Long Game 77: A Political Trap

[DrakeMarshall]

6 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Lotus has been killed! They were a Rebel Pulser/Pinnacle Twinborn!
Jondesu has been killed! They were a Loyalist Rioter Misting!
Azmine_king has been killed! They were a Loyalist Hazekiller!

Interesting. From my limited sample size, it seems like the overall power of roles in this game might be slightly less than it was in LG66, where IIRC basically everyone had 2 roles.

The presence of three kills is a little surprising. Two I might expect, one for the elims and one for the kandra who probably has a kill, but a third is a bit strange. Most village killing roles would want to wait at least a bit before vig killing someone. And even if the elims had an extra kill power, the only conceivable way that would be balanced is if the number/frequency of uses is limited, in which case using it up N1 seems like it'd be poor strategy. I suppose there is some incentive for a hemalurgist to strike early, to obtain a useful power early on that they can start using, but even then I might want to wait a cycle or two to learn who a good target might be.

Still, not gonna complain. I did not expect to see a dead eliminator this early.

6 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

...Anyone want to claim that Lotus kill?  If you're the Coinshot please don't but a Hemalurgist might consider doing that as it would clear you. I'm assuming the 3 kills were Coinshot/Elim/Hemalurgist since 2 Coinshots doesn't seem likely to me.

Why would they claim now? There is really not much point in clearing yourself unless people are voting for you, except that you are letting the elims know who to kill.

This is the second time that somebody who turned down my role-trade offer in PMs, and who suspected me for even making such an offer for information concerning their role, has now turned around and asked somebody to make a completely public role-claim in the thread, when there wasn't really even a clear benefit in doing so.

Now, I admit, I haven't been around for a while, and there is clearly some stuff I'm not getting. But the current meta about roleclaiming that I am observing seems confusing and inconsistent with itself. What gives? 

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Also, unrelated: You'll regret that  You know who you are

Does this mean there are in fact two thieves?

Idk what else it would be. I'd say maybe somebody roleblocked/pulsed you but two of those roles just died, so, that's looking a bit less likely.

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Szeth, for aforementioned reasons and all that. I don't think his claim overrides my read. Overall I don't think the deaths changed my reads all that much seeing as all three of those were in the middle of my Null pile :P.

Seeing as Szeth actually claimed, I think I can at least provide my reasoning for why Szeth is village.

I think an elim!Nicroburster would not jump at an opportunity to nicroburst some random villager, which is basically what Szeth agreed to almost immediately when I offered it, pretty early in the turn. If I were an elim!Nicroburster, I would want to take some time to think about the possibilities of boosting all of my different teammates, which is not something I observed Szeth doing at all.

I will continue in a new post bc this one is plenty long enough already.

[Biplet]

Iden watched Shara sleep, curled up on her side, breathing softly. Her hair, normally tied up in a professional updo, was down around her face, curling at the ends. Asleep, the dark circles under her eyes stood out even more.

He’d left her to sleep while the first emergency meeting took place. Three deaths in one night… Survivor above. At least one of them had been a rebel, but at the cost of two of their own? Accusations flew wildly in the meeting. People shouted, claiming this and that. Iden couldn’t even tell what was true, what was a lie, and what was someone’s hallucination fabricated from sleep-deprived paranoia? And without Shara, Iden felt exposed. Vulnerable. He’d taken the best notes he could, but they wouldn’t compare to hers.

He’d been worried sick about Shara. After hearing shouting in the all about a murder in the building, Iden had awoke to find her bed empty. He was close to sending someone out to find her when she’d sprinted into their room like a bat out of hell. How close had she been to the murder in the streets? How close was it to being her?

How long until the knife was in his back?

[Mat]

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

So I'm not quite sure why it makes sense to want to keep Mat alive C1 but to go after me.

This reads like a really weird point to me because there was kind of a very large difference between us last cycle- I actually had votes and was up for the exe, while you did not. I'm pretty sure it had little to do with me personally and just that I was actually active, and Exp wasn't. I realize later you disagree that there was a difference, but I see this as a sizeable one.

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Next would be everyone who voted on Experience with the express intent of keeping Mat alive. Like, sure, Mat could be village. I don't think that Mat-ters a whole lot right now. The issue is that the Mat train potentially gave elims something easy to deflect off of onto an inactive. In this list is TJ and Drake (again). Ash voted for the reason of avoiding ties, Ventyl voted in self-preservation (kinda suspicious, but not the same thing), and Archer's vote came way earlier in the cycle. Mat voted in self-preservation obviously.

Which again, I think it was less that people were reading me village and more simply that I was active.

15 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'm just gonna say, as someone who leaves this game in an open tab just about 24/7, that this is a pretty bogus reason to suspect someone.

^^^  The other points Drake made are more valid than this one, but I swear I have memories of Ash actively avoiding ties like this. That's contrary to what TJ said last turn, so now I don't know.

16 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'm also interested that you find tie avoidance to be more suspicious than attempts to preserve a player of unknown alignment.

...Isn't 'attempts to preserve a player of unknown alignment' literally what you do every time you're defending someone, ever?

16 minutes ago, Biplet said:

Currently a little sus of mat

Why, legitimately curious.

12 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Why would they claim now? There is really not much point in clearing yourself unless people are voting for you, except that you are letting the elims know who to kill.

I mean like if it was a one-shot killer, right? I think that might have been based on spectating one of the MU Champs games (forget which one) where their meta was 100% the vig claims immediately after they shoot but idk. It is a good point that they might want to wait until they're being sussed though lol

14 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

This is the second time that somebody who turned down my role-trade offer in PMs, and who suspected me for even making such an offer for information concerning their role, has now turned around and asked somebody to make a completely public role-claim in the thread, when there wasn't really even a clear benefit in doing so.

Now, I admit, I haven't been around for a while, and there is clearly some stuff I'm not getting. But the current meta about roleclaiming that I am observing seems confusing and inconsistent with itself. What gives? 

The difference is it would definitively clear them, which is a benefit. But I agree with them waiting until they're sussed.

15 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Does this mean there are in fact two thieves?

Couldn't it be the same one? Hypothetically, of course.

15 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

I think an elim!Nicroburster would not jump at an opportunity to nicroburst some random villager, which is basically what Szeth agreed to almost immediately when I offered it, pretty early in the turn. If I were an elim!Nicroburster, I would want to take some time to think about the possibilities of boosting all of my different teammates, which is not something I observed Szeth doing at all.

...Yeah, I guess. But the benefits of the pocketing the alternative would accomplish are rather large.

[Biplet]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Why, legitimately curious.

You're just giving me vibes like the MR Disaster trio vibes.

Edit: the disaster trio is in reference to what Mat and I kinda ended up calling our elim team in the previous MR

Edited June 1, 2021 by Biplet

[Ashbringer]

Some of you are Shards. Some are old… friends would be too optimistic, but acquaintances. Some are those of you who have interfered far to frequently for me to leave to chance. Some I simply want you to be ready.

AraRaash smiled. He'd wanted to... no, he had done it. During the night. It was ready. He just hadn't... seen it? He'd wanted to... but he supposed it would be a bad idea to reveal his nature. Not yet.

"I ACTED ON YOUR BEHALF. THIS IS A... DELICATE OPERATION."

Ah. Lamentation. That would explain it. Regardless... the part of the plan was ready. AraRaash just needed to make sure no one figured it out. Not even Faleast.

Especially not Faleast.

 

Faleast - or Fal, for this moment - looked around. He felt unusual. Disoriented, somehow. They were in the right place, the right time... but now that he was here he felt at a loss to what to do. Perhaps the task at hand was given to AraRaash instead... it was rare that that was the case, but AraRaash was more comfortable with... blood and metal. 

There was a lot of blood, now. Over a fifth were now dead. One was a Rebel, three were Loyal... Loyalists? It felt weird to call them that. The "Rebels" against the PRE had called themselves Loyalists, and now the name had been taken by the PRE to express their loyalty. The balance of power had shifted severely from what he remembered... twenty-five years would do that, particularly with where AraRaash had left things last time.

Still... something was bugging him now. AraRaash was less snappy than normal. More... focused, or felt focused. More intent.

It scared him.

 

 

Let's see.

31 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Alrightie that seems to have been an eventful night. I really want to go back and sift through everything people said about Lotus, now.

For now, though, I am going to suggest that Ashbringer is a good choice.

Here are my reasons:

• Like I brought up last turn, of all of the votes on Experience, I am most suspicious of theirs. I don't dispute that tie avoidance may be a valid reason, but the thing is, it is an equally valid reason for all wagons. So if it's the main reason you are giving for your vote, it seems like there are other reasons you're maybe not saying. And while I get that everyone is stretching to find reasons to vote a little bit in D1, of all of the votes that happened, this one probably sticks out most.
• They have been engaging in discussion mostly only when somebody calls them on something. And, again, this does not necessarily make an elim, but I do think it makes it more likely.
• A couple times I've noticed Ashbringer viewing the thread for a while without posting, and while this isn't really a big deal, it does make me think maybe they are spending that time being active in the elim doc.

D2 votes kinda feels bad because I'm really not that sure about Ashbringer being evil, but I'm also more sure about it than I am anyone else, and I disagree with literally all of the other votes cast so far in this turn, so... Yeah.

Next on my to-do list will be replying to a bunch of stuff and then rereading the previous cycle.

• If the vote having the main reason of preventing a tie is suspicious, then there's really not anything more I can say. I don't want vote manip deciding ties. I don't really want RNG deciding ties, either, especially when I don't have much of a reason to suspect either. And I'd rather exe an inactive instead of a player who tends to be active, and especially in this case, RP.
• I would say I just haven't been engaging, period, but this is more fair. No one called me out D1 besides your poke vote, and even that I was essentially a "hello" and a few ideas, but thinking about combinations was confusing to me. Why I didn't post more than that, I'm not sure... I think I was just trying to think RP and focusing that more instead of analysis. N1 I was just too exhausted. Work went an hour longer than it was supposed to, then I went on a family bike ride. Then I come back to 2-3 people asking about me and ties.
• I don't know exactly how the 17th Shard counts "viewing the thread", because I've got this open essentially all the time. But I also have been staring at the thread trying to figure out what it is I'm trying to RP because I wasn't really expecting a large time gap between this and LG66.

Speaking of which, I have work in 2 hours. I'll look through C1 again and see what I see.

[Araris Valerian]

12 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

This reads like a really weird point to me because there was kind of a very large difference between us last cycle- I actually had votes and was up for the exe, while you did not. I'm pretty sure it had little to do with me personally and just that I was actually active, and Exp wasn't. I realize later you disagree that there was a difference, but I see this as a sizeable one.

The thing is, Drake was pushing me as an alternative to you. Which doesn’t make sense if he was just trying to avoid killing an active player. There was a difference, but if Drake had his way, there wouldn’t have been.

 

15 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

..Isn't 'attempts to preserve a player of unknown alignment' literally what you do every time you're defending someone, ever?

Yes. Except post D1, we start to get a better feel for things, and can more justifiably defend other players. And while I think that in the long run for meta reasons not always killing active players early is helpful both to the village and for the health of the community, it’s the sort of general villagery thing that any elim can easily get behind. 

[DrakeMarshall]

 

5 hours ago, Mist said:

The Unknown Order welcome to the game, care to show up?

Echoing Matrim, I for one would not countenance executing another completely inactive player at this time. (although if any coinshots feel like going after them, I guess I wouldn't necessarily object)

Is this basically for the boxings?

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Okaay here's the read list I was talking about:

1. Ashbringer - Elim read because of the "I don't like ties" thing because I remember Ash specifically going for ties in previous games.
2. Biplet - Mild elim gut read hmmmm probably just wariness because of her previous elim game.
3. Szeth - Okay, I think I'm taking back the elim read and change it to a village one, Szeth jumping to conclusion that confirming one's role as confirming them as village feels like from a villager.
4. Mat - Was reading him null till yesterday, but the fact that no one was willing to save him leans me toward village. From in-thread stuff, I can't differentiate between village and elim cause he plays very similar game when he's both. 
5. Lotus - Elim, RP without game discussion
6. Araris - Mild elim read, regards to the defence of the stab vote, see my previous post
7. Drake - Yeah, anyone going around offering info claims, I'm leaning elim until I'm thoroughly convinced otherwise. Maill's claims are still haunting me from LG74 :P.
8. Archer - I gave my reasoning for the village read earlier, and I don't see anything suspicious with what he's posted this cycle.
9. Devotary - I thought someone said she was being her usual self with the vote, but I actually found her different. Usually, she votes for one of the leading trains, as in almost always she can decide who dies in the event of a tie, or create a tie in case the votes were close. This game, she decided to vote on a player without any vote. She did explain her vote, and it's understandable. I'm not reading this as elim, it's just...different from usual and I'm noting it.
10. Books - Gut village, I liked that vote on Drake actually, contrary to Matrim

Everyone else is a null and/one haven't spoke much.

I can't use the quote button for this one since it's already been added to the locked main thread, but this one is from @|TJ|

I will note that you have more elim reads than there are likely elims, and this is only among the 10 players you have reads on, so some of those elim reads are definitely incorrect. Although, you were also right about Lotus, so congratulations.

For my read, I refer you to the questions I asked Matrim. I wasn't there in LG74, and your current meta about roleclaiming is confusing to me  I did the exact same thing in LG66, and I don't even particularly regret doing it, even though the elims knew my role pretty early on. Information trading is fun. I remember I played a game a little while back that had a neutral role just entirely based on trading info in PMs and docs, and it was a good time. Moreover, the benefits of synergizing roles in this game potentially outweigh the risks, and the potential for such combos is one of the things that makes this particular setup so cool.

All that said, I'm village reading you a bit for this post. When an elim says they suspect someone, it usually isn't in their interest to change their mind unless there's a decent amount of opposition. And while I've been village reading Szeth, I kinda think it would've been an easy-ish execution to push through if you and Matrim had both kept gunning for it. Who knows, it might still end up being the execution that gets pushed through.

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Okay, so who am I suspicious of? Well, Drake is the first person that comes to mind, for simultaneously attacking me and defending Mat. I'm not exactly sure why people were super against killing Mat, but I got the general feel that it was because he has a reputation as an active, helpful villager. I'd like to think that I possess a similar reputation. So I'm not quite sure why it makes sense to want to keep Mat alive C1 but to go after me. There are essentially 3 points of disagreement here. The first is whether Mat was a good vote option last cycle. The second is whether I was a good vote option. The third is that there was some significant difference between me/Mat being good vote options.

Next would be everyone who voted on Experience with the express intent of keeping Mat alive. Like, sure, Mat could be village. I don't think that Mat-ters a whole lot right now. The issue is that the Mat train potentially gave elims something easy to deflect off of onto an inactive. In this list is TJ and Drake (again). Ash voted for the reason of avoiding ties, Ventyl voted in self-preservation (kinda suspicious, but not the same thing), and Archer's vote came way earlier in the cycle. Mat voted in self-preservation obviously.

Other people would be Ventyl, who was not really in any danger and didn't need to vote for Experience, and Biplet (who I'm sad I suspect because we had a nice PM going), since she definitely solidified the Experience train.

So, your reasons for suspecting me are basically that you and Matrim should have been in the same category?

You had done something I legitimately found somewhat suspicious. Matrim hadn't. Experience hadn't.

Therefore, you were a better vote option than either Matrim or Experience.

Maybe you disagree with the veracity of my read, but even if the quality of our reads are garbage on D1, we can't really do anything more than follow them to the best of our ability. If nobody makes an effort to actually find elims, even one that will probably fail, then what even is there to analyze? It's just people voting randomly.

[Araris Valerian]

13 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

So, your reasons for suspecting me are basically that you and Matrim should have been in the same category?

The heart of my argument is that Mat should have been a perfectly viable D1 vote option (ignoring meta activity things for the moment), regardless of whether he’s done anything suspicious or not. I guess it comes down to a tone thing. You actively defend Mat for... not really much of anything (having votes on himself for a while and giving reads), and you actively attack me, a player that meets the same criterion for which you defended Mat, for what amounts to a misinterpretation of my assumptions and a disagreement over voting philosophy, both of which I gave further justification to. I’m fine with being suspected. But it feels to me like you are being inconsistent. And I don’t really like your connection to the Experience vote either, both how you were instrumental in starting it, and that you bailed after it had picked up. I know you gave reasoning for it, but it doesn’t sit well with me.

[Mat]

56 minutes ago, Biplet said:

You're just giving me vibes like the MR Disaster trio vibes.

Spoiler

 

But seriously, I've said this before (and now TJ has as well). I play pretty much the same way in both alignments, or I try to.

38 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

The thing is, Drake was pushing me as an alternative to you. Which doesn’t make sense if he was just trying to avoid killing an active player. There was a difference, but if Drake had his way, there wouldn’t have been.

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Archer]

That was a productive night!

We now know that there are people with only one role; it’s unclear if Azmine or Jondesu had items on them. I’ll guess Jondesu was the NK because they offered more loot for the elims to claim. (Funnily enough, Lotus may have had the most boxings of any of them.)

We now know that our killers are trigger happy. I can understand wanting to shoot before Bulletproof Vests come into play and you possibly die yourself, but uh, maybe don’t go too crazy on the kills until we’ve got some better reads?

Besides claiming the kill, would any like to claim having made a redirect that could have affected one of these attacks?

And we now know how one of the elims acted D1, which can tell us about their strategy. Lotus’ posts were as follows:

-Now that the game has actually started I should probably go read the rules Or I cold just wing it and hope for the best. Rules are for loosers It's been a long time since I've played a game, but yay no more AP tests and so hopefully I'll have the time.

-RP

-[Mat said: I’ve literally used this [program] like three times already lol] Three times, eh? Been sending out some PMs?

-Dang it I did not realize rollover was going to be this early for me. Should have actually paid attention to the time [Note: they posted this minutes before rollover, so the elims evidently thought it was important to be on around then. Mat, TJ, and Ashbringer were the gang who posted near the deadline]

-Did someone say RP?

-RP

-[Mat asked: Lotus, any thoughts on the game outside of RP?] I think some people are people and other people are not people.

-RP

I’d say their play style was most similar to Ventyl’s (who has only RPed and made references to their Biplet PM).

It’s interesting that they only ever engaged OOC with Mat. I think if they were e-e, Mat would have prompted them to talk from the elim doc or not at all.

It’s also interesting that they didn’t vote. They weren’t well positioned to do so without appearing opportunistic, but it at least indicates that the elims weren’t desperate to counter the main wagons.  

*

I remember Ash and Striker having a tie/untie/tie fight right around rollover in a recent game and I thought it was a villagey thing to do, then they turned out to be evil. Rereading their post, it was a last-minute quick gotta get this posted thing, so I’m less suspicious of it now than I was before.

*

I’ll vote Mist because I think they’re the kandra. They’re present enough to avoid pokes, but they’re limiting their aggression to safe areas of conversation. Seems like the way I’d play if I wanted to split the difference and survive. (Actually, Lotus was my leading suspect because their flippancy reminded me of my play in the second airship MR as a neutral, but that read was obviously off.)

*

As politicians and the like mulled about the foyer as the council meeting resumed the next day, the Great Panini was in the corner of the room, wooden dummy held in his right hand, practicing his ventriloquism.

“Panini, why are you jogging on the spot? It’s jostling my insides.” The aristocrat being a poor voice actor, the puppet’s voice was a squeaky falsetto.

“You’re a decorated hunk of wood, you’re empty on the inside.”

“That’s because you never feed me. Man runs a successful bread business empire but he never has any to spare for his favourite puppet...”

“Who says you’re my favourite?”

“You do. You’re the one voicing my gripes. Would you stop jogging? Oi! That’s faster.”

The heavy-set man had to grab his top hat to keep it from falling off as he picked up the pace. He was almost sprinting now.

“You realize we’re going nowhere, right?” The tiny top hat on his dummy, who was wearing a matching tuxedo, fell to the floor at that point.

“So is this meeting, Bagel. Everyone is talking but no one is saying anything.”

“Says the ventriloquist. WHY DO YOU KEEP JOGGING?”

The older man winked at his doll. “It’s a running joke. Come on, let’s go spread rumors to the newspaper men.”

Edited June 1, 2021 by Archer

[DrakeMarshall]

46 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'm just gonna say, as someone who leaves this game in an open tab just about 24/7, that this is a pretty bogus reason to suspect someone.

Yeah, there's a reason why that was my last of three reasons  It's, uh, not very much reason on it's own.

I also have an open tab 24/7, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't constantly say I'm viewing the thread, I'm pretty sure it's only in the vicinity of when you reloaded the page or whatever.

And again, I fully agree that this is the sort of thing to take with very many grains of salt, but, it does potentially relate to activity outside of the thread, and I think analysis of when somebody is online is generally fair game even if it's very inconclusive.

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I'm also interested that you find tie avoidance to be more suspicious than attempts to preserve a player of unknown alignment.

Considering that you are pushing me as the most likely person you think is an eliminator, it is kind of interesting that you would phrase this like you are assuming that I don't know Matrim's alignment 

But yeah, I do 100% find tie avoidance more suspicious than defending a player of unknown alignment. We don't know anyone's alignment unless they are already dead, but we still gotta guess.

24 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Which again, I think it was less that people were reading me village and more simply that I was active.

Yes and no. At least when I voted on Experience, the cycle was already more than half over and still nobody had really made a move to take you off of the chopping block, so there was actually a degree of slightly village reading you in play.

But yeah the activity was also very definitely a factor.

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^^^  The other points Drake made are more valid than this one, but I swear I have memories of Ash actively avoiding ties like this. That's contrary to what TJ said last turn, so now I don't know.

Yep 

Interesting. I mean, Ash said that they had bad experiences with ties in the past, so maybe at one point they were okay with making ties but then that changed, and the two of you have been in different games with Ash.

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I mean like if it was a one-shot killer, right? I think that might have been based on spectating one of the MU Champs games (forget which one) where their meta was 100% the vig claims immediately after they shoot but idk. It is a good point that they might want to wait until they're being sussed though lol

I mean, yes, I guess it just feels ironic that I'm the one arguing against claims in the thread, and I am also apparently the one with a reputation of being free with role claims, so much so that you suspected me for it at one point.

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Couldn't it be the same one? Hypothetically, of course.

You can't take the same action twice in one cycle. So you can't steal on a day turn and then steal on the night turn, at least not without a power that grants extra actions which gets around this.

19 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Let's see.

• If the vote having the main reason of preventing a tie is suspicious, then there's really not anything more I can say. I don't want vote manip deciding ties. I don't really want RNG deciding ties, either, especially when I don't have much of a reason to suspect either. And I'd rather exe an inactive instead of a player who tends to be active, and especially in this case, RP.
• I would say I just haven't been engaging, period, but this is more fair. No one called me out D1 besides your poke vote, and even that I was essentially a "hello" and a few ideas, but thinking about combinations was confusing to me. Why I didn't post more than that, I'm not sure... I think I was just trying to think RP and focusing that more instead of analysis. N1 I was just too exhausted. Work went an hour longer than it was supposed to, then I went on a family bike ride. Then I come back to 2-3 people asking about me and ties.
• I don't know exactly how the 17th Shard counts "viewing the thread", because I've got this open essentially all the time. But I also have been staring at the thread trying to figure out what it is I'm trying to RP because I wasn't really expecting a large time gap between this and LG66.

Speaking of which, I have work in 2 hours. I'll look through C1 again and see what I see.

If you were doing it because you preferred to execute Experience over Matrim, that is understandable, although I sorta wished that had been in the post with the vote bc then this wouldn't be an issue 

I will think about this. The tone of this defense at least seems genuine.

[Mist]

I ... I'll change my vote, I saw the thing, that is a fair point. I'm not feeling analysis right now slash not noticing much but I know it's part of the game; I'm tempted to go almost full chaotic, doing RNG ISO then voting on them or the person they're voting on, so chaos lite

The Unknown Order and next I'll be taking a look at Szeth.

[Ashbringer]

For starters, we have one Elim kill, and then two of Coinshot-Kandra-Hemalurgist. I believe last game the kandra could kill on alternating turns, not even ones, so if the rules are the same it could be a Kandra kill. I would hope the Kandra rules aren't the same, so could also be an every-turn kill, but for now I'm assuming a Hemalurgist and a Coinshot.

If a Hemalurgist wants to claim, then... once we reach the Night turn, and your kill was against Lotus or Jondesu, then there should be a new spike in the supply which would confirm a Hemalurgist killed. Coinshots don't claim, please... Kandra, you do you. 

It does seem that it's much less Twinborn Village than the original run - I'm pretty sure only a few players had one role (and those were usually the stronger roles, like Leechers, Pulsers, Thugs, and Windwhisperers). Non-Invested roles shift that a bit.

You know, maybe I can try to analyze the roles. I haven't done that in a while. I'm not going to kill analyze because I'm not sure which kill is the Elim kill, and Jondesu and Azmine are... very different players, and I'd get very different answers. Plus that doesn't work super well anyway. I'll look at people in the evening.

Allomantics:

• Coinshot: a Night Killer. It seems that whoever you are, you like to shoot early and have a decent chance of being right. I wouldn't feel forced to kill every turn, especially if our Kandra friend appears to be killing every turn instead of every other, but what you do is up to you. With no PMs, I'd recommend depending on your own intuition rather than others, and... please don't claim, especially if you've got no other way of defending yourself from NKs or Uncharged Spikes.
• Lurcher: a protector. Notably cannot self-protect, but can protect the same target multiple nights. You should definitely use this whenever you can. If you can't guess the NK target, just randomly pick someone.
• Tineye: is gone. If anyone gets a spike or medallion, everyone will know as PMs will open back up. If you want to claim, I suppose you could... it depends greatly on the environment, and how close the end of the game is. Elims generally benefit from closed PMs, unless the PM spider players (I guess... Archer, Drake, and Szeth, in this case?) prove to be living Elims, or if the Elim team is already close to winning and killing PMs is not a priority. But that requires an item in the first place, so that discussion can be had later.
• Thug: Extra life. Congratulations, you have a passive ability. You can take greater risks, I suppose, but I'd advise just playing as normal.
• Rioter + Soother: Vote manip. I don't understand vote manip incredibly well, so... do what feels right, but try to be clear with your intentions while manipulating votes. Rioters can prove their existence by moving a vote to someone who didn't have it before, but beware that drawback.
• Smoker: Seeking/Rioting/Soothing block. This is a low priority ability, as Seekers aren't role scanners but detect active abilities, but use it when you want. I'd recommend use it during Day, as blocking vote manip is more helpful than... not doing that.
• Seeker: You detect active metals being burned. Use this every cycle unless you've got a really strong Feruchemical ability, but switch up when you use it Day or Night, depending on what you want to find.

... I need to go to work, and will be gone until 10:00 or so. Will continue this then.

[DrakeMarshall]

53 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

The heart of my argument is that Mat should have been a perfectly viable D1 vote option (ignoring meta activity things for the moment), regardless of whether he’s done anything suspicious or not. I guess it comes down to a tone thing. You actively defend Mat for... not really much of anything (having votes on himself for a while and giving reads), and you actively attack me, a player that meets the same criterion for which you defended Mat, for what amounts to a misinterpretation of my assumptions and a disagreement over voting philosophy, both of which I gave further justification to. I’m fine with being suspected. But it feels to me like you are being inconsistent. And I don’t really like your connection to the Experience vote either, both how you were instrumental in starting it, and that you bailed after it had picked up. I know you gave reasoning for it, but it doesn’t sit well with me.

I agree that it is perfectly viable to put somebody up for vote on D1 who hasn't done anything suspicious. Where I disagree is with keeping that person up for lynch if it seems like there is a better choice available. If you want to make your first vote be your last vote, that is fine, but is that a strategy you think everyone should follow?

The response you gave to my vote came at like 2AM for me. I didn't see it. Sorry bout that.

Please explain why my reasoning seems inconsistent. You have certainly established that you disagree with it, but what specifically contradicts itself? Because while I could certainly be wrong, I don't believe I've been inconsistent.

You wouldn't be the first or likely the last person to get whiplash over my voting for somebody at one point and then abandoning the vote or even defending them later on  Even so, I have yet to be given cause to regret defending players who nobody else is defending and pushing the vote towards a different target. It's just, people in this category legitimately don't tend to be elims. Even if the elims tried to do the same thing with a teammate, it would be really hard to make that look convincing, and even if they did then it would become really easy to identify them as a team once one of them died.

EDIT:

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

...Yeah, I guess. But the benefits of the pocketing the alternative would accomplish are rather large.

Missed this line before.

Yes, the benefits of such would be rather large. But so would the benefits of boosting teammates, probably.

I'm not saying elim!Szeth wouldn't have agreed to it. I'm saying elim!Szeth would have probably taken a second to think about it first.

I don't believe saying either yes or no was alignment indicative, really, just that it was a simpler decision overall for a villager.

Edited June 1, 2021 by DrakeMarshall

[Araris Valerian]

17 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Even so, I have yet to be given cause to regret defending players who nobody else is defending and pushing the vote towards a different target. It's just, people in this category legitimately don't tend to be elims.

The problems with this philosophy are that it again lessens the pressure of early votes, and makes it a totally viable strategy for elims to do... nothing. How would anyone have defended Experience last cycle anyways? You can't really defend an inactive player without straying into metagame arguments, and currently the meta is okay will voting off inactive players early.

[DrakeMarshall]

6 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

The problems with this philosophy are

At this point, how is what you are doing any different from what you disparagingly referred to as voting based on "what amounts to a disagreement over voting philosophy"?

I'm down to talk voting philosophy, but is this how you are justifying your suspicion of me, or not?

8 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

that it again lessens the pressure of early votes, and makes it a totally viable strategy for elims to do... nothing. How would anyone have defended Experience last cycle anyways? You can't really defend an inactive player without straying into metagame arguments, and currently the meta is okay will voting off inactive players early.

It reduces the pressure of early votes, but it doesn't get rid of it entirely, or even necessarily mostly. People don't necessarily respond proportionally to the amount of danger they're in. Do most players respond significantly differently if it's a 25% risk of being executed or a 50% risk? I don't really think so. Any significant amount of danger pretty much creates pressure to respond to it. And leading in the votes at any time in a cycle counts as a fairly significant amount of danger, in my books. I mean, sure, I might change my vote, but maybe I won't. I can be pretty arbitrary about when I argue to derail a wagon and when I just... Don't. My vote is gonna be on someone when the turn ends, and there is legitimately no guarantee that it won't be the first person I voted for in the cycle, or the second, or the fifth. It may not be often, but I definitely have kept my vote from the beginning of D1 before, and I don't have to do it always to prove that there's a real chance that I might. And, heck, even if my first vote is pretty much a throwaway, so what? Then maybe it's the second or third vote where it starts to be serious. Sure, that means I wasn't applying pressure for the whole cycle like you were, but by my third vote (with plenty of time left in the cycle), I was applying real pressure. If Experience were an elim, the elims really should have felt under pressure to do something about my vote, because my vote was partially responsible for eventually killing Experience.

I don't think the elims can actually do nothing. Literally nothing means never posting in the thread and pretending you are inactive, but even just playing super passively all the time would mean ceding all control over what happens in the thread, and creating a pattern that makes it really easy to catch elims, neither of which would be good for the elims.

How somebody could have defended Experience last cycle is by voting and pushing for somebody other than Experience. This can be accomplished while only barely mentioning Experience, or even without mentioning Experience at all.

[Araris Valerian]

36 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

I'm down to talk voting philosophy, but is this how you are justifying your suspicion of me, or not?

My suspicion is based independently on your votes and your given justifications during C1. So not really. And I think you made it clear in the above post that you have more nuance in what you do than how you expressed yourself earlier, so I don't think we actually disagree much on philosophy. I think we can both agree that very consistently unvoting players that aren't defended is behavior elims could, in theory, take advantage of. I also think we don't want to underestimate the potential inactivity of a SE game.

 

40 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

How somebody could have defended Experience last cycle is by voting and pushing for somebody other than Experience. This can be accomplished while only barely mentioning Experience, or even without mentioning Experience at all.

Yeah, someone tried this, and didn't make much headway . Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Also, @everyone, just because Drake and I have having a nice discussion here doesn't mean you aren't allowed to vote. Like, is anyone will to join me on Drake? Or does anyone think I've gone so far off my rocker that I should die? Or perhaps something in between? I still hold onto my suspicions of Ventyl, TJ, and Biplet, so I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of other players on them.

[DrakeMarshall]

20 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

My suspicion is based independently on your votes and your given justifications during C1. So not really. And I think you made it clear in the above post that you have more nuance in what you do than how you expressed yourself earlier, so I don't think we actually disagree much on philosophy. I think we can both agree that very consistently unvoting players that aren't defended is behavior elims could, in theory, take advantage of. I also think we don't want to underestimate the potential inactivity of a SE game.

You would be correct, the difference between our voting philosophies is not big  but it is nonetheless exceptionally profitable

I'd say that basically the difference boils down to you favor applying pressure in depth whereas I favor applying pressure in breadth.

I agree that very consistently unvoting players who are undefended could be taken advantage of by the elims. And the same goes for very consistently not retracting your votes 

As much as I stand by my view on this, I'm actually sorta glad that this is a point of contention, bc the village is probably better off if there really isn't a consensus on the subject. It's better that this aspect of voting philosophy is never enshrined in the meta, where it would become much too easy to exploit.

43 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Yeah, someone tried this, and didn't make much headway . Not that I'm complaining or anything.

This is true, and if Experience had flipped as an eliminator it might have even been rather suspicious.

Quote

Also, @everyone, just because Drake and I have having a nice discussion here doesn't mean you aren't allowed to vote. Like, is anyone will to join me on Drake? Or does anyone think I've gone so far off my rocker that I should die? Or perhaps something in between? I still hold onto my suspicions of Ventyl, TJ, and Biplet, so I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of other players on them.

I mean, I'm happy splitting the cycle's boxings with Araris, but it would be nice to hear from more people. unless you're going to vote for me

Digging through the archives for interactions with Lotus has not been as fruitful as I hoped. Lotus didn't say much beyond RP, the only people I can find who mentioned reads of them were TJ, Matrim, and me, with TJ's being the only not neutral read.

[Mat]

31 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Also, @everyone, just because Drake and I have having a nice discussion here doesn't mean you aren't allowed to vote. Like, is anyone will to join me on Drake? Or does anyone think I've gone so far off my rocker that I should die? Or perhaps something in between? I still hold onto my suspicions of Ventyl, TJ, and Biplet, so I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of other players on them.

Already did, and I'll stay there for now. Szeth hasn't even shown up yet... actually, this cycle seems much too quiet considering three very low posters were killed. It shouldn't be any slower, but it's like just four/five people.

But no, I'm not really willing to join you on Drake or think that you've gone off your rocker; for the most part I'm reading your interaction as v/v. I'm with you on Ventyl and Bip mostly but am also confused about your read of TJ. Have you mentioned that before, and what is it based off? Curious about my two top village reads that ended up on your elim reads, really  You already know my more detailed thoughts on the people you mentioned.

[The Unknown Ajah]

12 hours ago, Mist said:

Not much information in any of those kills, except that there were a lot. Fine I'm voting so I don't forget. ooh bad/interesting ideas: vote on myself for boxings The Unknown Order welcome to the game, care to show up?

Happily. 

To those wondering where, I will rarely be able to post on the weekend for longer than this game.

More in game thoughts to come next cycle most likely. 

For now, have some roleplay.

Walker's life was a hard one. While it was rarely unpleasant, luxury was rarer. He was one of the original mistborn of the Lord Rulers early days. He had once known balls and laughter, but those day where far in the past. An atium halfborn's life would be long and fraught with trouble. He had returned to court from time to time to speak with Alendi (Do we know if the original nobles new it was Rashek? I will be presuming not.) This time, however, would be the last time. Alendi was dead, a bloogytale. Walker's atium was almost gone. Now Walker would say goodbye to the last remnant of the Lord Ruler's empire. But not yet. He had some business to take care of. "Hey, Walker, come back from the dead have you?" Namely, that. Sighing, Walker stood up. His voice came out, old and cracks though it was, "Aye, I have, you got something to say about it?"

The man laughed, his voice was deep as he said, "You owe me. Two boxings, I said two hundred words properly, without a single mistake, remember." Walker turned around as he searched the faint steel lines for his target.

"I don't forget easily, Striker." An odd name, that. "But over the years, I've lost my patience for fools like you, who will keep a grudge for three years over two boxings." Finally, Walker found his target. 

"You little..." Striker charged with his signature brass knuckles in hand. Smiling at him, Walker Pushed on Striker's chest, sending him flying with a push that was impossible these days. Burning pewter, Walker stepped foward to grab the prone man's vest. Walker lifted him up before smashing his face in.

"You wanna play some more boys?" Walker looked at Striker's friends. "Because I've got some more coming your way. Tomorrow." Walker threw a coin on the corpse of Striker. "Toodaloo." Walker launched into the air.

[Mat]

6 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

More in game thoughts to come next cycle most likely. 

Why the wait? IRL things?

[Araris Valerian]

22 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

But no, I'm not really willing to join you on Drake or think that you've gone off your rocker; for the most part I'm reading your interaction as v/v. I'm with you on Ventyl and Bip mostly but am also confused about your read of TJ. Have you mentioned that before, and what is it based off? Curious about my two top village reads that ended up on your elim reads, really  You already know my more detailed thoughts on the people you mentioned.

TJ voted on Experience with the explicit intent of saving Mat. Seems like an easy vote for an elim.

[Biplet]

So, the thunderdome makes me read both Araris and Drake village. If y'all are elims hats off to you that was good distancing XD.

TUO, are you gonna vote this cycle? It would be helpful to get your contribution.

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

I still hold onto my suspicions of Ventyl,

After rereading some of the last two turns, I'm getting kandra vibes from Mist and Ventyl. I'm leaning more toward Ventyl, but Archer brought up some good points about neutral playing. Anyway, Ventyl's chaos still leaves me with a strange taste in my mouth, as well as his absence in the thread today.

I can't glean much from the Lotus flip, though it does make me want to say TJ is village because of his reads list. And while I understand that there's a lot of focus on the votes D1, because that's the info we have, at least from my experience D1 votes are a shot in the dark. Was an inactivity exe a bad idea? Eh. There's reasons for and against it, and I can understand both. Voting to save an active player over an inactive player I can definitely understand. Like I said D1, 2/3 games I've played elims have won in large part thanks to village inactivity. Yeah I don't have much experience playing games, but the experience I do have makes me more understanding about the inactivity vote... I guess

This got rambly, sorry XD.

[|TJ|]

Quote

Hemalurgist: Once per game, you may target a player and kill them. Doing so will add a new spike into the black market if they have allomancy or feruchemy. 

So we will get to know if the kill was from a Hemalurgist or a Kandra. Well, not clearly, but if there's an extra spike in the market, we can know for certain that Hemalurgist killed Lotus. Otherwise, the kill could be from either Hemalurgist (on a villager) or Kandra. Kandra had kills even cycles in the last run so it's possible they might have kills in odd turns this time.

8 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'm not exactly sure why people were super against killing Mat, but I got the general feel that it was because he has a reputation as an active, helpful villager. I'd like to think that I possess a similar reputation. So I'm not quite sure why it makes sense to want to keep Mat alive C1 but to go after me.

I think this is specifically for Drake, but the difference I'd think would be that there was no reasoning at all for votes on Mat, and Drake actually stated his suspicion on you. If I found Mat suspicious, I would have gone after him irrespective of that fact that he's a good villager as I have in previous games in the first cycle when I did find him suspicious.

9 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Ash voted for the reason of avoiding ties

What does this statement imply? That his vote is not suspicious because he his reasoning was to avoid ties? Is he not doing the same thing you find suspicious - deflecting onto an inactive to save Mat? I initially broke the tie and made it 4-3 when he voted, and he says he didn't want a tie meaning essentially he did not want Mat dead because that's what not wanting a tie means in this case as if there was a tie then there was a chance of Mat dying, and he was fine with Experience dying anyway.

(I'mma split replying to stuff from this cycle cause boxings :P)

[Araris Valerian]

1 hour ago, |TJ| said:

What does this statement imply? That his vote is not suspicious because he his reasoning was to avoid ties? Is he not doing the same thing you find suspicious - deflecting onto an inactive to save Mat? I initially broke the tie and made it 4-3 when he voted, and he says he didn't want a tie meaning essentially he did not want Mat dead because that's what not wanting a tie means in this case as if there was a tie then there was a chance of Mat dying, and he was fine with Experience dying anyway.

I didn't mean to imply anything about the other votes, I just gave reasons to contrast with the people that emphasized saving Mat.

Edit: Summary of the cycle for those who need to catch up:

Edited June 2, 2021 by Araris Valerian