Kasimir

Okay, then @JNV, have you, perchance, obtained a jewel? Mat. I felt the shift on me given I did nothing but sleep felt as though he was waiting for someone to suggest suspicion then opportunistically riding it. From last cycle: general NFCs reads still (JNV: NFC = No Frickin' Clue) until I can get closely caught up, had mild sus of Conq which is sharply receding in light of his EoD 'Save Danex' movement and the fact that I received no Jewel (I accept the Jewel point only exonerates potentially of being Melkor; it doesn't mean he can't have been converted.) Still very mildly positive on Devo due to the fact I cannot see her playing this aggressively when Evil - she is extremely flexible in terms of playstyle so I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but I feel her Elim play thus far leans more reactive. Fifth is saying he flipped Galadriel and Faithful-aligned Galadriel. V!Galadriel. Galadriel protects. My brothers in the Village this was not a good result >> Only one role in this game can swap votes, and that's the Orator. The Orator can only change a no vote to a vote. No other item or role in this game shifts votes. Everything else removes votes. Only two ways to remove a vote in this game: you are a Noble, or you used a Jewel. So either Conq is a Noble, or he used a Jewel on me, giving it to me, in order to remove my vote on him. I did not receive a Jewel. Therefore, Conq is a Noble. And while he could very well have been converted, he cannot be Melkor. Melkor is only Melkor. ( @Fifth Scholar please confirm Melkor can have no other role I'm getting paranoid now, kthx.) The TUN point doesn't change much, it does mean we can't apply the same line of reasoning to TUN but oh well >> I'd be interested if JNV received a Jewel because if they did, this could help clear Shining from our Melkor pool (yes, I know Shining made an uncontested Feanor claim, but.) I don't know if it proves Archer's role, FYI. The vote manip Archer claimed he would do wasn't legal anyway. I'd lean conversion. Possible attempted and failed, yes, blocked kill should still be reported (if protect, I suppose - @Fifth Scholar?) I am surprised that our Feanor claimant hasn't been targeted, but Feanor could be a good conversion or kill target so either way, wouldn't say Shining is out of the woods just yet. Edited to add: Doesn't hurt. It's interesting to see if anyone's keen to pile on opportunistically, do vote pool analysis for Melkor, and I've always been fine with dying if my flip gives the Village more info to work with

The hell. AFAIK, this should be: As far as I can work out, this is the delta: Three bolded votes disappeared, the italicised vote was likely added to. Unclear if this was Archer's action. Gemstones can affect vote-related actions but not votes, so that's fun. Noble action or potential jewel here - did anyone ( @JNV, @Araris Valerian) receive a jewel? I've not (yet?) received any message about my receiving a jewel, so if true, this means that Conq cannot be Melkor (barring some universe in which either of us is Melkor and the other one is converted.) Forgot this is a 24-hour cycle, not 48 hours >> I guess my brain still favours MRs and LGs. I didn't get to finish my longpost before EoD and should've realised the need to check the vote state, but oh well. I'm going to paste everything I was working on not because it was especially enlightening but because I am offended by the idea my effort was wasted otherwise. Basically. We have no idea who Melkor will hit but I want to keep live the possibility that anyone can get hit, including a Messenger, unless Fingolfin happens to be a very good goalkeeper I wouldn't say complete downside, but I think it's useful to be able to rule someone out of both the Melkor and convert suspect pools (which are of necessity separate) so to that extent, I think that killing Finwe is info-denial. That being said, I don't particularly care too much, as I expect both Finwe (in extremis) and Sailors to be some of the more popular fakeclaims, especially since Melkor and Convert will need more innocuous claims. (Melkor might go for Smith I suppose.) Okay, fair. /shrug at the majority of this in that I have no strong disagreements or agreements, but I do agree on the bolded bit - our reads are at risk of being unstable so long as we cannot confirm a conversion has taken place, so in a way, getting rid of that ASAP is better for us, and allows us to do our job properly. (Though our best case scenario is if Melkor burns a convert on Finwe or someone whom Fingolfin is protecting.) Not to diminish your thunder a little, but I don't think there has been a game in which E!me hasn't been gutted off the bat. Ask Joe and Macen and Stick I have theories about why but they're not really relevant here and now, but also Melkor, I'm not interested, I hate conversion games, no thank you. Yes and no. But you might remember MR53 here *punches the air* AWWW YEAH THE PARTY TRUCK'S IN TOWN *slaps truck* THIS THING CAN FIT SO MUCH PARTY INSIDE Unless you're Melkor. I don't trust you if you're Melkor. These words are accepted. ....I hate multiquoting I hate multiquoting I HATE MULTIQUOTING WHY.

Why? Finwe is a conf villager because he can't be converted. He also can't make PMs, so people declaring who they are and aren't going to PM are playing Pin The Stab on the Finwe. The PM guy you are thinking about is the Messenger, who basically passively enables PMs by existence and also can spy on them (and can't repeatedly spy on the same targets.) Will Melkor? I do think Melkor is likely to C1 convert (cf. MR53) but Melkor doesn't die to ties. A tie with Melkor in it kills the other player but it's not something we can know about (since from our perspective, it looks the same as if there was a coinflip) and it would be fairly brutal if Melkor set up a tie specifically to watch us execute both halves (thirds?) of it on the suspicion he's in there. Agree about keeping suspect pool broad, think this should generally be true before further evidence anyway in any game.

If I am Village and if you are Village, this should make it my first Village game with you. Big if here. Can't say I wanted to be back this soon but the urge to troll Fifth by playing a Valar was too strong. Two points on this: First, I didn't really want to say too much about this to wait for people, but I'm forgetful in my dotage so I'll say this anyway. I've GMed with Fifth before, and I am not terribly surprised by one conversion, which would make for a fairly lean team (hi Feruchemist game, where we considered a two man Elim team!), but a certain amount of 'it depends' on Village distro (we just don't know enough yet), the fact that Melkor can't be killed by tied votes, and the fact that every Feanor+Son gang member gets one kill with a Fell Sword (it's per player per Fell Sword) so there could be a number of one-off kills floating in the background. I'm not convinced this is noteworthy per se, except insofar as what it might say about the distro. Second, I feel there's a lot of uncertainty about what Melkor will do. The Village had a huge internal squabble about this point in MR53 but if Melkor converts now, then the convert can put in the kill while Melkor smiths, or if Eru preserve us, he gets Feanor or a Smith, then they can trade off or something. Melkor is restricted by actions economy right now and the longer the game goes on, the more players will likely be able to prove their roles. I don't expect this to be too role-heavy a distro for that reason, but Melkor has extra incentive to be able to evade the dragnet early, e.g. by trading role/action claims. Melkor isn't exe-proof, so Melkor will be just as subject to pressure as anyone else, fortunately or otherwise. Eh. Yes and no. Survival-happy players exist. Finwe may decide that his single sacred duty is to keep the Silmarils locked away. And I'm reluctant to draw that conclusion when there hasn't been much lethal pressure going around in this game just yet. Very, very slight V lean on Devo, otherwise a string of NFCs to go around; I've not decided whether I'm overanchoring because I think we'll need another Valar to constrain Melkor of lack of sufficient evidence. @Araris Valerian Yo. So, on a scale of one to ten, with one being Bilbo the morning before Gandalf kicked down his door and ten being Frodo at Mount Doom, exactly how in danger do you feel of another Kinslaying, given you are of the Teleri?

I say we take him on now. Eonwe, me, and Túrin Turambar. Melkor can be slain :eyes: Nevermind that Túrin hasn't even been born yet

Nothing seems just about right at the moment. Cycle just started. Anything short of a smoking gun is likely to contain some amount of overlatching/overreading in the absence of any context or extra basis for reads at present. No need to rush. I lean some variant of: -Provide cover for Finwe, since this guy is confirmed Village (I think the only one? - TBF everyone except Melkor is confirmed Village right now, but the conversion point I suppose.) -Maybe don't tell the whole world who you are making PMs with unless necessary, since this lets Melkor identify Finwe and kill Finwe right off the bat, and why make things so easy? -Comms don't matter if people aren't going to do effective things with them, and thread should not be neglected There's the option of not making PMs to provide cover for Finwe but I think that's extreme and as much as Fifth double-dog dared me to spend this game without making or replying in PMs, my heart cannot take it I would say to simply not over-advertise it. If everyone agrees to make one-on-one PMs with everyone, then Finwe will be outed very fast. This may not be a problem if we want the Silmarils to be released but I'm reluctant to yield Finwe this early. PMs can also be spied on by a Messenger. We know there is at least one Messenger at the moment and the Messenger is likely Village, but it's worth keeping that in mind. How does this work when you have one item action? Hey, Manwe agreed with you to spare Melkor! This guy is absolutely a recidivism risk right now and must be stopped, why are you sympathising with him :eyes:

I'd put more stock on wanting to die closer to rollover. But I fully endorse NFC (TM) reads.

? Sethryn. True, Melkor wandered free now amongst the Noldor. Tulkas thought it was a mistake, and he knew that Ulmo saw the danger there, the sharp point of the fish-hook. There were rumours that Melkor at times took on the seeming of one of the Noldor, and Tulkas's heart had misgivings about this practice. Still, he strode out from the gates of Valmar, and towards hill-crowned Tirion, rising like a shining jewel on the necklace of the steep-walled valley of Calacirya. Ulmo kept to his own counsel now, as did Tulkas, but the more he heard of the secrets and fair words Melkor lavished on the Noldor, the more Tulkas's gut clenched. Something was wrong, even if weeping Nienna had cast herself on Melkor's side out of pity; even if Manwe himself had been stirred to grant Melkor his pardon. He'd fought Melkor, wrestled with him at Utumno and earlier, when the Valar first went to war with the Enemy. One such as Melkor did not change. His heart had been thoroughly poisoned and it galled Tulkas, that Manwe could not see it. Equally galling, that they had to abide by Manwe's decision. But to rebel was to take Melkor's path, and that, above all, Tulkas would not do. But he watched. And if Melkor wandered free amongst the Noldor, wearing the visage of one of the Noldor, then it would be all the more difficult to know if Melkor was up to something. No, Tulkas thought; corrected himself. Of course Melkor was up to something, as sure as the swift winds on the plains of Valmar. As certain as the sunrise. He would have to be found, and stopped. Without crossing the line that Manwe had set for them all. Eru, Tulkas sighed. Why couldn't these things be straightforward?

So full disclaimer: I signed up as Tulkas to make Fifth's life difficult but it is also making my life difficult because I don't know how to RP Tulkas beyond the description of Tulkas as the party animal and brawler of the Valar RIP me. And RIP Fifth I guess. Melkor losing C1 exe immunity makes things a bit more straightforward, since in the world with immune!Melkor, we'd have to work out if a lynch survivor was a Sailor or Melkor. We know the game starts with just E!Melkor, so basically any provable role is provably not Melkor (but remember, potentially Evil past C1!) Actions economy limits means we should be tracking kills because if Melkor is killing, he's not converting, which also helps narrow down the suspect pools. This alongside Cunning and Crafty: Crafty matters because if Melkor crafts, it looks like he can't kill. That may not be so straightforward to track but I think there are a few small possibilities there. Cunning is a reminder that if we think someone is Melkor, we can't let the exe be tied. If the exe is tied, Melkor won't die, someone else will die. Why, when there's an item limit? We could only be so lucky if Melkor *clenches fists in Tulkathian wrath* were to do something like that... Thoughts? I am gonna go re-read the Silmarillion to figure out how to be Tulkas >>

I hate conversion games and I'm busy so don't expect much from me. So why am I signing up? Because I have the chance to Make Fifth's Life difficult (well and hurt myself while I'm at it) by withdrawing Heledir and signing up as: Tulkas the Valiant, who walks and makes merry amongst the Noldor, and quietly watches the doings of Melkor, who has lately been freed from the constraints of Valmar. Manwe has chosen to give Melkor a second chance. Tulkas isn't so sure about that. Melkor is cunning, and his fair words ring hollow. So Tulkas will watch. For it was Manwe's decision, and it is not Tulkas's place to question that, as much as he would like to. And the instant that Melkor acts against the Valar, the moment Melkor reveals himself, then Tulkas will oppose him.

How did I suddenly get involved On the one hand, Silmarillion... On the other hand, conversion game >:( Do I want to suffer. On the third hand, I'm taking a break. On the fourth hand, Age2. On the fifth hand... Wait whose hands are these? Edited to add: Have something due so if I play, things will be tighter than I'd like. @Fifth Scholar Signing up to spectate as Heledir, a fisherman who is watching events with increasing alarm.

Slight Grand Canyon slit, isn't it? Definitely doesn't look right. If you get a chance to see a pen show, this might be worth a session with a nibmeister...

Civ VI is fun but a bit of a timesink for me, though I like cavalry charging in the Total War games. Supposed to try EUIV since my uni days, and CK2, but haven't yet gotten onto them as I need my gaming a bit more compact. I liked what I tried of Battlefront, but am currently back on a RTS kick. Jeszcze Polska nie umarła!

What nib? And hope you've managed to fix it! Believe it's friction fit so should be okay.

How I ended MR1 thanks to Wyrm: With years of trust issues that included Wilson yelling at me for excessive paranoia, and: Apologies to Devo and everyone: would have liked to finish the game, but am staying out of SE for at least a month to recover so yeah please do yell at me if I sign up for anything. I'll have a very hard think if the KKC game comes up but that's a later problem. Thanks to Fifth, and Devo for being great teammates, to Elan for running this, especial thanks to @Archer for agreeing to replace me. And thanks to JNV for the best PMs and being best PM buddy. I had fun, and the Noodles Clan must continue! No thanks to Araris or RNGesus - you know why. You cannot pocket me with your fell gifs! I know your Evil now! Out, out foul fiend! I do not trust your fair words and adorable doggos!

Pretty sure you are. I do not recall if there are safety issues associated, since whoever it is would have to send their address, but I recall someone wanting to send Kipper some cool Sanderson swag forever ago (a T-shirt) and Wilson was telling Kipper he could use a PO box if he felt uncomfortable, so I'm guessing that's a yes, but use a PM to work out the logistics once you have a taker. I wish I could do that I know Neil Gaiman does, but while I drafted parts of my MA thesis by hand, I mostly do worldbuilding and a few chapter drafts in pen. Have become a bit too used to a keyboard for my own good, I think!

Anyone still playing? I play quite a bit these days to chill, though now it's DE. This game, AoM, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations et al were my childhood. Currently maining Poles like my namesake because hammer lads are fun:

TUN Wiz

The train difference was one vote though. Even in a three-member team world, any two of them (Fifth included) could've made it a draw with the actual Fifth train by going onto Wiz, or an actual ML just stacking further onto TGK. Maybe not for Wiz if Wiz is a teammate, but TGK looks Village off the votes and I feel that it doesn't take substantive thread skills for a decently active player to cast TGK's Fifth train as the typical defensive 'no u!' Elim vote to contest in thread. Which is why I lean a bit more towards 'didn't have the ability', I suppose. Four member team should definitely have the capacity to contest it unless they basically have an inactive and that's an assumption I don't know is warranted. Fair point.

Because I'd read the self-pres as being the same fundamental sort of activity - what activity there is is substantially defensive, which matters with Elims potentially being more defensive or more sensitive of votes on them, and unlikely in terms of activity to intervene in the Fifth lynch. You can dislike the use of the word 'activity' as a catch-all but I'm not going to change my view that it's too coarse-grained to file Steel and Luck with either of you. You have said previously that you only want to be rarely right rather than often wrong. I've said previously I'm fine with lynching nulls - my null categories are basically players who haven't been removed from the default suspicion state. I'd rather go for stronger suspicions where I can, but as I've pointed out, the voting looks good on TGK, which removes him from my suspicions tier, Fifth is dead, and Wiz is basically about to be dead right now so I don't particularly care about going onto my adjusted tiers. And this is without even talking about how I do agree that in a world with a reasonably active Elim team with a fair modicum of thread control, Fifth shouldn't be dead - Elims simply don't allow lynches through if they can practicably prevent it. It's the same reasoning that makes TGK and Joe look more Village because that is not a reasonable bus and I can't really see a reason for them to go with it. Fundamentally, I'm not changing how you approach this game, because I get that you simply dislike epistemic risk. Kindly extend me the same courtesy.

I feel you, my Sailor is a bit misaligned, but enough that the pencil-like feedback is a bit more scratchy than I'd like. It's more annoying because I re-align the tines and then it writes beautifully, but then it gets misaligned again. I'd imagine I stop applying pressure when writing by now...

Why are you assuming I'm voting on you for low activity simpliciter? If I were, I'd file you with Luckspren as well as Luckspren hasn't said a word in thread since C1. You are in the same activity profile because Wiz voted in self-pres, and you have also been extremely defensive (I've noted it's part of your meta, and that factors into my read of you, yes), and neither of you in my view are teammates likely to get on and swing a lynch in favour of saving Fifth. It's that simple. It's not about raw post numbers. Good to know. TUN.

I still need a short break from this game, and I think that's the best solution, as a preventive measure. No full re-read, just thoughts: TGK and Joe look pretty Village to me given that train. TGK could've unvoted if it'd just been meant for distancing, and potentially Joe wouldn't have gotten on either. Devo somewhat so, a bit less due to Devo's known late-voting habits and LG73. Shrug on Conq - but the fact he didn't intervene either doesn't look bad. Similar assessment to Devo. Still leaning V on Luckspren - a postulated E!Luckspren, E!Fifth team would have to have pretty kayana strats for Luck not to send in the kill...unless there's a more inactive teammate. I see Joe's hypothesising an inactive team which I could somewhat see - a 3-2 lynch should not have been anywhere this close. Either way, Luckspren is basically on inactivity death row - see Steel comment. Steel, like Luckspren, is about to be hit by the inactivity filter today. I don't feel a vote on Steel this early is productive, but feel that since one inactive is bound to be replaced by a pinch-hitter, going that way for a profile lynch doesn't feel as awful as it normally would. JNV - Might be absurdly pocketed but am not as willing to go with JNV, even if nothing else, on the strength of posts. Within the same activity profile, there's Wiz and TUN. Two votes on Wiz already, so let's go with TUN to open things up. It's good to know that the Elims haven't been aiming to ML or kill or shatter lenses before! Welcome to the new SE meta where we've long since stopped just killing vocal players and apparently also go for what people like to call 'low info kills.' I tend to associate them more with Araris teams, though I'm not sure that says anything more than the fact that I've played E!Araris an absurd number of times.

As I said to Fifth, you can contest it if you want, but at the bottom line - if we bracket issues of my personal credibility: You claiming that you have a TTL is basically information we already suspect, and were already acting as though was true. If you want to pretend that the knowledge that you have a TTL is on par with the knowledge that: A. there is a VS in the game, B. I had a TL, C. I scanned Luckspren and Luckspren's action checks out (a claim which would require Luckspren and myself to be teamed if I were lying), and D. Luckspren is likely Village - go ahead. I'm not really going to stop you. I agree with the principle more information matters to the Village. I expect this information to matter to people who care about having some basis to work out Luckspren's alignment. And I do expect this information to matter to people to wonder why the hell I am suddenly light Village reading Luckspren given I was aggressively voting Luckspren and challenging Fifth and Mat to justify the presupposition I should vote for Ash over Luck. The point is showing your working - if people don't understand why you've arrived at the conclusion you do, they get confused and this doesn't help in a game where the point is to find the Elims, i.e. those who are coming by their conclusion by dishonest means. In a world where I still had my TL, yeah, absolutely, I wouldn't do it, but it's not because the information isn't in any way of value (I don't want to say valuable, as I agree it ain't a Seeker scan.) It's because doing so prevents me from further collecting more valuable information. And I point out that if an Elim did in fact VS me, which I don't think is likely but I can't exclude, then the Elims already knew I had a TL anyway, because that's what the VS user would have gained. As Devo pointed out, knowing you have a TTL doesn't help me work out your alignment. It helps Elims narrow down targets. I'm happy to take the charge that I shouldn't have claimed simpliciter - some people do draw the line there, and maybe two years ago, I absolutely would have. The VS claim can't be made without the TL scan claim, because anything else is inconsistent nonsense because no reasonable TL scanner just ups and claims like this. Arguing that my response works on me though because our actions are symmetrical is fairly tendentious. I am providing some form of alignment information - you aren't. You can counter this by arguing that this is only if my information is credible, i.e. if I can be trusted. All I can do at this point is /shrug - it at least checks out. FYI - I don't know there's another TL, but my assumption is there should be, as I've said in a number of PMs. I can be wrong, it's not a hard assumption. We'll find out more information as the game goes on and playerbase sizes shrink. Why do I think there's another TL? Well, because lenses can go missing via shatters, or stolen via VS. My view is that it doesn't make sense to give the Village a single TL. A game where there's ways to lose lenses and kill lens holders and shatter lenses is a game which encourages redundancy. Maybe I'm wrong about the distro - wouldn't be the first time, and Mat knows by heart by now my line about not guessing distro without full sight of the distro, but there are still some fundamental constraints that we can usually, with an asterisk, try to guess at. I don't think hypothesising a second TL functionally matters, and letting the second TL know that this might be a useful scan result for them to work from is good. Working defensively, we want to assume there's a second TL to protect, and the Elims will be assuming there is a second TL to shatter. I don't think we should be expecting help from the TL(s), and that's part of assuming the worst as well, but there you have it. You'll excuse me if I say it was a beautiful what-if and I had that one guy and he took everything I told him (I was a Seeker then) and used to badly screw the Village faction over, because wonderful, turns out he was Evil, and I didn't have time to scan him, and anyway the other guy I scanned couldn't really be trusted either for reasons we won't go into, because I don't want Drought to foam at the mouth and die (or anyone else really) at another longpost (too late, I guess.) Do you know if you are the only TTL person here? Do you know if the other TTL (if it exists) is in the hands of an Evil player? Do you even know if who people are proposing to trust can be trusted? Okay, and if I PMed an Elim, wonderful. Now the information is in the hands of the Elims but not the Village. Now people continue to not know where exactly I pulled out a belief in V!Luck from. And do you really think that ruse is something that fools anyone? Everyone and their dog does it in SE, every single time, thinking they're so very smart for doing it, as though it hasn't been done enough by players who also think they were very smart to do it, including me, and then get punished for it. "I know a roleblocker/scanner but it's totally not me, but they had this scan result" and every single time, it turns out to be them, really, and the Elims just do the basic job of checking and kill them anyway, or hard-assume they have that role and that info is really theirs. If you think it's something that is worth risking an Elim knowing, which you have to concede given TTL, and given that practically no one has ride-or-die reads at the start of C2, then it might as well be shared with all, rather than hoarded with one person, who may then proceed to lie to the Village after you die. C2 isn't the point at which you obtain certainty. I feel like this is a meta gap. Just last year, and what some would argue, this year, through to AG8 and LG83, we had a whole slew of games with players recklessly claiming left, right, centre. In AG7, players were so free with claims that it broke the game by...C3 I think, resulting in more or less an Elim slaughter and some neutral rebalancing. I GMed LG74 where players claimed so freakin' much to Maili that by N3, the Elims knew practically all the roles and their Seekers were functionally useless. They killed the Village Coinshot and Lurcher as a result. There was a decent amount of thread unsafety in LG86 too, though this came as the Village was closing out the game. If anything, I don't know where you're getting the "everyone is too cautious" from. Anyway, I'm going to send one PM and step away - I've been involved in a few brawls over the last few games as I can word things very strongly and I'd rather not make Araris work hard in his dotage ;P

You could argue it the other way around: Elims are more sensitive to survival, Villagers dgaf. (Yes, I know, don't remind me about MR56 Mat.) Elims may have a team but risk drawing connections between them, so would favour self-pres votes anyway. (Elims welcome to prove me wrong - makes vote analysis easier, thanks ) I do feel which way to lean is more a personal meta judgement, but don't feel we have a strong basis for making a personal meta judgement in Wiz's case. Either he's Evil or he's Village. If he's Village, then there is a point in engaging with that. If he's Evil, the move should still be engaged with, by pointing out why doing so draws fresh targets on the backs of others in order to discourage further pointless claiming, especially given the early "don't recklessly claim" consensus. To do that, the two Villager scenario is a better illustration since that's the worse (rather than worst) case scenario - if he's Evil, then it's a pool of seven players to kill and shatter within instead (yes, yes, mea culpa), unless someone else decides to claim and make matters worse. That doesn't work with the 'pessimistic assumption' scenario building we're working with, because as Village you hope for the best and plan for the worst when doing projections. This entire post read like you were preparing to cast a final vote, and then you did not. Given your views, presuming you're preparing to step in eventually? Edited to add: I liked this and wanted to respond: Talking and info-sharing is good and =/= claiming, which is especially key since you segued from this into...threadclaiming; I don't ever believe in pointless infosec for infosec's sake (people remembering my dead doc rant when no one wanted to claim at endgame when that would've softcleared Mouse in AG8 will remember this.) It's situational! But I like the emphasis on discussion since that's basically what everyone has been asking for since C1. Voting forces players to put their money where their mouth is and shows a player's priorities. MR57 Evil!Aman talked so beautifully he convinced a Mat who had decided he was Evil that he was Village over the course of five PMs. I still don't know how he did it, and as the GM, I got front row seats to every PM. But what he did was that he always voted Villagers and never voted Elims. (Maybe in one case, can't remember, not relevant here, his voting was awful.) Arguing that voting is prioritised to the exclusion of discussion is a fair charge and I think we need to go back to the idea that a bit is better than nothing at all. But it neglects that the best Elims can talk you into thinking that Evil is Village and Village Evil. You have to soberly look at their voting patterns to identify them, because when the chips are down, their priorities aren't Village. It's certainly the only way most of us identified Evil Aman in AG8, barring a post reading specialist (TJ I miss you bro ) If you are a post reading specialist, ignore what I said about #2. I regularly ML people when I put too much emphasis on what is said and too little on votes and need votes to keep me grounded so I will always emphasise why I think votes are important. (Hi Creccio, hi Orlok, hi Bort...)