Long Game 76: At the Forests of Madness

[Ashbringer he/him]

30 minutes later...

[Szeth_Pancakes he/him]

20 minutes later...

[Elandera she/her]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to schedule confusion on my part, the end of the cycle will be at 5 p.m. PDT, not 6 p.m. That means it's ending an hour earlier than originally scheduled. Turns from here on out will end at 5 p.m. unless otherwise indicated.

[Jondesu he/him]

31 minutes ago, Elandera said:

ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to schedule confusion on my part, the end of the cycle will be at 5 p.m. PDT, not 6 p.m. That means it's ending an hour earlier than originally scheduled. Turns from here on out will end at 5 p.m. unless otherwise indicated.

Tomorrow, for this cycle, right? Don’t want to miss rollover if I can help it.

[Gears]

The rules are long and complicated, so
Elaboration must be so as well.
Bear with me as the monsters we unveil
Revoke their fear as they we come to know.
But do not let this recall give you hope
For fear can never die; it only dwells
Within that shadowed forest we call Hell.
The truth: You only reap that which you sow. 

Behold the entities that which you fear.
They used to feed on fear of lurking dark,
But now that expeditions have grown near,
They feed on fearful knowledge, clear and stark.
They speak in words that you alone can hear:
We thank you for the gift of easy marks.

 

Alignment is a fickle thing that sings
Of loyalty, that bitter, poisoned lie,
But trust is precious in these bitter nights,
So we still trust, despite all that it brings.
We fear the Worshippers of Elder Things.
The Expeditioners must stay alive
Until the rituals demand they die.
The monsters in the deep, to me they sing:

Conspire with your fellows to strike down
The ones who think they know the cold, hard truth
And crawl atop the corpses of the drowned,
Uncaring of their ignorance from youth.
They disrespect our lineage and crown,
So demonstrate what’s lurking here in sooth.

 

Our company is joined by a man,
Professor William Dyer, he is known.
With piercing glares and altering his tone,
He somehow stands as twice all that he can.
His opposition stands as Forth of Dan,
The Herald of the Monsters in Night’s Home.
Despite his closeness to the great Unknown,
He can ne’er become a true madman.

Through shadows, Silence stalks the forestry
With poisoned drinks and hammering and Death.
The killer brings protection from sharp teeth
While holding back the monsters and the rest.
Beware, for maddened Silence could just keep
The shades from claiming bloody killer’s breath.

 

Surveyors search for treasure in the deep,
With odds of finding anything so low,
But benefits are ever worth the blow.
The darkness comes to claim you in your sleep,
The madness comes to haunt you in your dreams,
But when you wake, your eyes treasure behold.
Despite the fact your flesh is bitter cold,
You hope to once again traverse Beneath.

The Idols of the Things will drive you mad,
The Transcript burns away after its use,
The Mask doth hide your face, so ironclad
With straps that wear away when they see you.
The Pendant marks you as one of the pack,
But monsters kill their precious servants too.

 

The Scribes will murmur in the dead of night
And bright of day with words of shadows here
Within the mantra of the lurking fear
That stalks through all their nightmares into light,
That whispers that they really shouldn’t fight,
That masquerades as dear friends shedding tears,
That watches all their scorned attempts and jeers,
That knows the pen is weaker than sword’s might.

The voices lead them to the corridors
Where strangers stalk the halls with cold, dark eyes.
They watch the shadows march beneath the floor
And shiver as great knowledge finds their mind.
The madness ever asks for more and more,
And endings always offer naught but time.

 

The Expert of the Shadows doth possess
A set of Bones of Silver gleaming bright.
They shall survive the first death of the night,
Refusing harshly Death’s gentle request
With cunning eyes and wings that left the nest
Of safety bound in argentum and light
That shines before the darkness and still fights
With wicked blades and brings the final rest.

The shadows halt before the Expert one.
Inherent life flows through forgotten veins.
The Expert wields wrath and fury’s sun.
To face the darkness, one must know its name.
“Death, my bitter enemy, you are done!”
The Expert cries with stalwart heart and strain.

 

There are some people with a splendid gift
Known as Alar, the stalwart Iron Will.
Emotion burns away, the heat distills
The mind into a blade that can carve rifts
Between reality and fiction, sift
The madness and the bitter, bloody kill
From better days when life was nice and still,
When bloodshed never came nor must desist.

The ones who choose the agony of Bone
Are strong enough to fight off hated Death.
With ashes in one hand and pain so sown,
They stand before one blow, though not the rest.
Fools that they are, they truly should have known
That people always answer Death’s behest.

 

The lurkers in the night soon will go mad
From horrors in the dark, but they do know
The routes of their good mark, see where they go.
In turn, the darkness sees all that they had.
Door Listening is safer by a tad;
A reputation has its own worth, though,
And if you’re wrong, then nothing you will know,
For people take precautions against fads

Some monsters choose to be a Crowded Voice,
With counting still in jeopardy, and lies
Becoming necessary blades of choice.
Some feast, or at the very least, they try,
Though others choose instead to item foist
Upon unwitting strangers who seem wise.

 

The items we possess will strike us down;
Until that day, quite useful they remain,
Though surely they will ever cause us pain.
The Spellbook channels power from the drowned,
And conjures R’lyehan Mist to blind the town.
Alas, the madness takes tolls on the sane,
And stable minds it feasts on and doth drains.
The items that they take will ne'er be found.

The crossbow is a danger, shedding blood,
But sometimes danger is the prices we pay
For safety’s sake, for purifying mud,
For turning wretched night to shining day.
Your life, your death, the streets crimson shall flood.
You strike them down, just like the voices say.

 

The Silver is a Dust we say we need;
In sooth, the cravings only make us slow,
But holding back the Shades is a great blow,
And generosity can surely be.
The Poisoned Weeds from yonder Fen do seem
To be an asset to the ones who know
The ways to use the poison denote
Cessation of activity, not dreams.

The Pendant, Mask, and Transcript we’ve discussed.
They can be found within the Survey’s lair.
The items offer boons, but blades they rust.
Audacity is wise, but do take care. 
The items should be used just when they must,
For usage is a limit on repair.

 

The horrors of the world make men mad.
And silence them and bind them in their place.
However, once they’ve had just the one taste,
They’re rendered quite immune to roam and pad
Through shadows grinning broken myriads.
The dreamers see the remnants of the chase
And shatter under horror’s monstrous face.
Beware the night, for it brings all the bad.

Survivors shatter at the seams when fought,
With madness at the edges and the core.
Perhaps survival was then all for naught
When life becomes a fantasy and more.
Beware the coming of That Which Was Taught.
Your world shall remain here nevermore.

 

The Shades are Wrathful for those who draw blood
Within the watchful hours of the night,
So only shoot the monsters if you’re right,
Lest you draw your body through the mud.
Note speaking to the masses is freedom,
And actions are by turn, not by the light.
The execution burns the items bright,
And death is just the monsters eating buds.

Manipulation happens before all,
And searching happens prior to the death
At night alone, though changed in fall
Of light and gleaming gold, behold the rest,
Of madness and insanity et al
And dreams of drowned ones rising from the nest.

---

I offer my apologies for not
Existing for a lengthened period.
Despite my present hunger for spilled blood,
By family I was quite sadly caught.
At least my lengthy work was not for naught
Since none have deigned to analyse the stuff,
So I can merely post what I wrote up
And carry on with nary a stray thought.

Alas, the thread was chatty whilst I worked,
So now I must catch up on what I missed.
The shadows ever-present, they do lurk.
Lament the flow of time, but 'tis what it's.

 

I don't know how I'll do my MO here,
With words in strictest prosody.
The agony is evident to see;
My choices cause me many a few tears
From anger and a great deal of fear
Concerning loss of labor to the teeth
Of horrifying hungry Shard that eats
The work of posts to great completion near.

Alas, you may have to make do with lack.
Analysis with poets is lacklustre.
Behold what happens when a corpse you hack
To feast upon the mind within and stir
A new identity without a knack.

 

I shall return once I have read the thread
Entirely with comprehension dawned
And shadows burned away by willing pawns.
This is a lengthy task that I do dread,
To read all of the words that have been said,
And surely more will randomly be spawned
As people speak about the world they fawn.
Beneath the weight of words, I shall be dead.

Alas, the skill at parsing is subpar,
And all the things I know are worthless here.
A shadow in the darkness carves the scar
Of darkling nightmares, monsters, and great fear.
Beware the fallen angels in the stars.
They shall return the drowned to mortal spheres.

---

We ate a poet, terrible mistake,
For now we’re obligated to speak thus.
Despite all efforts otherwise, we must
Lest Shadows see our shining mind and take
The orbs we’ve crafted from the dead and break
The minds within and make the metal rust
And render all our plans to naught but dust,
So we must speak like this for our own sake.

Behold the realm of madness we have found,
Which stains the soul with nightmares gleaming red.
The monsters lurk beneath the shadowed town,
So run off now to sleep within your bed.
The light will not protect you from the drowned,
So might as well just let them take your head.

[Elandera she/her]

46 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Tomorrow, for this cycle, right? Don’t want to miss rollover if I can help it.

Correct, tomorrow

[danex he/him]

Thats certainly one way to do a breakdown 

Question @Elandera:

For the Voice in the Crowd action, what does the final VC in the writeup show? Is it like GM PM voting was in the recent QF? Or does it stay anonymous and just add a vote to the number? 

[vonnegut she/her]

Wow, I am feeling very inadequate suddenly, following an epic poem.

Thanks to everyone for the rule clarification... and for answering my question about prior gameplay (those of you who answered).

Based on that, I have a twinge towards Matrim's Dice.  Just for this answer:

3 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

 

I'd like to think I'm the same in both alignments  

That's showing a... cagey unwillingness to self-analyze game play.

I'm also eyeballing Szeth, because of the attitude-- an "I'm bouncing around suspecting this person, or this person, no real reason" and seems to be having too good of a time, lol.  I could very well be wrong.  But that's generally how I get caught out when *I'm* Elim... because I'll be having a lot of fun and be struggling to come up with plausible reasons to pretend-suspect people.

3 hours ago, Illwei said:

2. Where did you play? I mean, good chance i wont know it, but- yes our games tend to be mech heavy. And the Elims have a google doc they use to communicate, but in this game you are allowed to PM other people outside of the thread, as per the rules in the OP. 

Long, long, long ago (like 2005), there was this TV show called "Lost," and I was on a (major) forum that began through discussion of that show.  The forum is gone now (for very bad reasons that I'm still very upset about).  This is actually the first forum I've joined since that one ended (which was about 9 years ago), because I wasn't ready to try to love again.

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 minute ago, Dannex said:

For the Voice in the Crowd action, what does the final VC in the writeup show? Is it like GM PM voting was in the recent QF? Or does it stay anonymous and just add a vote to the number? 

From what I remember looking through LG60, it just added numbers (so not like my QF, but the actual voting mechanic is similar).

[danex he/him]

3 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

From what I remember looking through LG60, it just added numbers (so not like my QF, but the actual voting mechanic is similar).

Hmmm

So there won’t really be a way to determine if a weird voting discrepancy is vote manip or intentional anonymous voting. 

[Elandera she/her]

7 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Thats certainly one way to do a breakdown 

Question @Elandera:

For the Voice in the Crowd action, what does the final VC in the writeup show? Is it like GM PM voting was in the recent QF? Or does it stay anonymous and just add a vote to the number? 

Names of voters will appear as they do in the thread, and only the numbers will be adjusted for any of the manipulations/anonymous votes.

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, vonnegut said:

That's showing a... cagey unwillingness to self-analyze game play.

Well, yeah  Gotta plan for the future, right?

In all seriousness, that’s mainly because I don’t really have a set elim playstyle. Or village one. I just... play. Anyone else is free to answer for me cause it’d be news, in some form, to me.

[PizzaPower55 he/him]

2 hours ago, Gears said:

The rules are long and complicated, so
Elaboration must be so as well.
Bear with me as the monsters we unveil
Revoke their fear as they we come to know.
But do not let this recall give you hope
For fear can never die; it only dwells
Within that shadowed forest we call Hell.
The truth: You only reap that which you sow. 

...

im too lazy to read this, can someone tell me if theres anything worth noting here

Edited April 29, 2021 by PizzaPower55
yes

[---]

1 hour ago, vonnegut said:

That's showing a... cagey unwillingness to self-analyze game play.

I actually like that answer...somewhat. 

I think it's been asked in a few games i've been in during the first bit of D1- the whole "if you were an Elim, how do you think you would be playing differently.", and When people be like "well, this is how i'd be doing differently" they've been scum, and when people have been like "geez man, idk?" they've been village. 

Of course, this is a total sample size of two, so... :P. 

We'll see if I can add to that this game!

EDIT: 

also, if someone quotes a large post, please spoiler it. always. even if you have a lot to say on it :P. it makes thread VERY hard to scroll through, especialle on mobile :P. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Illwei

[PizzaPower55 he/him]

2 minutes ago, Illwei said:

also, if someone quotes a large post, please spoiler it. always. even if you have a lot to say on it :P. it makes thread VERY hard to scroll through, especialle on mobile :P. 

i feel like this is indirectly directed towards me, i realized that and changed it

[---]

Just now, PizzaPower55 said:

i feel like this is indirectly directed towards me, i realized that and changed it

I almost said your name :P. 

[PizzaPower55 he/him]

1 hour ago, Illwei said:

I almost said your name :P. 

nice

1 hour ago, PizzaPower55 said:

The rules are long and complicated, so
Elaboration must be so as well.
Bear with me as the monsters we unveil
Revoke their fear as they we come to know.
But do not let this recall give you hope
For fear can never die; it only dwells
Within that shadowed forest we call Hell.
The truth: You only reap that which you sow. 

...

cmon you couldve just wrote a haiku or something man

[vonnegut she/her]

26 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I actually like that answer...somewhat. 

I think it's been asked in a few games i've been in during the first bit of D1- the whole "if you were an Elim, how do you think you would be playing differently.", and When people be like "well, this is how i'd be doing differently" they've been scum, and when people have been like "geez man, idk?" they've been village. 

Of course, this is a total sample size of two, so... :P. 

We'll see if I can add to that this game!

EDIT: 

also, if someone quotes a large post, please spoiler it. always. even if you have a lot to say on it :P. it makes thread VERY hard to scroll through, especialle on mobile :P. 

Fair.

I don't know any of the personalities here, so I'm just kind of fumbling around blind, lol.  

For instance, when reading through, I was getting a real "okay, Illwei doesn't seem like someone who is feeling like she needs to hide, that's town-vibe" but then maybe you're always like this :/ 

Question:  We can change votes, as long as we do it before the end of day?  Like I could vote someone now, and then change it tomorrow if need be?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

3 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

Question:  We can change votes, as long as we do it before the end of day?  Like I could vote someone now, and then change it tomorrow if need be?

Yeah, you can (and should!) vote/unvote as much as you want.

[---]

8 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

For instance, when reading through, I was getting a real "okay, Illwei doesn't seem like someone who is feeling like she needs to hide, that's town-vibe" but then maybe you're always like this :/ 

these games are pretty slow, if you want I can quicklink my elim games here if you want to read through them :P. 

I will admit that people have also got that vibe from me when I'm an Elim- so... :P. 

[Jondesu he/him]

46 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Well, yeah  Gotta plan for the future, right?

In all seriousness, that’s mainly because I don’t really have a set elim playstyle. Or village one. I just... play. Anyone else is free to answer for me cause it’d be news, in some form, to me.

Heh, that's how I always played.  I just read the field and don't try to follow a set playstyle.  In fact, if I'm an Elim, I tend to do my best to forget I am one whenever I post in the main thread, or PM anyone except another Elim (not that you're often PM'ing a fellow Elim since there's usually a doc, but there have been exceptions to that IIRC).  If I spot any tells or trends you display, I'll be sure to… not tell you and sit on that information for my own benefit. 

12 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

Fair.

I don't know any of the personalities here, so I'm just kind of fumbling around blind, lol.  

For instance, when reading through, I was getting a real "okay, Illwei doesn't seem like someone who is feeling like she needs to hide, that's town-vibe" but then maybe you're always like this :/ 

Question:  We can change votes, as long as we do it before the end of day?  Like I could vote someone now, and then change it tomorrow if need be?

Yeah, I don't know most of the players here either, and I didn't pick up on much my last game (the QF that just finished) because I was late and then mostly reading on mobile where it's harder to follow who says what.  Hoping to fix that this game.

[Archer he/him]

24 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

In fact, if I'm an Elim, I tend to do my best to forget I am one whenever I post in the main thread, or PM anyone except another Elim (not that you're often PM'ing a fellow Elim since there's usually a doc, but there have been exceptions to that IIRC).  

Noticed this on my before bed skim. 

As I believe PMs are being underused in this game, based on people's comments and the interactions I've had so far, I don't believe we're likely going to catch any e-e teammates by their lack of a PM, as I had secretly initially hoped. However, the elims likely have realized the implications of the PM spying actions and have been discussing the precautions they need to take. Specifically, most of them will probably have PMs with each other that they can use to pretend to coordinate their actions if they need to fall back on "PM reasoning" later in the game. My mentioning it turns this whole line of inquiry into an IKYK, which is regrettable, but I'm banking on the group having already figured this out, and the likelihood of my being able to coordinate a mass PM spying operation without tipping off an elim is low. Because not everyone is making PMs with rich conversations that can be analyzed for their sincerity, the potential value of maybe catching an e-e pair by their lack of (genuine seeming) PM is lower than the value of my making the following point now:

All this is probably on the elims' minds. That Jondesu is thinking about it may be an elim tell. Quinn has also twice gone out of their way to say they'll make no PMs, which could be the result of an elim doc conversation about how best to deal with the PM spy mechanic; you can't be caught not having a PM with your teammate if you have no PMs at all. 

[Jondesu he/him]

@Archer, I can genuinely say I hadn't really thought through…any of that.  I've never been good at PMs in these games, though I do plan to utilize them here because they could be valuable, but I would also save you some time and say I haven't started any of my own yet, if you wanted to try and spy on mine.  Your odds of hitting a successful match would be low at this stage, though I may well start some before the end of the round.  Not having any PMs does seem a little odd on Quinn's part, though I'm not sure yet if that would be an Elim tactic or if they'd prefer to keep that type of information a little quieter.

[---]

1 hour ago, Jondesu said:

or PM anyone except another Elim (not that you're often PM'ing a fellow Elim since there's usually a doc, but there have been exceptions to that IIRC).

oh ahaha

this reminds me of the recent LG74 and that almost all the Elims had PMs that we used with eachother for like...continuity reasons? in a way? 

[Azmine_king]

9 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Did you say reasoning? I was thinking that I didn't like Szeth right now, but rereading I just don't like this:

I did not, I did it mostly as a reaction fish to see how they would react, most new scum tend to get quite worried when voted. They didn't really have a reaction which is NAI I guess.

9 hours ago, Jondesu said:

Wow, I’m sick for a day, and come back to find day one has 105 posts? Yikes.

Only coming back to 105 posts sounds amazing in most games.

8 hours ago, vonnegut said:

In the meantime, since I don't know any of you... if you played Mafia in the past, and were assigned a "Mafia"/Bad-Guy role, what mistakes did you make that led to you being found out?  How are your actions as Mafia different from your actions as Town?

I have a low rate of being scum in general but my biggest mistake was defending/white knighting a teammate, while I did save them from being lynched the following day they were lynched leading to a pretty obvious connection between us, so I tend to not bus as scum. In general I would say my scum and town play are pretty similar.