt it'd shift. For that reason, Ventyl Matrim, because if Matrim's elim, I'll put 60/40 odds on El being elim here too.

[Ashbringer he/him]

53 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

It is this:

                     Ventyl is elim  | Ventyl is not elim

     Lynched | Killed elim       |    Not that bad

Not Lynched|  Live elim        |   Lynched Later

Did that help?

...I think so. I had just... well, I had been saying that Gears’ way of talking was hard to understand, and then he says “decision matrix based on the 2 axis” and my brain short circuted . I get what his lynch-or-not-to-lynch analysis was, but I just had no clue what that meant.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

It's like one of those Punett Squares from biology, with the squares inside being when the two outside the box in a row/column with it are true.

Anyways, what's your thought on Elbereth's post?