Seonid

That's exactly my point

It's too quiet around here. Probably the holiday has something to do with it, though. I had family over yesterday, and will be doing more family things today. Brief thoughts, to be followed by a vote later in the day if the opportunity arises: Ok, the mistborn killed Devotary - a good call on their part, they were the most suspicious of the asterion swing bunch. Araris' caution about the possibility of an Elim bus on Ornstein is well-taken. (It could just be the remarks of an Eliminator trying to direct attention away from their attempt to save a compatriot, though.) Now I'll add my voice to the discussion on inactivity, a direct rebuttal to @Araris Valerian and @Droughtbringer - this bit is a bit meta, but since it involves this game, I'll keep it in this thread instead of moving the discussion to the SE meta thread: The vast majority of our games seem like they are plagued with high inactivity, starting from D1. This is exacerbated by a trend of anemic D1 discussion followed by a lynch on a target that is often only lynched because the established consensus says that lynching D1 is ideal. From there, the game settles into a pattern of lynching the most prolific or active players because they put out enough volume that something in there looks suspicious. After a game has followed up that pattern, the endgame is seldom interesting. I've personally played a game where the endgame consisted of 4 active players, almost none of whom posted more than two or three times in the cycle. There was almost no discussion, and there were still more than a dozen players nominally in the game. Now, the established consensus is correct in the abstract. In Mafia, forgoing a D1 lynch is a poor play. But in our recent games, we often come to the end with only one or two of our players contributing at all. There is a decent amount of discussion going on about how we can implement high-level community standards to deal with the situation, but any long-term, sustainable solution has to come from the players themselves, as a community. One of the contributing factors to the problem is that we tend to lynch the most active and talkative players. Mostly because, in an environment where most of the players say little to nothing, the players that actually post end up making incriminating mistakes - generally regardless of whether they are Elims or town. Now, it is often the optimal play - and I'm not suggesting that we deliberately play sub-optimally. However, on D1, there is often so little information to go on that lynching an inactive could allow active players to talk and say more over the course of the game. As a result, our later lynches would be more informed, as there would be more interactions between players to build suspicions off of and to analyze after the alignment flip. Certainly, the D1 inactive lynch garners almost nothing on its own, but I feel it makes up for it by improving the quality of later cycle's discussion. In fact, it might be a decent delaying play on its own - if we don't have any good leads, lynching an inactive is better than building a weak case against someone who is actually contributing to the game. Take a short-term hit on the amount of information gained in the immediate future in anticipation of a long-term payoff. Again, I don't advocate choosing plays that are obviously against the best interest of the town. If the discussion D1 has been fruitful, and somebody has gathered a great deal of suspicion, and as a result there is an obvious lynch choice (or several that are being argued over), then that's wonderful and my suggestion doesn't apply. And the end goal of our community ought to be to get to the place where every game goes like that, where only a couple of players or even none at all are long-term inactive. Like I said, this as all been a little bit meta, and I'm sorry to sidetrack the discussion. I'll be back after church and family holiday gatherings to reappraise the gamestate and make longer, more intelligent commentary that can hopefully put my money where my mouth is wrt activity and contributing to the game. Finally, @A Joe in the Bush, is there any way we can get a 24 hour extension, in recognition of the holiday? For myself, it would be helpful, and I expect that others find themselves in similar situations.

Love the write-up Joe! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that we just lost all of our nighttime PM ability though.

@Araris Valerian, that's a good point. Thanks for bringing it up. We can't afford to treat the voters on the Ornstein lynch as cleared yet.

@Drake Marshall, I saw your post, but I didn't have time to really respond. I'd have swung to asterion, too. Now I'm glad I didn't. That was a fast swing at the end. I think we've got a lot of new threads to pursue tomorrow. For the moment, everyone on the asterion lynch is looking a little less than rosy. I'd be surprised if everyone on that last push was clean. I need to go back and read it again to see who was driving the train and who bandwagoned on it.

@Drake Marshall, my argument isn't that lynching an inactive is better for SE overall but harmful to our win chances. I'm arguing that lynching an inactive helps our win chances more overall than lynching an active at this point. By keeping people who are actually around and playing talking longer, we improve both the amount of information we receive over the course of this particular game and the quality of that information. It is worthwhile to consider whether lynching inactives might dissuade inactivity - but if filters don't, then I'm not sure lynches will.

That's a thing that folks do in Joe's games, because he hides secret roles and interactions and everything in his games. Certainly non standard, but always ridiculously fun! Of course, in this game, the scum win con is to kill the GM, which they are only able to do via the lynch.

I'd rather not lynch Steeldancer today, especially on such weak evidence. (I'll admit to being somewhat influenced by his emotional appeal. It reads town to me, and also hits a particular spot. If you're an Eliminator after that, though @Steeldancer...) Other forums use the term 'policy lynch,' referring to lynching someone because their play harms the town. One class of players often targeted by policy lynches are inactives, because their play is extremely detrimental. They allow the Eliminators to gain number advantage turns earlier than they otherwise might. In addition, if we lynch the active players while ignoring the inactives, we end up with situations where few people are discussing, which kills the chances of the town to find an Eliminator via analysis. So, I propose to lynch an inactive today. I'm not saying we should do it always, but on D1 seems like a decent idea. And after this particular D1? Lynching an active player after such a sparse day doesn't give us much info - more than lynching an inactive, sure, but I'm arguing that the long term information benefit is greater if we leave active players around to talk (thus revealing connections between people, allowing us to act off of more information in the crucial later turns of the game). With that said, I'm up for Ornstein (where my vote is currently), but I'm not married to the idea. Any of the inactives would be someone I'd be fine with.

Sorry it took me so long to get started, but I am serious about being more active this game. @Devotary of Spontaneity, I'm starting to making good on my pledge now. I agree whole-heartedly that Straw's vote on the GM was worrying. Aaand, now that I'm caught up, I see that Straw has retracted it. Fair enough. Ornstein @Ornstein Haven't seen you posting around here yet. Want to jump in the game and start talking with the rest of us?

Thanks. I know the feeling! I'm spelt working on pushing out a draft, though. I'm sure it will get there eventually. Adventures in Edassa was among the most fun I've ever had on these forums! That said, it also required a lot of work out of me. I just don't have the time to re-open it at the moment. Maybe when I get a job (I'm a stay at home dad atm, which is much more busy than a regular career).

Count Senn Conrad III (no relation) in for this game. I look forward to rectifying past inactivity

Thanks! I'm glad you like it so much! I have early drafts of political maps, but they are decades old, and the shape of the continent had changed significantly since then. I actually lost the original to the map in the RP thread, but I can probably redraw it without too much trouble. But more than that, I could just print it off and add in a rough political map. I'll see what I can do for you.

I’d remind everyone that prior to the game, as moderators we ruled that players should not change their profile picture if they change their username mid game. Players that do change their profile picture and username mid game will receive an SE subforum warning. @Mesa the Ookla would you please return your profile picture to that which it was as Darkness_?

That looks awesome! Sign me up!

Here's the relevant bit from the last viewpoint from Moash: And then he becomes Vyre, He Who Quiets, in a process that seems exactly like what the Parshendi survivors go through. If there's another way to read this, I'm all ears. But it seems unambiguous to me that Moash has been replaced.

I'm pretty sure he is. He became a Fused, which kills the host - as far as we know. If he's still alive, then something weird is going on.

I thought this way at first, until I read a reaction to the book that pointed out that the murder made it so that Amaram and his men were willing to turn. The murder has not yet had personal ramifications for Adolin, nor political ramifications in the coalition, which is what everyone expected, but it did have a significant impact to the plot.

Absolutely right. I should have clarified that I completely agreed with your conclusion concerning Cusicesh, and I just disagreed with your interpretation of the WoB.

I had thought that Cultivation had set things up so that Dalinar's memories would come back before Odium tried to bring them back. That way, Dalinar wouldn't be blindsided by his memories, but instead would have a chance to deal with them and their implications before the confrontation with Odium.

Hmm... that actually made me wonder. Brandon said that there is a level of spren between Stormfather level power and "sapient spren," by which I assume he means radiant spren. He specifically calls Cusicesh out as being of this level. My question is this: where are the unmade's power levels in reason to the Stormfather/Nightwatcher? Do they fit that description? If so, is it possible that Brandon had the unmade in mind when he bright up that gradation in spren levels?

He does not say Cusicesh is a sapient spren. You say that in your paraphrase, but I believe that to be a misinterpretation of Brandon's words. He says (my paraphrase) "there is a level of spren between Stormfather/Nightwatcher and sapient spren, and this is what Cusicesh is." The phase "this is what Cusicesh is" refers to the intermediate level, and not to the immediately preceding phrase "sapient spren." Sapient spren is part of the parenthetical statement used to define the intermediate step where Cusicesh belongs. As additional evidence, to be sapient means possessing human level of intelligence. There are no known spren that have these attributes that are not radiantspren or higher.

Why would it have been the right thing to do? I think it's clear that Renarin is on team Honor.

Um, my read indicates that Cusicesh is one of the intermediate spren between a sapient spren and the Stormfather/Nightwatcher level. The sapient spren are spren like Syl and Pattern.

Which Cosmere stuff in particular bothered you?

Brandon has indicated that Vasher and Nightblood were always Stormlight characters first, and that Warbreaker was written to provide their backstory. In addition, Brandon does not intend to keep the Cosmere stories separate with only cameos connecting them forever. He's been rather upfront that, the further we go along in the timeline, the more interconnected they will get. Your understanding about the wider Cosmere not being necessary to enjoy the stories is correct for the early works, but it isn't a goal Sanderson has set for the entire sequence. We've already seen the Mistborn storylines start getting more deeply involved with the larger Cosmere. That said, Roshar is certainly going faster into the wider Cosmere scope than I expected, but I still don't think we've passed the point of "essential to the story" yet. Except maybe Warbreaker, but that seems to have been intentional from the start.