Long Game 68: Studies of Ashyn

[Straw he/him]

11 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Are we back to making paggro jabs at players? I thought SE was better than this. I am disappointed that we are not.

@Elbereth, because I'm rusting done with this. If we can't go a single Turn in this game without having to squabble over this, I request you mods make a decision by sheer fiat, and enforce it so that community members can decide if they can live with it, or to stay or go. If that's how you all want to play it, then so be it.

I can't speak in detail for what TJ did with Mat, but Illwei spoke to me on N1 about his disease. I asked for details and encouraged him to come forward in the thread. On D2, the GM PM I received matched Illwei's description. Later on, Player 3 told me they had the disease. I asked them to describe both the nature of the disease and the ability it conferred. In addition, I had already told Player 3 a detail about how the disease worked that had not been mentioned in thread. At no point were we interested in splitting hairs about what the GM PM actually said.

As far as I know, that's exactly what TJ did with Mat. There's a significant difference between saying, "My disease is leprosy" and saying what the disease I, Illwei, and Player X is called.

Is this specific wording from GM PMs for you?  You can decide. Or I guess @Elkanah and @The_God_King can decide, too.

@Elbereth I'm happy to be censured for this, if you like  

I feel like you're a bit overly wound up over the whole GM PM business.

What kind of decision do you even think the mods would make? We know that you cannot quote from PMs, and you cannot confirm specific wording from GM PMs. What else are they supposed to make a ruling on?

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Straw said:

I feel like you're a bit overly wound up over the whole GM PM business.

What kind of decision do you even think the mods would make? We know that you cannot quote from PMs, and you cannot confirm specific wording from GM PMs. What else are they supposed to make a ruling on?

Straw, I think you believe you are de-escalating. I also would like to tell you you're not helping. I am just going to put it simply:

First, I think that it is not acceptable or polite to make a paggro jab at two players and frame what we did with regard to the diseases in terms of presumed guilt. More than anything else, that is what made me respond and request adjudication. I do not consider this okay, and I believe we need to have basic standards of civility. I am also not interested in being told that I am 'overly wound up' for demanding basic standards of decency.

Second, if Devotary wants to take issue with the fact that we confirmed with each other whether the disease was measles or leprosy, then they had better make a clearer ruling on what they believe the rule is going to cover. If you cannot quote from PMs, can you make reference to descriptions in PMs? If you don't ask a player for specific descriptions but they give you descriptions that you recognise from your own GM PM to be true, is that acceptable? 

If this is uncontroversial, then my recognising a specific description that Mint used should not have been controversial in the first place. My recognising a specific description and set of ability rules that Illwei mentioned should not have been controversial in the first place.

I have communicated my issues to El, since she is the IM for this game. I ask that you drop it, because I'm not interested in continuing the fight in the thread, and you're not helping in de-escalation by this point.

[Illwei]

56 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

@Illwei, if you're a villager, your judgement is better than the average player's. If you're willing to vote once for someone, feel free to vote twice and then tell people you did so the following turn. To confirm, one of your votes has to be in thread, correct? It couldn't be the case that the person who added a vote to Lahilt also added a vote to Pyro? If that's true, we either have a fourth double voter or a third type of vote manipulation.

I guess that makes sense, I'm just constantly worried that my judgements are wrong :P.

Someone else with my ability would not be able to not vote in thread, and then place two secret votes on both lahilt and Pyro. I only get one secret vote. 

[+Lotus she/her]

33 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

On 8/4/2020 at 7:14 AM, Lotus said:

 

This begs the question: Were you lying, either here, or when you claimed? If you gained the disease either from PM's or some other means during N1/D2, did you somehow know this would happen? (Given the addition of the 'yet' in the D1 post this is something I'm considering you knew could happen, when considering how much we knew at the time you made this post.)

I got the disease D2. So at that point in time, I didn’t have a disease.

I thought it might be random when someone gets a disease, which is why I had the ‘yet’ on their.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

46 minutes ago, Lotus said:

The only person I have PMd with is Kas. 

So you didn't start with the disease and you didn't catch it from somebody you had a PM with since what Kas has is different.

44 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I can't speak in detail for what TJ did with Mat, but Illwei spoke to me on N1 about his disease. I asked for details and encouraged him to come forward in the thread. On D2, the GM PM I received matched Illwei's description. Later on, Player 3 told me they had the disease. I asked them to describe both the nature of the disease and the ability it conferred. In addition, I had already told Player 3 a detail about how the disease worked that had not been mentioned in thread. At no point were we interested in splitting hairs about what the GM PM actually said.

I don't know what happened in your PM or TJ/Matrim's, which was why I was asking. I'm sorry that I asked in a way that suggested people were doing something wrong. There can't be wrongdoing without an official ruling, but I think there should be a decision one or the the other. I'm concerned that Sart mentioned his disease gave him lesions and TJ immediately knew he had the same disease or that someone had told him the description because I don't think this is allowed, but I don't actually know. I've died before for not being able to give the name of the role I had claimed to be, so perhaps it is acceptable.

[+Lotus she/her]

42 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

So you didn't start with the disease and you didn't catch it from somebody you had a PM with since what Kas has is different.

Correct.

And Here's my (Short) RP for this round.

______________

Lucy lay on the bench, whimpering slightly. Light, her head was killing her! She felt worse than that one time she'd tried Horneater white on a dare.

It was passed the time she normally left to go home, but she just couldn't bring herself to do anything other then just lie here.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Lotus

[Elkanah he/him]

I have heard your pleas and have come to some share decisions. 

First, I apologize for the vagueness of the game. @The_God_King and I were excited to try out a slow reveal format. For that reason, we still haven't even told anyone the actual names we have for their conditions. I thought it might be more obvious than I have realized that it is. However, we have used mostly the same wording for multiple people with the same action. Being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic may not be the most healthy way to run a game. Therefore, I will be PMing those with actions and revealing the true name of their conditions. Further, as you have received all the information except for the names of three abilities, I will reveal now that Mist was afflicted with Transformation, Lord Silberfarben had Progression and Pyro had Tension.

When we censured the conversation on GM PMs it was because I was a little overworried about the use of GM PMs to prove alignment. The village was referred to offhand in the GM PMs to the infiltrators and it would have been better just to mention the name we had given villagers in the Elim doc. As no condition is exclusive to village or eliminators, I was slower to step in on the topic of describing conditions (both what they can do and what symptoms came with them). Given this lack of alignment indication, I am still not worried about discussing the flavor or ability of conditions in public or private or sharing the surge it is associated with. The same goes for backgrounds if they do (or do not do)  anything.

A few other matters to resolve:

The God King is unavailable for a few days and I will be running the game more or less on my own. That's why last night's cycle was up a little late. I appreciate how patient you have been so far and would appreciate patience going forward. 

@Elbereth will continue to have the final word on this ruling. If I am allowing too much information to be discussed, I will not be offended to be wrong. I am often wrong and will often be wrong. This is only my opinion on the state of the game.

[Illwei]

The...flavor...of conditions

Edited August 8, 2020 by Illwei
Mmm tasty

[Elkanah he/him]

Yeah, I could have worded that better. I meant symptoms that weren't mechanics.

[Elkanah he/him]

The Cycle is over.

[Elkanah he/him]

Daily Report 07-02-766

We can’t quantify everything that is happening. The interns are experiencing odd reactions to the samples. See the attached file to outline the effects. Many of the symptoms seem to correlate with surges. More stormlight is requested to further this research. Several researchers were supposed to return to the project, but due to unforeseen accidents, they end up on medical leave indefinitely.

Follow up note 09-02-766: the attached files have disappeared

 

Incident Report 08-02-766

Interns living on and near the facility campus awoke to shouts and cries for help. A trail of blood spots led the length of the main facility. Hand prints on the wall lead us to believe he was able to fight his attacker off, but only after being mortally wounded. The body of Dr Gear was found at the emergency rear exit to the campus. We believe it was his intention to activate the security protocols to aid in catching the culprits. The strange thing is there were no lacerations or signs of harm on the body that would explain the profuse blood loss. Whatever killed him left no marks. All interns are to travel in groups of no less than three and please stop "forgetting" to sign in as you move to new areas.

 

Dr Gears was killed. He had a medical background and no condition.

 

Teft the mosshead has withdrawn from the game. Elandera has been kind enough to take his position.

 

With deepest apologies, I present the corrected Vote tally from Day 2

Votes

Young Pyromancer (4): Gears, Lotus, Lahilt

Lahilt (3): Kasimir, StrikerEZ

Lotus (1): Matrim, Illwei, Vapor

Mint (2): Sart, Araris

Araris (1): TJ Shade

Sart (1): 

 

Player List

Spoiler

1. Gears - Dr. Gears Medical, No Condition

2. Ashbringer - Faleast

3. The Young Pyromancer Physics, Tension - Action: Remove someone's vote, your vote will be assigned randomly to someone with at least one vote

4 Elandera

5. Matrim's Dice - Farns

6. Araris Valerian - Klumm Z.

7. Lord_Silberfarben - Lord-son-...-Silberfarben History, Progression - Action: Target one player, remove their condition

8. TJ Shade - Kondrea

9. Straw - Straw

10. Mist - Tara night  History, Transformation - Action: kill target player; you die as well

11. Frozen Mint 

12. Lotus - Lucy

13. Illwei 

14. Vapor 

15. Kasimir - Maris Erikell

16. Sart - Thomas

17. Lahilt - T. A. Hill

18. Devotary - Liba

19. StrikerEZ 

The Cycle will end at 8 pm MDT on Monday August 10th.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Elkanah

[Ashbringer he/him]

Gears? All these role claims left and right, so little to successfully analyze, and the Elims go for Gears?

Interesting.

Edit: one of the tags is “the conditions intensify”... that’s not good, is it.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Ashbringer

[Illwei]

Gears did claim a role in thread didn't he? just he said that he wasn't going to say which one? 
Maybe he PM'd an elim and told them, but then they didn't want us to know that role existed and they just so happened to have a progression guy?

wait no I'm not playing ToS

Maybe he claimed to an elim and they killed him and healed him before anyone else could get the power or something or before he could use it?

EDIT:

nvm gears said they weren't going to say either way not that they weren't going to say what disease

Edited August 9, 2020 by Illwei

[Elandera she/her]

Hello! I'll be honest, I probably won't review past cycles a whole lot (brief skims, basically) so I can focus on what's happening currently. If there's been anything important, let me know.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Good point that maybe the Elims cleaned it.

(In fact, that would greatly explain the writeup’s having “no lacerations or signs of harm”... hmm. Time to look at writeups for hints.)

It’s also possible they found out Gears had a Medical background, which screams Protection to me (especially since Progression isn’t).

Edit: And Transformation was a kill, of sorts. Hmm. I wonder what that makes Division, then.

Edit 2: Hey! I’m a Misting! My Rep is finally Invested!

Edited August 9, 2020 by Ashbringer

[Illwei]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

(In fact, that would greatly explain the writeup’s having “no lacerations or signs of harm”... hmm. Time to look at writeups for hints.)

It doesn't even say his alignment in the writeup O.o :P.
But anyways there's no use speculating over something that I can't ever prove or disprove without first dying :P.

Also I guessed my surge thing right so I'm incredibly proud of myself (even though I think they said they thought it would be obvious to the people but anyways-)

[StrikerEZ he/him]

23 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Gears? All these role claims left and right, so little to successfully analyze, and the Elims go for Gears?

Interesting.

Edit: one of the tags is “the conditions intensify”... that’s not good, is it.

Honestly, this post alone makes me want to vote for you. It just feels way too on the nose. Because of a lack of better leads right now (and probably some impulsiveness), Ashbringer. Why call attention to this fact in the way you did? Trying to throw suspicion onto all the people who have role claimed?

[Kasimir he/him]

[OOC] @Elkanah, thank you for the ruling and clarification on what is permitted and not permitted. I appreciate the clarity with which it was delivered, and apologise for borking the slow reveal aspect of your game, as I have enjoyed engaging with the thematic academic elements.

@Devotary of Spontaneity: Heard and understood. I appreciate that it would have been preferential for us to have explained how things were established, and apology accepted. 

---

On to business. I was in a PM with Gears because we were having a ketek competition, at which they were sorely trouncing me. They challenged me to a duel of wits, and mentioned also that they had reason to believe TJ was wrong: that something had happened in their PM with Pyro that had caused Pyro to believe he had contracted migraine specifically from Gears. I now wonder if it was because Gears had revealed their background to Pyro, and potentially to someone else, but I suppose we shall not know now.

Gears challenged me to identify their secret and said that if I could work out their secret, I get another secret that could help me in future. I suppose it is likely tied to their medical background, but again, not really sure.

Requiescat in pace, ketek partner. You shall be avenged even if I evidently can't write a ketek to save my life.

@Sart, @Matrim's Dice, who did you target? (Note: It's interesting the Eliminators went for Gears instead.)

Edited to add: Devotary Devotary. No last minute vote this time? Aren't you a fan of them? What's changed?

Edited August 9, 2020 by Kasimir

[StrikerEZ he/him]

@Kasimir Wait, why'd you have to go and make the same observation Ash made?

[Ashbringer he/him]

11 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Honestly, this post alone makes me want to vote for you. It just feels way too on the nose. Because of a lack of better leads right now (and probably some impulsiveness), Ashbringer. Why call attention to this fact in the way you did? Trying to throw suspicion onto all the people who have role claimed?

What else is there to call attention to? There's a new piece of information out, and as you say, we don't have any good leads. I want to see if Gears' death can become a lead.

And yes, I do find it strange that of all the public roleclaims (how many are there now? At least 4, although they may have been removed/shifted), a person is attacked who neither claimed a role (as far as I can tell) nor apparently has one. I would think at least one of those roleclaims is in fact an Elim, but definitely not all of them. And I'm more inclined to believe that the Elims were more scared of the Medical background than the claimed vote manips and roleblocks, which makes me wonder whether Gears had shared or hinted that information.

(Sorry if this seems a little snappish, but I need to get some sleep...)

3 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

@Kasimir Wait, why'd you have to go and make the same observation Ash made?

Heh. Now you're outvoted 

[Kasimir he/him]

5 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

@Kasimir Wait, why'd you have to go and make the same observation Ash made?

I was typing and I got ninjaed and I've given up bothering to check the new pace of posts, but I believe it is significant because of the Eliminator profile I was talking about. This continues to deviate from the profiles I'm used to, and notably, the profile I most readily inhabit, precisely because my personal Eliminator profile would regard roleblockers as a threat to be taken out. There are several possible Eliminator profiles that have strategic priorities that are consistent with this kill. We can either postulate Gears said something which I already have postulated - except to be honest, I'm ascribing that moderate to low weight because Gears was being so darned cagey in their PM with me.

Or maybe I'm untrustable by nature 

The other possibility is, I suspect, closer to the Eliminator profile mentioned by Araris on D2. And to be quite honest, I'm kind of disturbed by it.

Edited to adjust the pronoun accordingly.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Kasimir

[StrikerEZ he/him]

6 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

What else is there to call attention to? There's a new piece of information out, and as you say, we don't have any good leads. I want to see if Gears' death can become a lead.

And yes, I do find it strange that of all the public roleclaims (how many are there now? At least 4, although they may have been removed/shifted), a person is attacked who neither claimed a role (as far as I can tell) nor apparently has one. I would think at least one of those roleclaims is in fact an Elim, but definitely not all of them. And I'm more inclined to believe that the Elims were more scared of the Medical background than the claimed vote manips and roleblocks, which makes me wonder whether Gears had shared or hinted that information.

Do we know whether Gears would've known anything about what his background entails? So far, I've heard nothing about people's backgrounds having an effect on the game, just the diseases so far. If Gears had figured out something about his background, then he was a lot farther ahead than I am. And if he had, would we not have been informed what having a medical background means mechanically? 

8 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

(Sorry if this seems a little snappish, but I need to get some sleep...)

Nah, it didn't seem snappy to me at all, no worries!

Also, Ashbringer. That was really the only reason I was voting on you, and it seems I was mostly just not thinking straight.

11 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I was typing and I got ninjaed and I've given up bothering to check the new pace of posts, but I believe it is significant because of the Eliminator profile I was talking about. This continues to deviate from the profiles I'm used to, and notably, the profile I most readily inhabit, precisely because my personal Eliminator profile would regard roleblockers as a threat to be taken out. There are several possible Eliminator profiles that have strategic priorities that are consistent with this kill. We can either postulate Gears said something which I already have postulated - except to be honest, I'm ascribing that moderate to low weight because Gears was being so darned cagey in his PM with me.

Or maybe I'm untrustable by nature 

The other possibility is, I suspect, closer to the Eliminator profile mentioned by Araris on D2. And to be quite honest, I'm kind of disturbed by it.

Do you care to explain the eliminator profiles you're thinking of and the one Araris mentioned? Also, why are you disturbed by it?

[|TJ| he/him]

10 minutes ago, Elandera said:

Hello! I'll be honest, I probably won't review past cycles a whole lot (brief skims, basically) so I can focus on what's happening currently. If there's been anything important, let me know.

So some diseases give powers at expenses (e.g. roleblockers cannot PM), other powers do not have disadvantages (like double vote). Illwei used a double vote to save themselves at the expense on Mist on D1. Powers/Diseases spread by some unknown mechanism. Kas claimed he got the double vote power, Pyro claimed he got his cancel-vote-but-self-vote-is-reassigned role by the spread. Lotus claimed she got the same role via the spread. There is a role that heals diseases but takes away the powers as well. I was healed of my role-block in this way. Sart and Matrim are claimed role-blockers as well. 

3 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

And yes, I do find it strange that of all the public roleclaims (how many are there now? At least 4, although they may have been removed/shifted), a person is attacked who neither claimed a role (as far as I can tell) nor apparently has one. I would think at least one of those roleclaims is in fact an Elim, but definitely not all of them. And I'm more inclined to believe that the Elims were more scared of the Medical background than the claimed vote manips and roleblocks, which makes me wonder whether Gears had shared or hinted that information.

My guess is that elims have a Silber-type role as well. I'm convinced it was them (and not Silber) who took away my roleblock. So they can remove the powers of people who are not dangerously close to figuring out the elims via analysis and their only threat at this point is their power, and kill people who are dangerous in-thread. Gears was rallying the village and acting as a strong supporter of information sharing. 

I'll be voting for Devotary because how I am not supposed to make an immediate connection between disease and their powers when someone mentions it? It's a mechanic of the game and I deduced that every action has a specific disease name (if it has one). And I'm trying to verify if people are telling the truth are not. And even confirming their role is not alignment-indicative (as Elkanah rule earlier). It's in no way similar to asking the name of the village alignment. The minute he mentioned lesions, the only thing that came in my mind was "okay he knows role-blocks are a result of lesions", and I felt that I had to convey that to the thread. I felt that post was odd.

[Kasimir he/him]

6 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Do we know whether Gears would've known anything about what his background entails? So far, I've heard nothing about people's backgrounds having an effect on the game, just the diseases so far. If Gears had figured out something about his background, then he was a lot farther ahead than I am. And if he had, would we not have been informed what having a medical background means mechanically? 

Nah, it didn't seem snappy to me at all, no worries!

Also, Ashbringer. That was really the only reason I was voting on you, and it seems I was mostly just not thinking straight.

Do you care to explain the eliminator profiles you're thinking of and the one Araris mentioned? Also, why are you disturbed by it?

Taking the last first, this is the part where I admit I'm a narrow-minded bigot—the main reason the Eliminator profile mentioned by Araris on D2 disturbs me is just because the strategic priorities it emphasises are very alien to me. 

Let's take a step back. I'm talking about profiling Eliminators: how they think, how they play. What is the framework with which they perceive the game. What are their strategic priorities. I'd argue that players tend to demonstrate a specific profile as an Elim—that's their Eliminator profile. I am keenly aware of what my Eliminator profile is, and — bigot here speaking — it is very difficult for me to wrap my mind around the sorts of strategic priorities that would give rise to this kind of play. 

One possible profile is the D2 one Araris mentioned. Page 1 of D2. (Linking on mobile is a pain, sorry.) This playstyle emphasises keeping a low profile by selecting kills that reveal as little information as possible. This is consistent with the Silber kill on N1. Araris does mention throwing in the occasional necessity kill—removing players strongly read or confirmed as Village. (To the extent the necessity kill aspect dominates, I would be willing to consider that another profile.) But by and large, this profile is interested in leaving as small an imprint as possible. I'd argue that if this profile is dominant on the team, we should expect to look for peripheral players. 

Another major possible profile would be the standard one (or what I'm used to seeing as standard) —ruthlessly eliminate and prioritise threats. Subvariants focus on manipulation instead of elimination, i.e. Co-opting threats or encouraging self-destruction. Consistent with Silber kill if we postulate they believed he was a Seeker, consistent with Gears' death if we postulate they said something. The manipulation subvariant would likely select kills to maximise confusion and paranoia, e.g. by setting up Villagers for suspicion and to take the fall, avoiding killing ambiguous and suspicious Villagers to deny the Village clarity. 

There's the Burnt profile. Roll dice. Burnt isn't in this game so whatever You get the picture. The taxonomy isn't precise of course. 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I'd argue that if this profile is dominant on the team, we should expect to look for peripheral players. 

I was going to say that I disagree and that I fit this profile while being rather prolific in my last elim game, and then realized that most of the rest of my team could have been described as peripheral.

I’ll try and do a somewhat comprehensive analysis post tomorrow, off to bed for now.