Mid-Range Game 54: Fading Glory

[SeaDragonet he/him]

8 minutes ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

As far as I can tell this is the post behind the lynch on Danex.

Beyond being slightly ridiculous, it doesn’t come across to me as massively suspicious - I read it as genuinely trying to be funny/silly.

I’d be more inclined to vote on SeaDragonet, for suggesting that it’s suspicious that Danex chose the same target as last game, which I just can’t see - @SeaDragonet, would you mind explaining your rationale here?

I am new here, and i have not had time to see Danex's personality and playstyle. I was pointing out that if his playstyle was normally to not make jokes like that, then he would be extremely sus, but if not, then he is not sus beyond average sus on everyone. Does that make sense? Sry if my original post was not clear.

Edit: hence why I did not vote Danex. I was trying to find out if this was his normal playstyle or not.

Edit #2: Yeah I did not explain myself whatsoever in my original post.

Edited November 8, 2021 by SeaDragonet
to add in another bit so that i do not double post

[Mat he/him]

Just under an hour remaining in the cycle!

[danex he/him]

42 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Danex, is there a reason you have me as village?

Basically just tone for you
and your stab vote makes sense for what I think vil!you would do
so you aren't like
100000% vil in my eyes
but still fairly strong vil

43 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Likewise, is there a reason you aren't voting for Venture (especially since Venture has a vote and would be a candidate for this round)? Presumably "haha fun" isn't the only one?

Listen, my jokes have integrity. If I just abandoned the satire right now I'd undermine the entire message! (Which is a scathing critique of the entire D1 meta btw)
So no, the only reason is haha funi

but if I have to keep defending/explaining it like this
the satire might just be lost anyway

[+Ed Venture]

5 hours ago, Danex said:

is this not the most blatant elim tell you've ever read?
it is. it is the most blatant elim tell. 
it's so blatant that if this game had a joker I'd think he was that and was trying to look sus.

*small frown* Okay for one, I'm rusty. Second of all, if I had a team, they'd be helping me look less suspicious after a dumb first post. Third of all, trying to say I'm not elim is a terrible idea, I know that much, so I'll stop now. : P

But actually..you sound a lot like I did as an eliminator once upon a time. You're smart enough to not slip up in a situation like this, and now that (assuming you are an elim, which I am) you are trying to backtrack, I do not like the idea of you slipping out of the lynch, regardless of past games or not. You are my one and only elim read...so...unless you have a better idea of a vote than me?

[Orlok Tsubodai he/him]

Simply because I have a mild gut read that they’re more likely to be an eliminator than Danex, and the Unknown Order doesn’t look to be up for the lynch, The Unknown Order, Ed Venture

[Mat he/him]

The cycle is over.

[Mat he/him]

MR54: Cycle Two: You Close Your Eyes

Whistling to himself the anthem of the Glory Faction, Danex walked down the familiar long hallway of the palace. Oh, what a time to be alive! Sure, the Heritage Faction was rising from the shadows in a vengeful fury, and yeah, there was a rogue Soul Forger running around, but life was good! He had endeavored in a productive day of lounging, a bit of paperwork, and fruit-eating. You lived a fine life when the Emperor was your Emperor.

He turned the corner and was surprised to see three familiar faces blocking his path. Araolis, Lai, and the one called Sha Lou. Last he checked, they were all supposed to be on an entirely different floor of the palace. Danex bit hit lower lip. "...Hi?"

The group advanced, forcing Danex into a corner. What was this about? "Hey, Araolis, you old grouch... we're friends, right? Sha Lou? Lai?" He thought back to earlier in the week when he had made quite the sport of them at a dinner party. It had seemed like such fun at the time...

You know, Danex thought as they came ever closer, maybe that wasn't the best time to have cracked a joke.

*   *   *

Faleast worked quickly, but not because of the dire circumstances. It was his way.

Or, at least, it was his way as long as he was impersonating a Forger for the Rose Empire. But for some reason, the Empire didn’t like that word. They would call him something else, but even that wasn’t quite right. He doubted these politicians could ever understand what he really was. Forger, Faleast idly thought as he finished the art he was making. If only.

It hadn’t scared Faleast off in the slightest to know there was a real Soul Forger loose in the palace. He could take a hit. Faleast only felt jealousy, not fear, for the Forger.

They were a bloodthirsty fellow, and while Faleast couldn’t quite live up to their potential at the moment he certainly did the best he could. He regarded the scepter in front of him, the moonlight gleaming off its broad top through the window. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use this himself, but someone else could.

“What do you have there, Rememberer?” A voice whispered from the shadows. Faleast jumped, utterly shocked he hadn’t noticed the voice’s source before. There, a form just to his left.

Oh, brother. He had been in enough situations like this to know what was about to happen.

“Close your eyes.” the voice said, and the next thing Faleast knew, a knife was flying towards his face.

Faleast might be able to take a hit, but his time in the Rose Empire had come to a swift conclusion.

---

Danex has been executed! He was a member of the Glory Faction!

Ashbringer has been killed! He was a Rememberer for the Glory Faction. He had a Scepter!

Vote count:

• |TJ| (1): Danex
• Danex (3): Araris Valerian, Ed Venture, |TJ|
• Ed Venture (2): Mage, Orlok Tsubodai

Cycle Two has begun! It will end in about 48 hours, on Wednesday, November 10th, at 1pm PST. 

• There will be an execution today, with no vote minimum. Tied votes will result in a decision by RNG.
• PMs are open, 1-on-1 only. Please include myself and Elandera in any PMs you create.
• Each player is allotted a single action per cycle. Don’t forget to use it!
• There is an activity filter of two cycles. Failure to post in that time frame will result in removal or replacement.

Player List:

Spoiler

1. @The Unknown Order - Shoi
2. Danex - Glory Faction
3. @SeaDragonet - Theo
4. @ashwastaken - Ill
5. Ashbringer - Faleast - Rememberer
6. @Mage - Gaivan
7. @Araris Valerian - Araolis
8. @Orlok Tsubodai - Locke Tekiel
9. @|TJ| - Lai
10. @Devotary of Spontaneity - Zama
11. @Ed Venture - Sha Lou
12. @Tani - Wei
13. @Steeldancer - Steel

 

[+Ed Venture]

I hereby exonerate Danex of all guilt.

---

Sha Lou cursed, strings of profanity being loosed as people started to stare...which only lead her to curse more. Now there were eyes on her and she had been wrong. Really wrong. But how was she supposed ta know! She saw someone threaten to kill someone, by the Emperor! It was her civic duty, she was pretty sure, to call that out! Though mebbe staying alive would'a been a lil smarter. She wasn't dead yet, so mebbe she could...fix this? Maybe catch someone who actually did some wrongdoing, then be back in her office in time for dinner. Apparently something like steamed duck was being served nearby the palace... 

Unfortunately for Sha, just as she was thinking about dinner, a cry rose up from a nearby hallway. Someone had been murdered.

---

Well here's what Ash said last turn. Interacting between me and TJ, trying to get a better grasp of the game. I don't like that there's little to go off of here, only a comment trying to get at our feelings about mutual Dannex voting posts. Which helped me, and presumably TJ, solidify our voting positions?

18 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Hmm. Faleast will hopefully appear tomorrow. For now, it's just me. 

A lot of kills, a lot of roles with the ability to stop kills. And because D1, not a lot to go off of... except maybe this.

@|TJ|, you claim to have written your voting-Dannex post without reading page 2, where Ed Venture voted for Dannex for similar reasons. How does this make you feel?

@Ed Venture, TJ voted for Dannex for similar reasons as yours, about 30 minutes later, but allegedly without seeing your vote put in place. How does this make you feel?

Furthermore, the end of cycle vote count was:

• |TJ| (1): Danex
• Danex (3): Araris Valerian, Ed Venture, |TJ|
• Ed Venture (2): Mage, Orlok Tsubodai

Which is the exact same as the vote count above, which likely means nothing was manipulated. Less information again. Which leads me without a single thread to go off of. Feels bad.

[ashwastaken]

sorry I wasn’t online at rollover- my school ends right then.

I’m going to reread the thread and hopefully post a reads list soon.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

1 hour ago, Ed Venture said:

Which is the exact same as the vote count above, which likely means nothing was manipulated. Less information again. Which leads me without a single thread to go off of. Feels bad.

The Heritage Arbiter has little reason not to use their vote manipulation. They easily could have removed a vote from you or TJ to implicate you, or even remove a vote from Danex to try and get you killed in the hopes that Danex would be exed this cycle. The main reasons not to do anything are inactivity (which nobody was completely but missing Orlok's shift is more likely), that the other people with votes are elims and thus it would be counterproductive to implicate them, or that the other elims had more important actions than the kill, which I find unlikely.

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

@Orlok Tsubodai 

Is there a reason you're vote stayed on me after our discussion? Were you still suspicious or merely inactive?

On another note:

I think the Heritage Arbiter liked how the exe or current public opinion was going and so didn't throw anything else into the pot in hopes things stayed on the same course. Not quite sure how that effects my reads, but that's the feeling I get/got.

Edit: @Matrim's Dice, can the Bloodsealer skelify multiple on one turn given they have the skeletals to do so?

Edited November 8, 2021 by The Unknown Order

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Hmm, I'd think that the Heritage Arbiter would cancel a vote just to tie things up, if possible. Which makes me slightly more suspicious of Venture.

Also something something grouchy old man complaining that we had under 50% vote participation.

[Mat he/him]

26 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

Edit: @Matrim's Dice, can the Bloodsealer skelify multiple on one turn given they have the skeletals to do so?

Assuming ‘skelify’ means roleblock, no. One action is one roleblock with one Skeletal.

[Quivil she/her]

8 hours ago, Danex said:

also, only slightly related, but we didn't kill Tani for her vote on me either. Just cuz she was inactive. =P

Rude! I was going to help you Elims! And then you just up and slaughtered me.

That's it. I no longer wish to be Elim and will aggressively not help them. So there.

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

I vote for voting Tani. Even if she has great taste in words for roleblocking people with skeletals.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

5 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

I vote for voting Tani. Even if she has great taste in words for roleblocking people with skeletals.

And yet, you didn’t actually place a vote. Or give any justification for why you or anyone would vote for Tani.

I would propose that any village kill actions be directed towards players who aren’t voting. Elims can hide by lurking, and oftentimes villagers just don’t bother to put in the effort to vote. In either case, those folks aren’t worth wasting a vote over if we have village NK power. But clearing them out will force the elims to participate more or die themselves, so in the former case we can find them by analysis.

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

That was a joke because of Tani's "I don't want to be vil I'm going to help the elims. Now you attacked me so I'm going to actually do my job now" thing. I don't actually find it sus.

That's horrible logic that has used to kill non-voting villagers like me and sometimes Tani way too much. Undercover elims almost always vote to retain thread control, low active villagers don't tend to.

The better target for vig kills are voting inactives who the viggies are sus of.

[|TJ| he/him]

Danex really kept up his sword vote smh, he didn't even change his vote in self-preservation. 

I think elims were last cycle's vote quite comfortable with last cycle's vote because a. vote did not diversify much b. no effort was made to push Danex farther from Venture and c. the lack of vote cancel from elim HA because all it would have taken was the vote shift to get Venture killed. 

So, circumstantially, I'm reading Venture as village. 

There are only few of us active, so I'm finding it difficult to gauge motives. Mainly no other strong village reads other than Venture, slightly feel good in the gut about Araris, and do not feel good about TUO and Tani.

Active and felt comfortable not to vote, stuff from C1 I was willing to overlook for C1 and seeking confirmation about existence of suspicion. 

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

10 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Danex really kept up his sword vote smh, he didn't even change his vote in self-preservation. 

I think elims were last cycle's vote quite comfortable with last cycle's vote because a. vote did not diversify much b. no effort was made to push Danex farther from Venture and c. the lack of vote cancel from elim HA because all it would have taken was the vote shift to get Venture killed. 

So, circumstantially, I'm reading Venture as village. 

There are only few of us active, so I'm finding it difficult to gauge motives. Mainly no other strong village reads other than Venture, slightly feel good in the gut about Araris, and do not feel good about TUO and Tani.

Active and felt comfortable not to vote, stuff from C1 I was willing to overlook for C1 and seeking confirmation about existence of suspicion. 

That points towards Venture being elim because the elims decided not to kill them. I do happen to agree with this viewpoint though. 

I almost never vote cycle one, no matter how active I am.

What?

I wasn't. I was joking because Tani said something that would be instantly suspicious coming from almost anyone else.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Ugh I knew it was going to be hard to remember this game, even with a lighter workload.

So, Danex ended up being voted off, and Ashbringer ended up getting killed. Given there was only 2 kills, that solidifies the LYLO point around 5 turns. Notably, there was only one death besides the exe, which was most likely the elim kill. This means a couple of things: nobody used a scepter (including Ashbringer, RIP), and if there is a kill role, they're either not too aggressive or there isn't one. 

I have to agree with Venture, the vote count itself doesn't give much information. I'll have to go and take a look at posts at some point to actually generate some relevant thoughts beyond speculation about where LYLO will lie. Thankfully I have another day to find some time to do that between real life. 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

3 hours ago, The Unknown Order said:

Undercover elims almost always vote to retain thread control, low active villagers don't tend to.

This generalization is not helpful. Any "elims almost always"  statement that can be easily used to divide the player list muse be assumed to be false if we also assume the elims are trying to look village, since by the latter assumption they'd sticking to the former behavior. I mean, consider this game. If we accept 3 elims, all (or even 2) of whom voted, then we can easily knock out their faction by killing off the 6 players that voted. That would be a pretty poor move on the part of the elim team (and also would be kind of a bummer of a game). In my experience (which should be worth something), elim activity is generally representative of activity in the game overall, modulo GMs making sure their elim team isn't at risk of going entirely inactive. 

I could also go on a long rant about activity and so forth. I actually did, and then deleted it. Suffice it to say, I stand by my statement about NKs and will continue to do so until someone kills me off. The game is more fun when players are actively participating via the game's core mechanic, the vote and accompanying discussion. If it weren't, we'd be playing a different game.

I'm going to keep pushing for a Venture exe this cycle. I think it's reasonable based on the roles in this game, and I'd also like to see what alternatives others propose. If cycle end was right now though, I'd probably join TJ on TUO, despite our disagreement about Venture. Gotta kill somebody, and we don't currently have any options besides those two.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Araris Valerian

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

*Questions why people make the same mistake almost every game and refuse to believe you when you point it out*

[Araris Valerian he/him]

25 minutes ago, The Unknown Order said:

*Questions why people make the same mistake almost every game and refuse to believe you when you point it out*

If you very strongly believe that most/all of the elims voted last cycle, then you should probably vote for one of said people. Pick me if you want .

[SeaDragonet he/him]

I am a little confused of who to vote for. I will probably not vote and mostly just participate without voting and watch what people do this game. I have no idea how ppl generally play as village vs how they play as elim. Is there a good sample game I could look at to get better at this?

Edited November 9, 2021 by SeaDragonet
clarification

[Mage he/him]

Before voting I’m going to review C1 and also the different roles, but I’m thinking Venture or maybe TUO. I’ll make a more informed decision tomorrow morning.