Kasimir

Why does he Village read you but still claim you should be killed? Why does he want multiple deaths in a game where the Village has already a significant advantage over the Elim team? The counterpoints: First, Archer and Aman are high-risk gambit players. Archer has also gone on record as stating he wants to C1 E/E threadbrawl a prominent teammate and get the survivor hardcleared for Village credit, in the AG8 dead doc: Second, if you look at the votecounts: You were going to self-pres anyway, because you were already dead otherwise, and realistically, if you did, the only realistic train would have been Illwei, given your views going back and forth on Devo. All he did was to ask you to do something you were likely to have already done. You were the decisive vote on Illwei. Why are you giving him Village credit for something you did, that should give you Village credit? Mat. Honestly. Do you think you could at least read through Orlok's arguments and my arguments and at least consider them, given what happened in MR57? Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - How much of a moron do you think Archer is? How much would you, as E!Mat, love to get up in V!Aman's face D1 with a bunch of bad D1 arguments? What do you think of your life expectancy if you did that? I'm getting LG83 vibes all over again. Archer's penultimate post theorising an Aman-Exp team and asking Devo to swap to Exp with him just seemed so kayana and so laughably bad. So why is Archer making such moves? Is he a moron, or is he not? And if he's not an idiot, then what's the calculus?

Here are my own thoughts on the matter: Aman’s reasons for casting suspicion on me boil down to: A) I have too many Village reads within Arelon, and B ) There must be an Elim within Arelon, or <Shadow, me, TJ, and Orlok> are a Village powerhouse. I think this is patently ridiculous coming from someone whose evidential basis for defending Striker for a decent chunk of the later part of this game has been that Striker appears too Evil to actually be Evil! I point out that I have a healthy play history with Orlok and TJ and can therefore be expected to read them fairly well based off in doc interactions. Meanwhile, my evidential basis for V!reading Shadow pertains to her voting history, on top of in doc interactions. These in my view are respectable grounds for Village reading a player and I’m not inclined to see why I should be suspicious for being epistemically honest with where my evidence takes me. Aman, too, uses an assertion of Shadow’s Evil meta to rule her out as being the more likely Arelene Elim, which is downright laughable when you consider that he’s also trying to sus me for using meta for players I’ve worked closely with and have deep friendships with outside the game! In fact, given that I do think my current credences commit me to an uncompromised Arelon, I have a very straightforward answer to what balances that out: you being Evil, Aman. It’s that simple. Look. This is itself odd. Two Elims down. We have a massive advantage. So why is he pushing for multiple deaths. We control the tempo here. Why the sudden impatience to clear the slate? What happened to “I don’t want to ML Villagers” or “I want to give Villagers the chance to prove themselves?” Why Mat, Devo, me? First, he says Mat is very likely cleared for the Illwei vote - then he wants Mat dead again. V!Devo performed well in the QF. Why is he specifically looking to take down loud, helpful Villagers (or players if Village.) How Village does that seem to you, when the Village actually has an advantage over the Elims right now? Wouldn’t that make a double bus trade worth it? Why is Aman adopting reads of convenience like in MR57? He didn’t even stick by his Archer read! Check this out: and Why is he at one moment saying this clears Mat and then saying “Sorry Mat lmao I think I still want your slot checked?” Why is he consistently insisting I might be Evil, then Village, then going back to an Evil Kas claim the cycle Baker shows there might be Evil Kas appetite? Why is it he ignores all my arguments pointing out why I can’t be Evil? and then Why the frick does Village Aman want Mat dead when he just said N2 he's pretty sure the voting cleared Mat? There is no sense to this. This post here essentially fails to engage in any significant way with my post except to assert he still wants to flip me, Mat, and Devo, for no apparent significant reason. Why is this a natural response for a Villager. Reality check, guys. We have exed two Elims. There are likely two to three left. Why is it then that we are being sold what should be a desperation move? Why are we 'at that point', when our lynches have been extraordinarily successful? Where is the natural evolution to this state of mind? He’s not engaging in good faith. His reads / thoughts shift opportunistically - just like in MR57. I agree he’s not putting out Hyena energy but I don’t like his actions. I just don’t. I'm the Last Son of House Urbain. I know paranoia. This isn't it. Paranoia doesn’t work that way. Paranoia proceeds in small or sharp spikes. It is either embraced or recedes, and results in general seesawing. The modulations here are simply too lukewarm to be paranoia driven. Consider also that Aman in QF59 claimed that E!Kas was identifiable—as did Orlok and Stick. And if Aman is genuinely paranoiding on me, why does he express zero interest in my arguments that I’m Village? Because I was interested in finding out whether TJ was Village or not; that’s what prompted my re-reads and my desire to engage with TJ. So why is Aman simply ignoring arguments that might affect his convenient worldview? Aman. Arelon stands. I see your suffering, and I am here to end it, as I swore.

Because I'll be honest, I'm not really sold on Devo as much anymore, but can you walk me once more through why you think Devo is Evil? Sorry for my absence, guys. Arelon is on 129 pages now but I think I'm getting a better sense of the game. Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Not Evil, sorry, tired.

You still sold on V!Devo, bro?

Very active. Our doc is on 81 pages now and counting, which admittedly isn't that much, and a decent chunk of it is my fault, but. We've been discussing reads and posts and so on. Orlok's problem is essentially that he's catching up, and wants to post another huge mega-table but as I stated in thread N2, and am happy to once again reiterate, my V!Orlok read is fairly strong at this stage. I've seen how Orlok was faring over two back-to-back Elim games with him, though one was as his GM. I'm also familiar with it for other reasons. Given the composition of this Elim team, and that he would be playing for a team which had just lost two members in two consecutive cycles without doing anything about it— (and we're not even mentioning the composition of the team; I have thoughts and assessments of this but I probably can't say them without annoying the hell out of Orlok so.) Simply put, he's too sane, having fun, and engaged in solving for me to buy that. He could be a very good actor, in which case, well played, Orlok, but I don't see that right now. I also would like to think that having worked fairly closely with him in AG8 and QF59, with cooperation in MR56 and early LG83, it would take more effort for Orlok to fool me. Then again, pride goeth and all. I am always open to revising my credences if necessary. Moderately - checks in to see if people have thoughts to discuss, but we did discuss Devo and Archer D1. Orlok and I are probably taking up most of the doc's discussion space, followed by TJ and I, and then Shadow and I. (If the implication is that I'm inordinately talkative, then yeah, but I've been more or less spamming my raw thoughts there and keeping a running tally of my notes, so...) My sense of her activity might be distorted by the fact that discussion with Orlok/TJ is hyperactive. It's curious to me you think of Shadow as low activity because in my view, she's not. She's left a decent impact on the thread, pushed Archer, pushed Striker. @Amanuensis - Though, speaking of the fact you think there's an Elim in <me, TJ, Shadow>, and your earlier comment about wanting to lynch Devo to get a better sense of my alignment: is there a reason, apart from your ambivalence on Devo, and your V!read on Striker, that you don't want to do that to get a better read on Shadow? What's the difference here? Same question for you as Striker actually, but more pointedly because of Orlok. Why is it that given Orlok believes I am eminently readable as Evil, and has felt less paranoia about me as a result of the QF (as compared to him @ me in the MR [Edited to add: This should read LG83]), you don't seem to share the same view? I would consider both of you to be on the same tier as players. I'm really unable to shake the feeling that I'm being set up for a ML here, which is probably paranoia on my part, but all the same. Bort, with regard to your Aman comment - I'm always ready to revise if necessary but given he initiated the Archer train and was crucial to the sealing of the Illwei train with Mat, I'm happy to have him as Moderate Village on my reads right now. He's consistent as well with our playstyle discussions in MR57 and I think it's quite apparently he was not stunlocked and he's approaching this game in a different mode. Not impossible E!Aman feels the need to switch up due to the likelihood the MR57 Elim doc would be released mid-this game, but given his voting history and the fact that Illwei's role and just losing a second Elim so soon after the first was likely painful for their team, I think Moderate Village is a fairly sensible read for the moment. (Sorry Aman, same deal - respect you too much as a player not to always be ready to re-evaluate if necessary.) Edited to add: I'm not sorry to say this, but you'd have been N1ed or N2ed if I were Evil. Appreciate it sets a bad precedent since you should be allowed to live longer, but just no. You caused me no end of stress in QF59, and for the sake of my mental health alone if nothing more, I'd have been pushing aggressively for your death just so I don't have to spend another Evil game with ten levels of stress and mental breakdowns.

Wait a second. Bro. If you are going off Ash's votecount, and the only votecount he posted was at 0253hrs, see below, how do you know a Devo ex is not happening?

@StrikerEZ - One additional question from me, since you're already on top of everything else, and since Orlok has me re-reading MR56 anyway :| The things I do for my bros. How did you expect to be behaving more suspiciously, and why did you expect only Elims to bite on it? What is this specific sort of suspicious behaviour you are referring to? You say: Mat points out rightfully I think that: P.S. I note that while I haven't raised it specifically, your citing your being on two Elim teams with me as decreasing your confidence in your ability to read me just rings odd to me. That stint increased Orlok's confidence, not decreased it. The obvious rejoinder is, of course, that you're not Orlok, but you'd also get a sense for how I think when Evil and what Evil Kas looks like. I'm going to be honest that your behaviour kind of looks like MR56 V!Striker but there are things that don't seem right to me, and which I need to get a clearer sense of.

Ngl I'm just waiting for @shadow1 to come in here given her views on Striker... Does anyone have in-doc reactions to the Exp bait to report? I can add them to the typologies as secondary data. Might help, might not. I do think we had clearer Evil typologies in AG8 than here, just from the looks of it, but the fact that Archer likely forewarned his team does confuse things somewhat.

Sometimes you have to be your own bro. I'm sure there's something profound here, but anyway: Wrote a quick script to pull the timestamps for myself. All in UTC: Quick notes: Striker's post indeed comes five seconds after rollover. RIP. 85 seconds between my post and Archer's, which likely entails Archer did have time to process my switch, or at least we can't rule it out. And ninja-ed by TJ, it's fine bhai, I've been my own bro :| Edited to add: This is true, but you also expressed an intention to save Archer: It's true you could argue you were really focused on Thaid, and at some level it's semantics, but the point I'm getting at is that you did express positivity towards Archer and wanted to kill Thaid, at least in your post. Edited to add 2: @StrikerEZ: You never addressed this. @Matrim's Dice: Thoughts on Bort and Striker now?

What JNV said. I don't say it in every game, or for every player. It's personal and I say it for them and I say it for me. I've said it in AG8 for instance, when Orlok died. Everyone else doesn't enter into it. It's a promise, and I take my promises seriously. The same for you, ThreadPMBro. And for Orlok and for TJ. It is a sacred duty >:( God, I really hope that's what he claims, because then the play is obvious; we lynch me, I flip Village, then we lynch him. Easiest, most low effort way I'd have ever helped find an Elim ...And candy and teddy bears will rain down from the skies... ...And Wyrm will return and GM a SE game or play a SE game with me again... It's never this easy is it Thanks JNV! Basically what I'm asking is: is Illwei trying to claim it's a bus to distance from one or more teammates on the Archer train? Or was she trying to redirect attention away from teammates on the CWs (does this imply the Archer train is pure? Is it? I don't know.) The point of me trying to look at what they're doing is to try to work this out. Thoughts on Elantrian for the role theory? If Elims assume there are Village roleblocks or protects out there, they have an incentive to identify and remove them, and without PMs, their main source of info would have to be docs with poor opsec or a scanner. I'm still working on identifying responses to Exp's claim to do the work. I've gotten a rough typology out, although I think some responses are odd enough I'm not sure my typology is correct. Will probably have to ask Orlok when he gets on how he does his table so I can upload that and the strip plot. The short of it is that we have one unique Elim response (Illwei's), and an extremely populated tier that likely has Elim responses bundled into Village responses (because Archer is there.) More analysis to follow once I learn how the blazes Orlok does his tables. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Devo, if only because I strongly feel that we're just going to go back and forth about her at this point and I want to stop worrying about it and just collapse the damn IKYK. No matter what shakes out, to the Elims and people who suspect me, thank you for giving me at least until Day Three alive <3 I've missed this. The experience of just chilling in a doc, and discussing and trying to solve with my bros. It's good to have them back again. The last time I experienced this was with Vulture and Ostrich in AG8, and I really, really missed this, and it's making me rediscover what I find fun about SE and what I love about it <3 I'd really prefer dying over Orlok and TJ because I know Orlok needs a fun game and I'm glad he seems to be Village and getting back into this But I'm also glad that I've gotten this chance to actually just go back into discussion mode with my bros and I have no regrets signing up for this game. Edited to add: What Devo said, but here's the longer form in our doc as Orlok and I did have an exchange about this: Let's go back to the timeline. At 0253hrs, this is the votecount announced by Ash. This votecount is mistaken, but let’s run analysis by both sets of counts. Ash’s Count: Actual Count: Important to note that on either count, Archer would know he is in the lead train or one of the lead trains. Would likely feel more pressure to self pres if he followed Ash's count, though in my view, if Devo is also Evil, then the only move for Archer working off the actual count is to go on Thaid, based off. (But then why would Devo vote Archer anyway? Why not just vote Thaid? Low-hanging fruit problem?) Next, at 0257hrs, I get over my indecision, have been typing up a post, and go. This makes the count: Ash’s Count: Actual Count: Either way, the only viable self-pres option as of my vote movement is to Thaid. The real question is whether Archer: a) anticipated Striker’s attempt, and b ) had enough time to see my shift. Because at 0258hrs, Archer posts a oneliner that shifts from Aman to Thaid to self-pres, which implies that it was written up fairly quickly, potentially in response to my post, or shortly after. @|TJ|, I know you pull timestamps with more fine-grained detail than that. Is it possible to get a comparative timestamp of my post and Archer's? If Archer's comes too close after, Archer deliberately voting Thaid becomes that much more of a possibility. Anyway: Ash’s Count: Actual Count: And then we get these results. Striker’s vote movement was explicitly intended to save Archer, but fell outside the acceptable time range. If we think Archer was aware of my shift, then Devo wasn’t an acceptable train. If Archer didn’t take note of my shift, then yes, he made a conscious choice to ML Thaid instead. But then we have to ask ourselves a further question: was Devo being framed? To which, I genuinely do not know anymore as I have gone back and forth about her.

Hi all, @Wyrmhero is miffed that he missed signing up for this game and that he can't say this, so has asked me to say it on his behalf but we'll all pretend it's actually coming from me because I'm playing this game and he isn't: "Araolis Borealis? At this time of Cycle, at this time of Day, in this forum, localised entirely within this thread?" -Wyrmimir

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Araris. Assume they went low-info this time, which is a sharp contrast to the Exp kill, though we now have a pattern: D1: Disruptor in Teo N1: Diplomat in Teo D2: Disruptor in Rose N2: Diplomat in Rose Araris just feels weird though, given the Rose roster: <Striker, Baker, Tani, Illwei, Araris> Why not Baker, if you're going low-info in Rose? Why not Sibling? Also wondering if given the Illwei bus comment, they're going for a paranoia play here, on the presumption of two+ Elims left.

Would it make you feel better if I say my V!Orlok credences are slowly climbing? Edited to add: I think Aman accepted the role point already. I also agree with Devo and have raised it previously - little reason to conserve ammo if she's an E!Monk, as there's a possibility we'd just come back to her the next day! Edited to add #2: I think I've found a tactful way to explain my V!Orlok credences beyond policy V read. If Orlok is Evil this game, this would make it his third Evil game in a row, back-to-back. I've been there for two of his, the previous two. I've seen how he operates. My sense of him right now is that he is too relaxed, engaged (though on his own terms), and sane to be Evil a third time in a row, on a team that has already had two back to back flips, comprising Archer and Illwei. I don't see it. It's possible that Orlok has developed high level skills in method acting, in which case, well-played, I guess. I'm happy to stay watchful and revise if necessary, too. The other issue is that he's been doing it in extended, live communications via doc interaction, and I'd expect it to be harder to project appearances like this, not easier. Even PMs afford some distance. Again, all my necessary disclaimers—I'm not Wilson, there are three SE players who can read Orlok easily, early, and effectively, and only one of them is still currently active in SE and that's Orlok himself. That being said, that's what my sense of him right now is, and I just thought I'd put it out here that this is what is currently informing my read. He's chill and into this, not going stark raving insane, not stressed, and I don't think he can keep this up long enough to keep on fooling me in a doc. That's really about it. Edited to add #3: FYI if this gets me killed, please do not immediately sus Orlok for this, this is too bloody predictable, and this is legit partly why I was reluctant to say it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Some kels were just meant to die.

You can wait for Orlok to answer for himself in thread, but I also pointed it out in the doc so if you don't want to wait for a response, just get in there already bhai

Trying to work out where Illwei was going with the 'Archer was bussed' claim which is probably an exercise in futility because reading posts tends to end badly for me when I don't focus on votes, but sure, lesgo, we can always try new things and fail badly at them. Illwei insists that Archer was bussed: Aman follows up on that line of inquiry to prompt for Illwei's views, and Illwei says this: Doesn't really go anywhere and she half-walks it back after more prompting from Aman, but I guess the question is: is she positioning herself to look better if an Elim on the train flips? Or is she trying to see if she can get one of the Archer voters MLed? If so, who? Because I've been redoing the vote analysis my in doc notes on a 'lazy af, not serious whatever' level, and just colouring in based on my credences, and this is what I get: Which means I'm committed to either it being a pure train, or potentially (depending on my Devo thoughts which I'm still going back and forth about, but I sort of like what Mat has to say about in doc interactions with Devo), am left with the terrifying thought of asking myself if I really want to rethink Aman or Shadow :/ Either way, I don't feel like that's an exercise I immediately want to carry out and have been looking at the other trains, but this came up to me because of the Devo problem. Was this opportunistically sensing appetite to see if she can get me MLed? I feel like it takes a brave person to want to do that for Aman because that will be a hard fight to push on the supposition that V!Aman. She would have known from my dead doc that Aman was Evil in my MR but I think relying on increased paranoia from that game is a crapshoot. No idea what her thoughts on Shadow might be. But then the other obvious question is if Illwei was trying to get Devo killed. (If so, V!Devo?) But she didn't - as far as I can see, she doesn't really want that either, because that's not where she's going. Devo was a bit of a CW and being discussed as a CW alongside Thaid, but that's not where Illwei's attention/set-up goes. Maybe she gauged there was enough Devo appetite she was hoping for a ML to go through? (It's a bit of a connection anyway, insofar as Archer potentially shielding/flagging Devo's response to Exp. Which is another distribution I should look at if I feel like it, since off the top of my head, the responses can be categorised into: [Vote], [Confusion], [Ignore] - eh I'll do it properly later I want to just post this and go get a cup of tea or a nap.) But the issue with E!Devo is...again, what role is so worth protecting that an Elim team would favour saving Devo over Archer? We're back to the theory that Archer was bussed to save Devo, with the idea being the motivating factor was that Devo had a preferred role. But then what is it? IDK why I just did this. Can someone who actually works with posts help me out here because I feel I just walked into this pit even though I knew there's a reason I don't do these things >>

I was honestly a bit disturbed by the strength of your tunnel at some points, bhai

Frankly, that and that I was hoping the PM lesson would be learned It's okay if Orlok and Aman want to sit on the thread like Evil Smaugs, guys. That's literally what you have PMs for!

And y'all thought I was being excessive by refusing to sleep due to the need to watch the PMs and @ every single player who was wavering and ask them to stay on target >> Now you can be your own MeerKas! The power is inside you all along!

Got it, yeah. Question is, I suppose, what that role would be. If she were a Dakhor, she'd just have blown the one-shot, I'd almost imagine. But what are the odds of two RBs? (I know, I know, in the current state of our ignorance, we can't speculate about distro...) Protect seems underpowered for them because if the main NKs are from Dakhors and are one-shots, then really the main utility of an Elim protect role that they'd rather preserve is to keep that WGG/WBG potential. Forger is odd given we haven't seen one used. In summation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Man, you could've said this before TJ goes and yells at me about trying to take kills for him again I assume Orlok is not the kind of bro to do that but we'll find out when he logs in, I guess. Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice 's comments have basically gotten me to figure I need to re-evaluate Devo and consider if I still suspect her. That will...really wait for after sleep. I do not trust myself in this current state to actually look at posts properly.

Gonna go out on a limb here because it sounds like we're looking for Dakhor targets. Based off the current state of my credences, if someone absolutely has to shoot someone in FRIENDS, please shoot me. I can't condone a shot on TJ based on my current thoughts, Orlok deserves to have fun in a game for once if he's Village, and it's just rude to call for an airstrike on Shadow and I v read her anyway. If shooting me helps you figure some stuff out, just go for it. I've already asked my doc mates to keep being bros and make sure each other has a fun game. You said that in doc. I actually considered that defeasible since in the DF doc, Aman mentioned he needed to mask his lack of WiM as Evil ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Edited to add: AAAAAAAAAAAAA NO WAIT PRESSURE I DON'T I DON'T TRUST MY JUDGEMENT Ok ok nevermind we have an entire doc they can do this. God. Edited to add 2: Okay, I thought I knew what this word meant since Illwei kept using it but I think I don't actually. What's equity, and why?

Bah, can't sleep. Thought I'd sleep like the dead once the GMing is over but I just feel on edge. Anyway—one per doc isn't implausible but it leaves me at an odd place because (and again, haven't caught up with EoD, not sure if Shadow or TJ did anything there as my head was largely on processing the MR at that time), my current state is that I don't actually E!read anyone in my doc at all. I do think the improved V!read on Orlok given the Illwei flip is fair, and I have moderate confidence in it, even if I don't have a tactful way of explaining it to the thread or the doc, and some of that reasoning might not be what others might go for, I guess, since it relies on character assessment. So I guess I'll just say it in my heart. I'd probably be more confident when he shows up again and says more, or revise it, but that's just how these things go. With TJ, the more I look at that doc conversation, the more I feel that it just happened very naturally/casually, as though he was reading it and really just sort of confused/missed what was going on with Exp, which makes me lean TJ. In an E!TJ world, I'd almost have to speculate he did that on purpose to mislead me, since Archer should have forewarned the team. Invite my doc mates @Orlok Tsubodai @shadow1 to comment on it, too. With Shadow, it's her voting patterns (the C1 on Archer, and talking me along.) So that's where I'm at. I'm sort of semi-committed to some strength of V read on all three of them, which means I either have to claim I'm mistaken about one of them (who?) or reject the one Elim per doc hypothesis. What's your current Shadow read, since you have play history?

You can either ask Orlok to do a Bayesian model of how much I should rationally revise or wait for me to get some sleep and get back after all night GMing Not sure how to evaluate him right now and have not caught up with EoD. Especially since I spent last cycle going to and fro on him. Everything can wait. Sleep first. Just threw out the Orlok thought as it's the first thing that clicked once I saw the flip.

Honestly, this flip increases my V!Orlok credences. The problem is that I don't really know how to explain it in a way that won't make you guys think I'm kayana :|

It's called 'open PMs' J/k

GM After-Action Report The Distro: When RNGesus gave me an Aman/Orlok/Archer team, I looked at the distro and liked it. Common SE wisdom from my time is that Orlok and Aman always check each other, therefore cannot be on the same team. This wisdom has been shattered quite a bit by the recent V!Orlok/V!Aman teams in several games (MR56, LG83), but that received wisdom still holds. I liked the idea of an Aman/Orlok team. Archer? Not so much. Here's the problem: first, at 100%, Aman and Orlok will dominate the thread. I looked at the Village roster and felt giving the Elim team Archer as well would've just screwed the Village over in the thread by substantively weakening it—in my view, Archer is a Village discussion driver and the Elim team had a substantive thread control roster. So I made the decision to swap Archer out for Araris. Araris, in my view, was a good swap. (On paper. In practice, he got C1ed, so RIP Araris.) An Aman and Orlok team is inherently volatile for several reasons that I had to factor in when modelling the distro: first, you're no longer dealing with peak Aman and peak Orlok, of the SE legendary days; second, it is in my view extremely foolish to expect both Orlok and Aman to be at 100% simultaneously (I ascribed that the lowest probability in my modelling), and you should be prepared for one of them to be low activity or MIA for part of the game; realistically, anywhere between 20% to 80% capacity, with 20% to 60% being more realistic. So as I said, that's an insane amount of volatility. Adding Araris in stabilised the team and ensured that (in theory...) no matter what, there would be one solid player on the roster, both emotionally and in terms of gameplay. Swapping Araris off the Village roster also doesn't increase Village instability, which is good—I reckoned that a strong Village roster would be needed to combat this team. Archer and two power Villager pairs in Mat/Illwei, TJ/Stick seemed good to me. And if JNV, TUN, xino and the others brought their A game, so much the better! Keeping PMs open also ensured that the Village had a way of coordinating and discussing reads even with Elim thread advantage—as much as players complain about PMs replacing the thread, it's important not to underestimate how much a PM group dedicated to truth-seeking rather than corrupted by alignment-derived motives can get work done. (Hi, KGB PM from AG8!) In that sense, even if Aman and Orlok had held the thread in a death grip, any resistance or pushback was likely to originate from PM network groups. This Elim team was short on avid PMers, unlike the Village roster. I was absolutely okay with that. Initially, I had a three member team in mind, but the moment I saw that this would be an Aman/Orlok team, I knew a fourth member was needed—either for the Fang, or because a team with Aman and Orlok will very likely need to self-cannibalise. It's important for GMs not to overestimate what strong players can do on an Elim team, so I factored that need in as well, and RNGed for the final player. This is how Bort was added to the team. My other two options from RNGesus were Mat or TJ. I rejected both of those as that disrupted the power pairs I wanted Village to have, due to their synergy in analysis. (I also thought TJ would go crazy if I made him Evil and I couldn't do that to my bro :|) Three Village Elders and one Evil Elder was just honestly a lot of trolling. As the single Elim Elder, Araris basically made all the other Elders useless. I liked the idea of three Village Elders, just enough to make the Village feel they had some leeway where MLs and NKs were concerned. The other interesting part of the distro—the fact there were zero Thugs. This was the one I went back and forth on the most. I'd run my intended distro past Wilson, El, Elan, Wyrm, and Devo. The biggest issue of dispute were how many Thugs to give the Village. Elan and I were leaning towards one, El suggested two maximum, and Wilson suggested zero. After running a number of simulations with pen and paper, I preferred zero Thugs. I felt that the team was volatile enough that the only world in which I'd prefer the Village to have more padding would be in a world where Aman and Orlok were at 100%, and that was improbable enough I wasn't going to worry too hard about it. Wilson, Orlok, and I have also learned a very harsh lesson in distro from LG20, where Maili put us all on an Elim team with Lopen and Alv, and then overstacked the Village roster with roles in order to compensate for this because (on paper) killer Elim team. I didn't want to do that. Everyone whom I ran the team past went, "Oh, crap, that's one hell of a team." I think the Village and the Elims both played very well, and I'm very proud of them I believe I was correct in assessing that the Village roster was strong enough to push back against the Elims, and it went down to the wire, which in my estimation and Wyrm's, is normally a good sign for the GM. I could say more about Wilson's more elaborate Elim team formula, but I won't. Suffice to say that while I do think basic synergy and other factors have to be calculated, and this team did surprise me by an extreme lack of synergy at points, I think this matters only when you get into the weeds of the distro, and a GM shouldn't be using that from the get-go. PMs: Everyone knows I love PMs And there's been a lot of comments about PMs detracting from thread health. Which I think is a bit extreme—really, PMs are a tool with their own purpose: for rapid-fire discussion that can choke up a thread, for players to refine thoughts without having to deal with epistemically distortive pressures from Evil players, and for pocketing, and so on. I think open PMs were really crucial for the Village at several junctures: I noticed early suspicion of Orlok and Aman being developed via PM conversations, likely because it would not have survived in a thread environment! The Elim team not having LOS into early PMs, too, proved to be a problem for them. I strongly believe that Orlok may have overestimated his Village cred and Village willingness to go for Bort due to not having PM insight—so no effective way of gauging where players' appetites really were. (But Orlok isn't by definition a PM-centric player anyway, so he gets a pass there.) Once Aman got into the game proper, the Elims began to also abuse the hell out of PMs, with Aman beginning to nudge and shift player opinions via PMs, most especially via Mat. (RIP Mat...) As Orlok mentioned in his increasingly frustrated analysis in C6, Aman can be lethal in PMs, y'all, and it was an excellent display of what a player can also do with PMs when Evil. Dragon's Fang: This mechanic didn't exist and basically had no game impact after Araris died C1, so I don't really have much comment about it. Another reason I went for the Orlok/Aman team was partly because I didn't trust them not to badly screw over an Elim team with this mechanic in the game as Villagers Perhaps the Fang will see more use on a rerun, and I have no real strong advice or thoughts because the Fang was really not a part of this game after C1. I am starting to think though that Araris's original conception of the Fang as a leg-up for a struggling Village is unnecessary in this current player group. Village analysis has been fairly strong for the last couple of games and I am beginning to feel that Elim teams might need the boost instead. Not sure. Leave it to @Araris Valerian for further Fang thoughts. Thoughts: I am beginning to think that GMs should require players to sign over their immortal souls an agreement to take care of their goddamned health instead of making their GM and IM worry for them. At points, I was starting to be concerned about how much I was concerned and how aggressive my welfare checks were. You know who you are; I won't shame you any further. Seriously bros, y'all need to take care of yourselves first >> (But I also understand as the QF59 guy...and the AG8 guy...) I do not regret how extensively I trolled my players Devo was an amazing IM. Thanks so much @Devotary of Spontaneity for all the help, advice, and keeping an eye on things. Special shoutout to @The Unknown Novel both for staying in the game, committing to read everything, and identifying Aman as an Elim before he died. That C5 post of his where he's so bloody done with everything still makes me laugh so hard. Praise the Light! Special mention also to @Orlok Tsubodai who decided that the need to atone for inactivity for understandable RL reasons meant an insane commitment to summarising everything with analysis, discovering an Aman Elim slip in the process, and then continuing to troll/openwolf via the analysis while also yelling at the Village to do better. I am extremely proud of both teams. Village analysis was on point often enough (shoutout to TJ's early Orlok paranoia, Stick for sharp analysis, Archer for some fun PM schemes, and Mat for generally legitimate suspicion of Aman), and it was a testament to Aman's skills as an Elim that they were somehow misdirected. Honestly, I was in all PMs and both admiring how Aman did it as well as legitimately confused how Mat somehow changed his mind Disagreeing with Orlok because improving your V!Orlok credences for voting out an Elim isn't the problem, as long as you sufficiently revise. Hardclearing him (or Aman) for it is the problem. Please revise your credences, guys :joy: Araris's RNGesus streak continues to both impress and disturb me. Three write-ups done. Several kayana players, who are both amazing and need to take care of themselves more, but who are no longer my problem. And now I have peace. Praise the Light. Edited to add: @Araris Valerian - Specifically, Orlok was intending to use the Fang to play mindgames with the Village. I think that would have been interesting if he and Aman had been in better shape, but that wasn't the world your team dealt with, unfortunately. Distancing would have been pretty important either way, so that was a factor in the distro I went for. Ultimately, I'm still of the view that the Fang is better used in a game with a strong Elim team, but also, that it might be time to look at Village-side limiters rather than Elim-side.