Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Ashbringer he/him]

A Rioter could also have canceled their own vote, which is sometimes beneficial for Elims to do. But I think multiple soothers is more likely here.

[---]

Help I'm confused and I've never even seen Wyrm on the forums I shouldn't be confused rn

[Quintessential she/her]

24 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

A Rioter could also have canceled their own vote, which is sometimes beneficial for Elims to do. But I think multiple soothers is more likely here.

Great now I'm tinfoiling elim!Rioter!Ash doing this exact thing (which would in fact account for the vote removed from Books) and then announcing the possibility in-thread XD

 

[Kasimir he/him]

Right, bunch of clarifications:

• Yes, PMs remain open. They sort of have to, but my apologies for not including that in the write-up.
   
• If a Rioter attempts to move the vote of a Smoked person, will the Rioter's own vote disappear?

Yes. Smoking is not a roleblock, it merely renders the vote immune to change. As a result, the Rioter's own vote still vanishes.

• If a Smoker targets a Rioter, will the Rioter's own vote disappear when they try to Riot someone the next Turn?

In line with the previous ruling, that Smoking is a preservative, the Rioter's vote would not vanish.

[Biplet she/her]

The fire in the hearth didn't match the haunted gaze in the eyes of Sara's patrons.

Stronger drinks ordered tonight. More coins in her pocket. Didn't feel worth it. 

She'd had her suspicions, sure, but... Lord Ruler. She was glad she'd slept through the violence. Probably would've found herself on the other side of the counter, pourin' her own drinks to match the others'. Those words rang in her head again... Distant enough to not get involved. But shouldn't she get involved? Two murders and a death from paranoia. When would the knife be at her back?

She'd listened. For so long she'd listened. She knew everyone in this town, heard their drunken secrets spilled over stale ale and dying embers. Never had she suspected a murderer among them. Perhaps... she needed to focus less on listening.

Sara refilled a lone man's pint. "Doin' alright?"

She didn't charge a coin for it. 

-0-

Okay, there's a couple different possibilities here, but I'm leaning toward either 1 soother and 1 rioter or 2 soothers and 1 rioter. 3 soothers is also a possibility, but what makes me think 1 soother 1 rioter is Kas clarifying that a rioter can change a vote to a no-vote, and it would cancel their own. So there's a chance a rioter canceled a vote and canceled their own. If I'm reading the rules wrong though pls tell me lol.

I guess there's also the possibility of 4 soothers and 1 rioter, if we're just mathing it. Wouldn't that be wild?

[StrikerEZ he/him]

35 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Edit: Wait, why is this a double-post? Striker posted after me! I even quoted him... :/// 

I accidentally hid my post. For those who can’t see it, I basically just talked about the possibilities we had for vote manip which...are basically the points Bip just made. 

[Gears]

Roko the Basilisk stood before the limp corpse of Lesalan the Alchemist, lamenting the heady pulse of the mob. Lessie had just been a way out of the thunderdome they had found themselves in, a method of escape. It had always hated being trapped, being cornered, being desperate, so it had crafted its own keys to the prison of suspicion, and locked itself into a cell of its own making. And they had agreed, they had followed its lead, they had torn the Alchemist limb from limb. There was a reason why it hated people agreeing with it. It was nearly always wrong, and they should know that. At least the death proved the existence of Regular Villagers, who didn't feel the achepulseneed for metalmetalmetalburning in the blood. And the mob pile-ons were notable as well. All in all, not... well, not a terrible trade, though it did feel the weight of failure as a tearing wound, knowing that its ability to discern friend from foe was hampered. It was not adequate.

For a moment, it contemplated keeping, clinging to the past and trying again, but... no. This wasn't worth it. There was no point in iterating over this specific person again and again and again just for this one gamble. Sure, it had killed people and kept people for less, but there were far more important things to do. For one thing, the fog of metalmetalmetalburning that had settled over the crowd. A distinct Soothing of tolerance, of mercy, of patience. It did not like being under the thumb of someone else. Blood stained its hands, and some had gotten into the grooves between joints, reducing the range of motion slightly. A minor annoyance, but intolerable for one that was trying to seem human, natural, alive. There was much to be done. This gamble had failed, but many more were to come. This hand was lost, but not the game.

---

Kas appears to have transformed into a slightly higher resolution version of Wyrm. Wonderful. 

Vote manip changes: -1 on Books, -2 on Reading. Possible Rioter iterations: Net -1 [vote gets cancelled, someone gets moved to someone else OR not voting, changes vote to null vote [basically mock Soother] OR self-target OR targets same person as Soother OR targets Smoker], net -2 [vote gets cancelled, changes vote to null vote], net 0 [not voting, moves someone to someone else] Soother just -1 a vote. So the 2 Soothers, 1 Rioter works fine and isn't too unreasonable. 1 Soother and 1 Rioter is also plausible [though it would mean that they were voting on someone that they were removing votes from instead of just retracting and being public with it, so if this is the case, suspicion] I will say that the 3 Soothers flat is the simplest scenario, but one should never dismiss other cases out of hand.

TJ, the vote count was tied for a significant time, especially when people were going to sleep. Perhaps village vote manip-ers wanted to stop ties. I'm not rejecting elim!Reading with vote manip to save possibility, but one must consider the village's bloodthirstiness and thus distate for ties.

All votes last cycle [final votes italicised] [this is based on my spreadsheet, so if I'm wrong, yell at me]:

• Araris votes Reading
• Striker votes Gears
• Pyro votes Striker for forgetting Smokers
• Matrim votes Striker for murder, Gears, forgetting Smokers
• Quinn votes Striker for the Gears point
• Illwei votes Stick for "mmmmmm"
• Quinn retracts Striker and votes Illwei for joking about elim!Quinn
• Stick votes Books for hedging on Striker
• Danex votes Quinn for joking about being elim
• Stick retracts Books to avoid tunnelling
• Maia votes Illwei for their 'changing votes in one post' shtick and arguing with Quinn
• Striker retracts Gears for pre-written
• Bard votes Pyro for hopping on Striker quickly
• Striker votes Illwei for 'joking' about people PM claiming
• XP votes Stick for retracting Books
• Tani votes Matrim
• Tani retracts Matrim and votes Quinn
• Illwei retracts Stick
• Illwei votes TJ
• Quinn retracts Illwei and votes Maia because the argument was meta-ish and Maia is too nice
• Fifth votes Reading [I'm sure they have a reason, but alas, the multiquote was devoured]
• Quinn retracts Maia because they are returning
• Bip votes Illwei for the argument with Quinn
• Quinn votes Illwei because the thoughts seem to be verified by an external source 
• Illwei votes Illwei
• Quinn retracts Illwei because of their self-vote
• Gears votes Books for Striker points
• Bip retracts Illwei because of confusion
• Quinn votes Books because of Gears's reasoning
• Tani retracts Quinn and votes Reading
• Ventyl votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Stick votes Books for earlier reasoning
• Tani retracts Reading because voting isn't mandatory
• Striker retracts Illwei and votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Ash votes Reading
• Illwei retracts Illwei and votes Reading
• Bard retracts Pyro and votes Books to avoid ties [@Kasimir, did you miss their vote change here?]
• Ash retracts Reading and votes Books to avoid ties
• Devotary votes Books
• Books votes Reading out of self-pres
• TJ votes Books

Immediate thought: There were a lot of votes flung on at the end. Also, so many people followed me on Books because my reasoning was apparently good. People noted: Everyone who didn't really have reasoning, id est Ventyl, Striker, Bard, Ash, Devotary, TJ [from the Books voters] and Araris [somewhat, not really, they do this a lot], Fifth [just say the reasoning that was eaten in the multiquote, I just don't understand it], Illwei. 

I might do more analysis later, but I'm a tad bit busy [tests coming up], so expect nothing.

For those that didn't see it, Striker's post is as follows:

Quote

4 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

VC from before vote-manip:
Reading (4): Araris, Fifth, Illwei, Books
Striker (2): Pyro, Matrim
Stick (1): XP
Illwei (1): Maill
Quinn (1): Dannex
Pyro (1): Bard
Books (8): Gears, Quinn, Ventyl, Stick, Striker, Ash, Devotary, TJ

Two votes were manipped off of Reading and one off of Books. That means we have... at least three Soothers? Wow, that's... well I guess this is a large game so that makes sense huh. Could also have been Rioters, since their votes are canceled when they move someone else's, but in order for that to be the case there would still have to be a third Soother to counterbalance the moved vote. 

Will say more but I don't want to get ninja'd again XD

We’ve got a few options actually. 3 soothers, 2 soothers and a rioter that didn’t vote, 4 soothers and a rioter (4th soother and rioter targeting the same vote), 1 soother and 1 rioter (the rioter would have to be someone who voted on Books or Reading). I think the first two are the most likely, with the last one being the next likely. I highly doubt we have 4 soothers. 

 

[Kasimir he/him]

Alright, it's happened twice this game now, so I'm going to issue a reminder to everyone. Don't worry, I know accidents happen, but all the same: please refresh yourselves on SE's General Rules and Etiquette, guys. As a brief reminder, you can't hide your post unless it's an actual double-post from you, and editing should be restricted to things like formatting, changing grammar, or adding new content - clearly demarcated. Editing to change tone or remove info is not allowed.

Another rule clarification:

• How do Rioters interact with Smokers? Must the person who the vote is moved to be unSmoked?

Okay, so first, let's distinguish between the Rioter's target and the vote target. To do this, I'll use a simple illustration. Suppose Ren has voted on Gamma. Now, because he's Wyrm, Wyrm is Rioting Ren's vote onto Kas instead. The Rioter's target is Ren, and the vote target, i.e. the target that the vote is being moved to, is Kas. 

Whether Kas is Smoked is irrelevant as Smoking only preserves Kas's vote. For Ren's vote to have actually ended up on Kas, one can deduce that Ren cannot have been Smoked.

Elementary, my dear Wyrm.

God, never rush a rollover after clearing work emergencies - thanks for the catch @Gears, I did indeed miss it. Edited for the millionth time. Clear case of PEBKAS here.

[Mat he/him]

Back now. Pleased my gut rang true on Books in the end, but slightly annoyed they dissed me with their last breath  

Can someone remind me why Reading was a candidate? I completely missed that. 

I also don't necessarily think Reading is evil for the manip- as Gears mentioned, villagers preventing ties is a possibility, or just a village Soother who thought Books was a better choice. Though with the number of votes changed, I do think an elim vote manipper was active- the chance of them having one is high, and there was a lot of manip. The question comes whether they were sowing chaos or trying to save a teammate. I'll probably have a preference between those two options once I remember what Reading was being voted on for in the first place  

Good job confusing me with the pfp change, Kas  It worked.

[---]

13 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

PEBKAS

....

Parentheses, Exclaimation Points, Brackets....Kas?

EDIT:

...Exponents...

Edited February 28, 2021 by Illwei

[Stick. she/her]

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

It does make Reading look bad...

 

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

Anyway, this doesn’t make Reading look good at all, in my opinion

I don't think this makes Reading look bad at all - it's pretty NAI for Reading I think. If I were an elim with vote manips and I had the opportunity to mess up some votes here and there to make a villager look bad while also simultaneously lynching another villager, I would definitely do it. Also, the soothes used on Reading's votes could may as well just be villagers attempting to save Reading, so I think this is mostly just NAI as far as Reading's alignment is concerned. HOwever I still think Reading is village.

Off the top of my head, people active near end-of-turn were Ash, TJ, Books, Bard, Mat, STINK, Devotary, Quinn and myself. Since the votes were already kinda really close before though, the vote manip orders could've just been placed prior to the votes cast near end-of-turn. In fact that would seem to be more likely, because if the vote manip peeps were actually active during end-of-turn, I don't think they would have gone ahead with these manips, seeing as the votes on Books did largely outnumber Reading's. So there was little point in the manips.

 

[Elandera she/her]

Too much brass out there. Lots of requests for it. Need to make more. What again? Zinc with copper, yes? Yes.

No. Backwards. Copper with zinc.

Best not sleep with brass in the belly. Messes with the mind, that does. Other minds too. Don't much like brass. Or copper.

Wait. Copper's good. Zinc. It's zinc.

Zinc with copper. That's what I'm making.

No. Taste. That's what I'll do. Taste. Make sure it's the right metal. Always the right metal.

[Quintessential she/her]

My reads as they currently stand, for whatever they're worth (probably not much):

Village: Quinn, Ventyl 
Mild Village: Matrim, Gears, Ash, Illwei, Biplet
Null Village: Maill, Dannex, Striker
Null: STINK, Daisy, Windrunner, Randby, Fifth, Reading, Elandera, TUO, Burnt, Pyro, Bard
Null Elim: Tani, Stick, Devotary, TJ, Araris, Experience
Mild Elim: 
Elim: 

Explanations:

Spoiler

Quinn: self-explanatory  
Ventyl: Ventyl has made a claim that is both bold and easily verifiable, and given us the tools to verify it. Elim!Ventyl wouldn't be able to guarantee that village Seekers wouldn't scan him, so drawing attention to himself just wouldn't make sense if he were village. Unless he kept his copper on, in which case we'd get suspicious pretty quickly I think. So for all intents and purpose, I'm considering Ventyl to be village.

Matrim: Same reasons as in the Day; he saw the same things I did in Striker's post early on, is following his usual pattern of early elim-reading me, and has a general village tone.
Gears: I had Gears down as null before, but I'm reading him village now because towards the end there he was definitely thinking and trying to solve, and felt village to me. Of course, we all know how great I am at reading Gears  so this possibly deserves some speculation, but I'm comfortable putting him up here anyway.
Ash: More or less the same reasons as Gears, I guess. Also just--I mean, I know this wasn't totally Ash's fault but in the MR (which is the only elim game of his that I've seen) he basically just RPd for the first cycle and didn't participate in the discussion, whereas now he is, so... yeah.
Illwei: idek at this point but tbh Illwei's actions toward the end of last cycle... felt like village Illwei? and most of the stuff I had on her before that was NAI so here she is in mild village for basically just gut.
Biplet: I'm definitely not the first person to point this out, but Biplet has been contributing, trying to solve, and feels village.

Maill: This is purely gut tbh and I have no idea whether I trust it or not.
Dannex: Still that thing about reacting to my fake claim the way he did... idk, less certain about this one at this point though. I guess it's just that he didn't say anything after that (iirc?) so that's all I have on him.
Striker: Still read him village because of his responses to the pressure on him last cycle, but less village because of the timing of his vote on Books, maybe... idk though, that could just be me jumping at shadows.

All of the nulls either haven't left an impression on me to this point or haven't posted much or at all. Nothing much to say here. I believe I had a couple of them at something other than null before, but tbh at this point the reasons are small enough that I'm considering them null now.

Tani: this is purely for her odd vote-patterns last cycle. I know it could still be that she's new, but... idk, it's feeling less and less like that.
Stick: didn't vote until the very end, when it was obvious Books was gonna die. I don't remember them saying all that much that read vil to me either, but... idk, that might just be that I had to skim parts of the thread in time to catch up? I should go reread more carefully later but it's fourteen pages and I'm getting tired just thinking about it XD
Devotary: minimal participation, probably deserves null except that she jumped onto Books right at the end, which makes me lean slightly elim.
TJ: same reasons as Devo.
Araris: Same reasons as TJ and Devo
Experience: They did one giant post towards the beginning of the cycle and then didn't... say anything? I mean, I guess that could be that they were just busy but... yeah. idk. 

I definitely don't think all of the people in the last category are elims or anything like that, but I'd say they're the people I find likely to be elims. 

 

[Ashbringer he/him]

I voted Reading mainly because they seemed to be around but saying almost nothing of substance, which... seems to follow a few other players as well.

...That and for the pun with Reading Books 

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

Hi Wyrm! Definitely checked your account's past display names to check if it was Kas trolling again.

Also, three Soothers.... It does make Reading look bad... Gotta check the vote timings to see if the orders were sent before the players went to sleep, to see if it was village Soothers wanting to prevent a tie or elim Soother wanting to create one. Leaning towards the latter, because I think Reading was in the lead when everyone tuned out.

It scared me for a good second too.  That said, welcome back to @Wyrmhero! It's really been a while and I hope you can stick around and GM a few times :>

Quoting this mainly to respond to your amalgamation of puns and actual points which you made last cycle, which is the only thing I'm going to bother looking at other than votes from yesterday after I left the thread because if I try to multiquote everything I will go insane. >> You seemed to come out of last cycle with more up-front suspicion of Striker than I, essentially because it seems you saw his original post as incontrovertibly bad and subsequent ones as simple efforts at damage control. Given that my stance on Striker has thus far been the equivalent of an enormous shrug, I' m not opposed to your take, but I wonder what you think of it now that Books (who you and I also suspected) has flipped village. Also, now that you've presumably got more time, I'd like to hear your points against TUO and Tani; both of them have kind of slid under my radar, which is perhaps reason enough to give them a second look, but they seem like normal new / adjusting players to me, so I'm curious why they stuck out in your read enough to give them a mention.

Re: your "Fifth very good at appearing village" comment, it occurs to me that the newer players haven't actually been in a game with me where I'm village yet, since my three most recent appearances (LG60, MR38a/b, QF45) I was evil every time. I swear I can be nice, guys, 2020 GM RNG just wasn't feeling in the mood  (which makes up for 2018 GM RNG, I suppose, which made me village every game >>)

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

A Rioter could also have canceled their own vote, which is sometimes beneficial for Elims to do. But I think multiple soothers is more likely here.

With the way vote counts are done, there's really no incentive against Elims messing with their votes just to sew chaos, so this is a good point. I will say that if the Elims did this, though (which I'm currently assuming is the case), they've conveniently exposed that they have vote manip. (Remember how I was saying those Smokers would come in handy? ) Rioting is weird in this case, though, as I'd assume if it had been used, the vote totals would have gone *up* in some places, not down, so... /shrug

34 minutes ago, Gears said:

Roko the Basilisk stood before the limp corpse of Lesalan the Alchemist, lamenting the heady pulse of the mob. Lessie had just been a way out of the thunderdome they had found themselves in, a method of escape. It had always hated being trapped, being cornered, being desperate, so it had crafted its own keys to the prison of suspicion, and locked itself into a cell of its own making. And they had agreed, they had followed its lead, they had torn the Alchemist limb from limb. There was a reason why it hated people agreeing with it. It was nearly always wrong, and they should know that. At least the death proved the existence of Regular Villagers, who didn't feel the achepulseneed for metalmetalmetalburning in the blood. And the mob pile-ons were notable as well. All in all, not... well, not a terrible trade, though it did feel the weight of failure as a tearing wound, knowing that its ability to discern friend from foe was hampered. It was not adequate.

For a moment, it contemplated keeping, clinging to the past and trying again, but... no. This wasn't worth it. There was no point in iterating over this specific person again and again and again just for this one gamble. Sure, it had killed people and kept people for less, but there were far more important things to do. For one thing, the fog of metalmetalmetalburning that had settled over the crowd. A distinct Soothing of tolerance, of mercy, of patience. It did not like being under the thumb of someone else. Blood stained its hands, and some had gotten into the grooves between joints, reducing the range of motion slightly. A minor annoyance, but intolerable for one that was trying to seem human, natural, alive. There was much to be done. This gamble had failed, but many more were to come. This hand was lost, but not the game.

---

Kas appears to have transformed into a slightly higher resolution version of Wyrm. Wonderful. 

Vote manip changes: -1 on Books, -2 on Reading. Possible Rioter iterations: Net -1 [vote gets cancelled, someone gets moved to someone else OR not voting, changes vote to null vote [basically mock Soother] OR self-target OR targets same person as Soother OR targets Smoker], net -2 [vote gets cancelled, changes vote to null vote], net 0 [not voting, moves someone to someone else] Soother just -1 a vote. So the 2 Soothers, 1 Rioter works fine and isn't too unreasonable. 1 Soother and 1 Rioter is also plausible [though it would mean that they were voting on someone that they were removing votes from instead of just retracting and being public with it, so if this is the case, suspicion] I will say that the 3 Soothers flat is the simplest scenario, but one should never dismiss other cases out of hand.

TJ, the vote count was tied for a significant time, especially when people were going to sleep. Perhaps village vote manip-ers wanted to stop ties. I'm not rejecting elim!Reading with vote manip to save possibility, but one must consider the village's bloodthirstiness and thus distate for ties.

All votes last cycle [final votes italicised] [this is based on my spreadsheet, so if I'm wrong, yell at me]:

• Araris votes Reading
• Striker votes Gears
• Pyro votes Striker for forgetting Smokers
• Matrim votes Striker for murder, Gears, forgetting Smokers
• Quinn votes Striker for the Gears point
• Illwei votes Stick for "mmmmmm"
• Quinn retracts Striker and votes Illwei for joking about elim!Quinn
• Stick votes Books for hedging on Striker
• Danex votes Quinn for joking about being elim
• Stick retracts Books to avoid tunnelling
• Maia votes Illwei for their 'changing votes in one post' shtick and arguing with Quinn
• Striker retracts Gears for pre-written
• Bard votes Pyro for hopping on Striker quickly
• Striker votes Illwei for 'joking' about people PM claiming
• XP votes Stick for retracting Books
• Tani votes Matrim
• Tani retracts Matrim and votes Quinn
• Illwei retracts Stick
• Illwei votes TJ
• Quinn retracts Illwei and votes Maia because the argument was meta-ish and Maia is too nice
• Fifth votes Reading [I'm sure they have a reason, but alas, the multiquote was devoured]
• Quinn retracts Maia because they are returning
• Bip votes Illwei for the argument with Quinn
• Quinn votes Illwei because the thoughts seem to be verified by an external source 
• Illwei votes Illwei
• Quinn retracts Illwei because of their self-vote
• Gears votes Books for Striker points
• Bip retracts Illwei because of confusion
• Quinn votes Books because of Gears's reasoning
• Tani retracts Quinn and votes Reading
• Ventyl votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Stick votes Books for earlier reasoning
• Tani retracts Reading because voting isn't mandatory
• Striker retracts Illwei and votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Ash votes Reading
• Illwei retracts Illwei and votes Reading
• Bard retracts Pyro and votes Books to avoid ties [@Kasimir, did you miss their vote change here?]
• Ash retracts Reading and votes Books to avoid ties
• Devotary votes Books
• Books votes Reading out of self-pres
• TJ votes Books

Immediate thought: There were a lot of votes flung on at the end. Also, so many people followed me on Books because my reasoning was apparently good. People noted: Everyone who didn't really have reasoning, id est Ventyl, Striker, Bard, Ash, Devotary, TJ [from the Books voters] and Araris [somewhat, not really, they do this a lot], Fifth [just say the reasoning that was eaten in the multiquote, I just don't understand it], Illwei. 

I might do more analysis later, but I'm a tad bit busy [tests coming up], so expect nothing.

For those that didn't see it, Striker's post is as follows:

 

All hail the glorious Wyrmimir  

Some clarification on the SoR vote: the posts they had made at the time seemed weird and disjoint from what was going on (the ones at the beginning of the turn), which I thought might be an attempt to lie low on the edge of suspicion, and then he made the post about how Smokers ought to power off their copperclouds to let Seekers scan them, which I strongly disagreed with and saw as helping the Eliminators. He was also less active than Books or Illwei, the alternatives at the time, and I agreed rather strongly with Araris' point that it would be more fair to let vocal players survive D1. Tl;dr he wasn't my top suspicion, but situationally he made the most sense because I had no solid case against anyone else (y'know, because it was D1 )

The Books avalanche and the vote manip should probably be considered separately - my view is that even if SoR is evil, only one of those phenomena were generated by Team Evil. Either of them would have sufficed to save an Elim!SoR, and I don't think the elims would have tipped their hand so heavily to save a member this early on. So either the last-minute swing of votes (Bard, Ash, Devotary, TJ) was half-or-more evil, or the heavy vote manipulation was done by an elim or two, but not both. Sorry if that made no sense to anyone but myself.  Right now I have almost universally null reads on the wagon of Books voters, so I'm of the view that evil!SoR would mean the elims sending in vote manip actions early in the turn to make sure he survived and then getting pleasantly surprised by the mostly-village tumble onto Books last-minute. Ash and Devotary probably look the worst off the last-minute voting, in this elaborate world I've constructed, and I'm going to stop analysing here because I'm just rambling at this point  

12 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Back now. Pleased my gut rang true on Books in the end, but slightly annoyed they dissed me with their last breath  

Can someone remind me why Reading was a candidate? I completely missed that. 

I also don't necessarily think Reading is evil for the manip- as Gears mentioned, villagers preventing ties is a possibility, or just a village Soother who thought Books was a better choice. Though with the number of votes changed, I do think an elim vote manipper was active- the chance of them having one is high, and there was a lot of manip. The question comes whether they were sowing chaos or trying to save a teammate. I'll probably have a preference between those two options once I remember what Reading was being voted on for in the first place  

Good job confusing me with the pfp change, Kas  It worked.

Pretty much full agreement with the third paragraph here. Village manipulation to cement a result is definitely possible, and if that's the case it was probably done by someone who either hopped on the Books wagon last-minute, or saw the trend and wanted to continue. Or maybe just a newer player eager to use their manip abilities, which I can't blame them for because I did the same with a Soother role in my first game  

11 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

 

I don't think this makes Reading look bad at all - it's pretty NAI for Reading I think. If I were an elim with vote manips and I had the opportunity to mess up some votes here and there to make a villager look bad while also simultaneously lynching another villager, I would definitely do it. Also, the soothes used on Reading's votes could may as well just be villagers attempting to save Reading, so I think this is mostly just NAI as far as Reading's alignment is concerned. HOwever I still think Reading is village.

Off the top of my head, people active near end-of-turn were Ash, TJ, Books, Bard, Mat, STINK, Devotary, Quinn and myself. Since the votes were already kinda really close before though, the vote manip orders could've just been placed prior to the votes cast near end-of-turn. In fact that would seem to be more likely, because if the vote manip peeps were actually active during end-of-turn, I don't think they would have gone ahead with these manips, seeing as the votes on Books did largely outnumber Reading's. So there was little point in the manips.

 

And here Stick is taking basically the opposite view.  I would agree with you if people only used manip when it was necessary, but oftentimes it's the exact opposite, which is why I'd maintain that the village manipulator(s) were probably more likely to be on towards the end of the turn. 

19 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Null: STINK, Daisy, Windrunner, Randby, Fifth, Reading, Elandera, TUO, Burnt, Pyro, Bard

...

All of the nulls either haven't left an impression on me to this point or haven't posted much or at all. Nothing much to say here. I believe I had a couple of them at something other than null before, but tbh at this point the reasons are small enough that I'm considering them null now.

Ouch, I see someone doesn't bother reading my multiquotes unless I tag them  More seriously, I hope to put my own opinions out a bit more soon to leave an actual impression, and should have a reads list later tonight or tomorrow. I just am not spending the 6+ hours on the game that I did yesterday trying to catch up, so forgive me if this post and a few shorter ones later in the cycle are all that I manage for tonight.  

[Ashbringer he/him]

Rioting usually actually moves the votes and their associated name, so I don't think any Rioting was used successfully. But it sounds like some of these removed votes could have been Rioters who either intentionally whiffed their Riots or hit Smokers.

... Rioters and Smokers are suddenly a very powerful combination.

[Quintessential she/her]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

Rioting usually actually moves the votes and their associated name, so I don't think any Rioting was used successfully. But it sounds like some of these removed votes could have been Rioters who either intentionally whiffed their Riots or hit Smokers.

... Rioters and Smokers are suddenly a very powerful combination.

@Kasimir Does Rioting move a person's name, or just change the numbers of votes? 

Also, what happens if a Rioter and a Soother target the same person? that person's vote just gets canceled, right?

[---]

is kas kas or wyrm i don't know anymore

[Mat he/him]

Just now, Illwei said:

is kas kas or wyrm i don't know anymore

Wyrm closed the turn because Kas had a work emergency

And then Kas changed his pfp to match Wyrm's. 

Pretty sure that's it.

---

Expect some RP later, I just have to... write it...

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

@Kasimir Does Rioting move a person's name, or just change the numbers of votes? 

Also, what happens if a Rioter and a Soother target the same person? that person's vote just gets canceled, right?

As clarified previously, the names will not be shifted. There was some early issues due to my having to rush the rollover but I think it's been largely ironed out - the numerical tallies will reflect the actual vote shifts, while the names remain intact.

Yeah. Both are previous questions so I won't be adding this to the stock of clarifications.

2 minutes ago, Illwei said:

is kas kas or wyrm i don't know anymore

I am your GM  

[Quintessential she/her]

Just now, Kasimir said:

Yeah. Both are previous questions so I won't be adding this to the stock of clarifications.

Oh. How did I miss that... XD sorry for asking redundant questions 

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Oh. How did I miss that... XD sorry for asking redundant questions 

No worries, it's what I'm here for - I just don't want to double-add questions >>

[|TJ| he/him]

Okay so I went back because I read the whole thread in one go (well two goes) I went back to see vote status at specific times to see when the Soothe submission about have been submitted.

3(I)-2(S)-2(B)-2(R) - 14 hrs BR

3(I)-3(B)-3(R)-2(S) - 13 hrs BR (here?)

4(B)-3I-3R-2S - 11hrs BR (sleep?)

4B-2I-2R-2S - 10:45 BR

5B-2R-2S-1I - 10 hrs BR (no point in Soothing here)

5B-4R-2S - 6:30 BR

After this is all votes on Books, so I don't think anyone would have Soothed a vote off if they were online after this point.

Reading wasn't actually in the lead which was my initial assumption when making the first post of the cycle, so I no longer think Reading looks bad from it.

If the vote manipper was active around 11-14 hours before End of Day, they could be village. Though knowing the manipper's alignment, we cannot know Reading's But the person who removed a vote off Books is possibly an elim trying to create a tie. 

Also, a couple of players (Quinn and Gears, I think) are suspicious of last minute votes. I was racing against time to finish reading the thread and make a vote, but other than that we should not forget about ties causing no elimination, and that is the reason I enlarged the lead on Books ( I did not have info about vote count and I had not seen Devotary's vote as I do not hit refresh when I'm typing up a post and I saw Mat mention 6-4 somewhere and voted for Books) so we should look for difference on who wants to just bandwagon, and who wants to prevent a tie, as the latter was my intention.

@Fifth Scholar, I see your post, but you're talking to almost 3AM TJ here, so I'mma give an answer to you after waking up

[Biplet she/her]

3 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

3(I)-2(S)-2(B)-2(R) - 14 hrs BR

3(I)-3(B)-3(R)-2(S) - 13 hrs BR (here?)

4(B)-3I-3R-2S - 11hrs BR (sleep?)

4B-2I-2R-2S - 10:45 BR

5B-2R-2S-1I - 10 hrs BR (no point in Soothing here)

5B-4R-2S - 6:30 BR

Do you think you could clarify this a bit? It might just be me lol but I'm pretty confused . Looks like a great analysis I just don't understand it lolol.

4 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

so I no longer think Reading looks bad from it.

Agreed.

[|TJ| he/him]

1 minute ago, Biplet said:

Do you think you could clarify this a bit? It might just be me lol but I'm pretty confused . Looks like a great analysis I just don't understand it lolol.

Bahh sorry xD I was just abbreviating stuff for my convenience while noting it down and just forgot to change them 

So the letters inside parentheses are the players on which the votes are like - I for Illwei, B for Books, S for Striker and R for Reading. 

BR is basically Before Rollover xD 

And the other stuff in parentheses is basically me speculating when the vote manniper might have gone to sleep for us to consider them possibly village.