Kasimir

Sigh. Forgive me fellow Empire guys, but you guys aren't answering my questions, so I guess I'm just going to make the executive decision and do it. Please forgive me if y'all don't approve of this decision but y'all are ignoring me so I just have to do as I see fit right now. Yes, I am, but Shadow just showed up to say she was busy IRL, I reassured her that was okay because RL >>> games. So that doesn't work out. However, Shadow never at any point mentioned her gender - I read it off your post (the one I linked.) Edited to add: I was supposed to have a quiet, chill RPful game.... .___. I feel you bro. Edited to add 2: If this is a good time to Empire claim, I'm the Aan'allein representing Malkier.

I pay attention. Do you not? Edited to add: Interested in hearing from @Amanuensis about this one - but this point in particular I don't find suspicious. Knowing what I do of Aman's PM policy, I am not surprised. I'm just also going to say straight up that this has been my operative approach to my doc - I am not pro info-sharing within the doc and will heavily judge anyone who tries to roleclaim, but am acting on the operative assumption that everyone in there is a Villager. Rationally, this is very likely false, but I prefer wary cooperation/discussion, and trust myself to sufficiently revise my credences given time and data. I'm also motivated to avoid a second Urbain Inquisition within my Empire, due to how negative that experience was for Ren, Gamma, and myself. I don't regard that point in particular as damning but an issue of approach to the game.

Clear Eiwlil erasure there!

Thanks, but I'm retired Also, filthy casual with temper issues who can't be Evil to save his life, and my sanity would much prefer I stay far, far away from such situations Appreciate the thought, and the kindness, but nomination rejected with zero hesitation, as anticipated

You can just say you're that one Teoish who voted against transparency, you know

I really dislike this and it's tripping red flags for me. Bort could've been playing up unfamiliarity with the current meta in MR57: But I'm aware that he did display some unfamiliarity with more recently adopted terminology, such as PoE and thunderdome (which interestingly enough, shows up in LG74 and LG75, so right around the same period. Here's a sample: Honestly, thunderdome appears way too often in LG75, I'm not even gonna bother beyond this point >> It's not implausible that someone in Bort's Empire doc brought it up, and/or that Bort did a search into Araris's play history, in which case, good job for the effort. But given that as far as I'm aware, Bort was not active in 2021 SE and his return to activity only came this year in LG83 (welcome back, once again! ), I'm finding it strange that Bort pulls this game out casually, and I'm wondering if it's the sort of thing an Evil doc mate might point out. (Because why wouldn't an Empire mate just intervene or say this?) FWIW, I'm not really fond of the argument either, because I think it greatly ignores context. Bort is @ing Araris for challenging D1 pokevotes in a game not particularly plagued by inactivity by citing D3 in a game with inactivity in which Araris does in fact have to threaten voting, and is planning on going CC, which is a whole different ballpark from raw poke-voting. For context for those who lack it, early 2021 in particular involved a number of times where players had to fish for low activity Elims and CC was the main way to do it. [Edited to add: IMO, LG73 is the classic case: TUA and Lotus and Connie weren't completely inactive but you just had to grit your teeth and commit to the low activity train.] I don't want to rehash CC arguments so I'm just going to summarise my views - CC generally doesn't work, and requires very specific conditions for it to be helpful. It doesn't work on true inactives and relies on the thought that you can go fishing for Elim lurkers, or at least bait their teammates out into a defense. Often, CC, especially combined with poke voting, is an excellent way to appear involved and engaged without having to actually do analytical work, and therefore I am in fact at least a bit suspicious of players engaging in CC without paying attention to the conditions. I'm seriously tempted to just swap to Bort now.

Here's the current state of my thoughts. It still looks more like bait to me. I'm not ruling out that Exp is more in the vein of MR56 E!Archer, but from the looks of it, I still regard Devo's response as being so textbook and rigid that I'm almost inclined to wonder if this is a failed projection from E!Devo of what a Villager would do in response to an RP Elim claim. I still think that the precedent of such claims in this context, and the history of players wanting in particular to do such things with RP should give anyone pause, particularly when a player with Exp's profile does such a thing. And like, suppose as Devo thinks that it's some kind of E!Exp gambit. I don't see this really winning hardcore trust - at least not from me. He just gets a squint and an annoyed grunt while I move on. So what's it supposed to be then? What's the point of it, from E!Exp's perspective? Part of me feels like I'm smacking down a wth vote on Devo. But I admit her vote just doesn't feel right to me, and this is the best sense I can make of why I dislike it. I'm just going to leave my thoughts here for comments, help, and move on. @Experience - Other question for you: why single out Striker for his vote, and not Araris, who threw down the first naked vote on Devo, given in particular your history of gut paranoia on Araris?

So you presumably claim you are withholding reason for a reason, yet this is unacceptable from others? I too, would like to know both why Striker is voting (I suspect it's his thing about ties), and why you are doing what you do, but the inherent double standards here does beggar belief.

Coming from the guy who decided to drop Elim RP without comment, I think you should take a moment to reflect on your own actions

Are you trying to kill her or get her to post? Edited to add: Weak negative gut on Bort, have already joined on Devo, would probably favour Devo to Bort, but just thought I'd say.

Illwei's done it before pre-AG8 was my point, so that wasn't just dissatisfaction. Exp I've filed in my head as a high chaos player with a high risk threshold, and so I don't consider it terribly odd for that sort of player. I don't even know if it's a IKYK as I've directly heard from players before that they're tempted to RP as an Elim without actually being Evil. Xino sure tried to do that, despite also having failed to successfully convert in LG79. Your vote is causing me to squint more in this context. I'm satisfied with where things are at this point in time.

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Cycle Five: The Gardener's Choice Three years ago, Daian went to Eaton Strikk about the matter of a weed. To be exact, a flowering thorn had taken root in his garden, strangling his vegetables, and choking them. He couldn’t exactly work out where it’d come from, but focused on the problem at hand. The flowers were lovely: violet, with a soft fragrance that reminded him of the air after a storm. But the thorns were choking his plants, and he couldn’t have that. Three years ago, no one accused Eaton Strikk of being a Darkfriend. Everyone knew that if you wanted your garden to flourish, you talked to Dagr, and if Dagr wasn’t in a talking mood, there was always Eaton Strikk. Strikk listened, and went over to Daian’s garden where he bent over and inspected the thorn, and then pulled on thick gloves, the sort you used for gardening. “Do I uproot it then?” Daian asked. The flowers were beautiful, and so was the scent. But he was torn deeply between the scent of rain, and the need to ensure his vegetables survived. “You make the gardener’s choice,” Strikk said, shortly, cupping the plant in his callused hands. Moments before he dug into the soil, examining how deep the roots go with his knife. “Which is a flower? Which is a weed?” Daian understood: what was to be valued, and what was to be eradicated without mercy. You killed the weeds, because they killed what was to be valued. What mattered in this world. These things, Daian thought, were not written into the world, not the same way that sunlight was good, and the clear taste of water down a parched throat was good, and the sharp sting of burns from the cook-fire was bad. When Rambler and Lin Mindrigurin and Jóhannsson and Xin dragged each other before Mayor Wilsa, shouting accusations, demanding judgement, and they looked at him, and Mayor Wilsa wanted to know what he thought, Daian looked back at them, lost. He tried. He really did. But these things are not written into the world. The hearts of men are not sunlight, are not well water, are not cook-fire burns, are not the sting of nettles. And Daian, for all of his faults, has been little more than a gardener. While he had participated in the hunt for the Darkfriends, it had been more out of a sense of obligation than a capacity to find evil hidden in the hearts of fellow villagers, some of whom had lived in Helgen for years and years. “I think Lin Mindrigurin is suspicious,” he replied. For no particular reason that that Rambler had taken to asserting furiously that Lin had truck with the Shadow, to which Lin had replied that he had fought on the Blightborder while Rambler had hidden away in Helgen. Surely someone who had fought on the Blightborder and walked away was the sort of person who might broker deals with the Shadow, might slowly defect to what he had once fought. But then there was Xin. Xin, who as Lin Mindrigurin had pointed out, had accused Stieg, and seemed hellbent on damning Jóhannsson as a Darkfriend next. Was Jóhannsson a Darkfriend? Daian didn’t know. The thought of the sort of man who made music being a laughing servant of the Shadow sat ill with him. The gardener’s choice, he thought. You just decided, which was the weed. And then you moved on with your life. “I think it’s Xin,” he said. “Lin…He doesn’t seem that sort. He just doesn’t.” Weak, even to him, but Mayor Wilsa nodded gravely, as though he had pronounced judgement. It wasn’t judgement, though. Not quite. The others were still accusing each other; Kai was accusing Xin, while Lin had decided that Lorum Ipsum, who had largely kept to himself since the discovery of Gamen’s death, was more suspicious than Xin. He was just one voice, after all. Still, thought Daian, as he walked home to his garden, home to his world of vegetables and flowers and weeds, he had made his choice. Someone else had made a different choice. Silently, so silently that Daian hadn’t heard, a shadow padded after him. A garotte looped about his throat all of a sudden and then drew tighter, and tighter, unyielding, no matter how Daian choked and struggled and gasped for air. Eventually, Daian stopped struggling. We are all weeds, in someone else’s eyes. Edler limped into the Tree, with Gaeta supporting him, and looking up from the counter, Wyden blinked. “Light’s mercy, man,” he murmured. “You look like you fought a warband of Trollocs in the Blight.” Blood stained his bandages. “I feel like it,” Edler muttered. “He’ll need food,” Gaeta said matter-of-factly. “Healing exhausts the patient.” She helped Edler to the stairs, clearly intending to return to their rooms. “But…where did you get injured?” Wyden managed, confused. He supposed there was a stew he had heating at the fire that he could bring up to them. “I told you,” said Edler. “The Shadow is at work in this town.” “Gaidin,” snapped Gaeta, in exasperation, her words as unforgiving as the mule driver’s stick. Edler looked at her. “His arms. His wrists. The scars. I noticed them the other day. They’re harder to make out within the inn, but then he was by the stables while everyone was talking about the gambler’s death, and I saw them for the first time.” Gaeta’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sure?” She turned to Wyden. “Show me,” she said, imperiously. “What does that have to do with anything?” Wyden objected. “Show her,” Edler prompted. “No,” Wyden said, shaking his head. No. Not again. Blood and bloody ashes, not again. Not another Aes Sedai. Part of his mind was retreating to the cellar, to the rack of thorns, to the Embrace of Pain, the weave that Edler had named proscribed. Forbidden. He couldn’t trust them. Couldn’t bring himself to. And yet there was Edler. There was the conversation of the sword. Cool fingers grasped at his wrist, turned it over, and Wyden lashed out, but Edler was there, holding him firmly by the shoulders. “Peace, innkeeper,” he said. “She needs to see this.” “She doesn’t need to,” Wyden snapped. They were his scars, his past, and all he could see in that moment was the gloom of the cellar, the glint of the Great Serpent ring on the channeller’s finger, and her ageless face, smiling as the thorns dug through his flesh. “She does,” Edler said, grimly. “I told you that no Aes Sedai would. That it was the work of a channeller who serves the Shadow.” Wyden looked at him. “I told you,” Edler growled, but this time, his gaze was on Gaeta, as though there was a quiet conversation that Wyden was not privy to. “There is a Dreadlord in Helgen.” “Dreadlord?” Wyden asked. “Channeller sworn to the Shadow,” Edler said, flatly, distaste lacing his words. “Or Black Ajah. Take your pick. The Aes Sedai all say there is no Black Ajah, but I think we’re past the point of raw denial.” He looked over at Wyden, with the air of a man revisiting an old argument. “Fell things happen on the Blightborder. A forbidden weave being used to kill a man doesn’t count. What sort of threat could that gambler have posed that a true Aes Sedai would feel compelled to kill him in that way?” “We knew this already,” Gaeta stated. “The Gateways. The residue from the weaves. There is something very, very wrong buried within this village, and the Shadow has its thumb on the pulse of it.” She released her grip on his wrist. For a moment, he thought he could see her gaze was troubled, before her expression assumed Aes Sedai calm, like a still lake on a moonless night. “The scars are distinctive,” she said, quietly. And to Edler, “If you were any other man, if this were any other day…” said Gaeta, at last. “I would have struck you for this.” She looked troubled. “The White Tower’s official position is that the Black Ajah does not exist. If I had not seen with my own eyes that this gambler had been killed in this same manner…” “If it quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, what else can it be?” Edler challenged her. The corners of her mouth slanted in a smile. “So be it. Highly improbable for a wilder to have discovered the Embrace of Pain on her own. So whoever our Dreadlord is, she was taught.” “What does that have to do with me?” Wyden snapped. Edler said, “Where did you get those scars?” A single moment can change the course of a life. In the stories, Waes Starsworn’s life changed for the first time when he loosed the fatal arrow that slew a king. In the stories, a fateful meeting at a fountain, for instance, or in the plazas of Tar Valon or the manors of Cairhien could alter the course of a life forever. It was not a moment that changed the course of Wyden’s, but a span of time—he was never quite sure how long it was; pain seemed to change the way you measured time. Always the same thing, as the thorns dug into his flesh, writhed beneath his skin, crept along his arms, growing ever so slowly towards his throat and eyes. Shift schedules. Passphrases. He resisted at first. Fought it, held off the pain with stubborn steel. But even bright steel was dulled by rust. He accepted the pain then, fed it steadily into the flame and the void, felt it leave him. There was pain. And then there was the oneness. But the pain grew and grew, twisting deep into his flesh, until he screamed and screamed and then there was no oneness, only him, only Wyden, only suffering. He leaned into the pain, then. Let it blossom in his mind. If it hurt enough, he would scream everything and anything. He couldn’t break. He had to hold. In the end, he didn’t. Shift schedules. Passphrases. Even the Fade, gliding past him, hidden somehow from their sight as he mumbled beautiful lies and the soldiers at the guard post believed him, even when the shreds of his decency screamed for him to stop, to warn them, to take it all back. The thorns stopped him. They always did. Everyone has a breaking point. And Wyden had found his. “An Aes Sedai of the Black Ajah,” Gaeta spat, as though the words pained her to utter them. “Could she have taught our Dreadlord, I wonder?” She said, almost to herself. “Surely I would know if there was Black Ajah activity here, of all places.” “She said I was lucky,” Wyden whispered, and watched as both Gaeta and Edler started. “Survived a fight that should’ve killed me. Six men, without injury. The sort of thing you only hear in gleeman’s tales.” Edler said, “One man does not fight six without injury.” “I know.” “Lucky, always lucky…” Gaeta said aloud, strumming her fingers against the counter. “There is some connection there, I know it. But what?” The last of the votes were cast and Mayor Wilsa looked up from counting the last wooden token in the cup, her eyes hard. She’d seen enough winters, as mayor, though she wore her age only lightly. “Xin,” she said, and the words came out as iron. “You are charged by your fellow villagers with conspiracy with the Shadow.” Xin bore the news with stoic indifference. “I’m no Darkfriend,” he said. He looked around the room. “I don’t think Lan is either, but I’m not sure about the rest of you. I know it doesn’t matter to most of you that I’m innocent. But if you keep on rooting out those of us who have been in Helgen for years, then you’re going to fall to the Shadow. And maybe that’s what the Shadow wants.” For a moment, a single, hopeful moment, Xin thought that the others gathered might listen to him. He thought that Rambler was frowning, that Kai kept their own counsel, but maybe Kai would take his words to heart, that Jóhannsson, if he was true, if he was of the Light even though Xin feared otherwise, would listen, would relent, would turn aside from that course of action. “No,” said Lin Mindrigurin. “No.” The moment shattered, like thin ice in the washbasin in the heart of winter. “This man is innocent,” Lin said. “I don’t believe it. How can you live with yourselves, listening to him, and damning him to death?” His pale eyes raked across the room. “Lorum Ipsum. You orchestrated this, didn’t you? You and your fellow Darkfriends—” “Enough,” said Mayor Wilsa, and her words cut through the furious clamour that had once again erupted in the room. “Enough!” Silence fell. “Xin, Elder of Helgen,” she said, her words leaden with formality and finality. “You have been charged of conspiracy with the Shadow. You are sentenced to death.” “He’s innocent!” Lin snapped. “Do your duty,” Mayor Wilsa said. Lin met her eyes. At last, he sighed, and bowed his head. “Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain,” he murmured, regretfully. The old Borderlander saying, come home to roost. Xin was bound, and taken to Brosca’s Point. He did not fight it. What was the use? A shape, falling. Dwarfed by the immensity of stone and sky. Blood on stones. The harsh cry of ravens at dusk, as the fog crept into Helgen once again. More blood, to buy another sunrise. There was always a sacrifice. We always make choices. xinoehp512/Xin was executed! He was a Village Elder! Thaidakar the Ghostblood/Daian was killed! He was a Villager! Cr: @Experience, as promised: The cycle has begun, and will end on 5th April, 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! Please be reminded not to post in this thread until I've reserved the second post for the player list and rule clarifications, thank you! @Orlok Tsubodai has failed to post for one cycle. Please be reminded that failure to post for this subsequent cycle will get you filter-killed or replaced.

*coughs in Gears* *coughs in some players like kayana RP* *coughs in Illwei* *coughs in Salmon Meerkat*

The cycle is now closed.

I genuinely don't think it's pure RNG. RNG results still have to be fundamentally allowed or annulled by a GM, unless you're someone like Gamma who has an utterly insane commitment to RNGesus. The point is, let's flip this around. From a GMing perspective, one Elim per doc is great - it ensures that no doc is able to coordinate in secret without Elim infiltration. Call this world [EVEN DISTRO.] But there's also something great about one or two uninfiltrated docs: first, the Villagers in those docs will paranoid on each other because they don't know that they are uncompromised, and the Elims have to deal with fog-of-war: knowing they lack LoS into that doc(s). Call this world [UNEVEN PARANOIA.] For Ash's purposes, it suffices that we don't know which world we're in: so on the first level, we can't take having IDed an Elim in a doc as a clear (I guess you could try to do a Bayesian model of how that should affect your Village credences in your other docmates given the Elim execution, and then do it per world assumption but that feels like more work that I want to put in today so @Orlok Tsubodai - thoughts, bro?) And moreover, we don't know which doc within the world we're in (even if we're in some version of [UNEVEN PARANOIA], we don't know if we are the clear doc, or the doc with one or two Elims...) In the dark fog of our current ignorance, we simply do not have enough information to say prima facie which world we are in, or to make further distro inferences and I'm not inclined to further engage with this other than to keep my possibilities open and to point out that since Empire affiliation is announced for the deceased, each exe and NK will help us better narrow down on the world and distro we inhabit. We should be able to say something a bit less tenuous by C3. Okay, I'm actually impressed that you did this - thanks for the data! Bro. This is not a faction game. Are you flippin' serious?

Can live with that - main question in my head is if you intend to intervene if a strong (or moderately strong, for a given threshold I suppose) actual Village read of yours looks like they're going to be MLed? Am aware of what you are doing and why, but am interested into the extent you're committing to this and your internal calculus right now. There's a fun video with it I've dumped in my doc! But IDK if it's SFS (Safe For Shard) because YouTube and someone swore in one of the video comments even though it's frickin' awesome >> Thaid Devo Edited to add: @little wilson was justified, #changemyview

Actually rolling into this game I had two plans: first, I was gonna RP a rather depressing and philosophical arc for Kesan Acheris about an overachieving minor diplomat rethinking his life and writing letters to time, love, and death. Culled a bunch of quotes for that too, like "Time is a game played beautifully by children," and "Time is the fire in which we burn." Then, the playstyle experiment was gonna be me emulating Araris's playstyle and both of these plans kinda got shot to hell by Happy, Skippy, Hyper Kas showin' up so WHATEVER WE GONNA IMPROVISE WHO NEEDS A PLAN ANYWAY AMIRITE OR AMIRITE >:D Ideally some sleep was supposed to bring sober Kas back so I can type in the doc and thread without scaring people/having any Evil infiltrators or the GMs go, "Bloody hell, Kas is so hyper this is DISTURBING soMeBoDY DO SOMETHING!" but I guess that's not gonna be happening >> ILU TOO YOU'RE AMAZING YOU DO YOU JNV my docs are fancy indeed i am fancypants HEAR ME RAWR u r cool too and the nap helped I am less hyper now I swear looking forward to seeing your empire doc after the game! and everyone's! but right here right now LET'S HAVE A GOOD TIME EVERYONE!!! 4 Elims sounds about right to me, with potential modulations depending on how troll Ash/El/Xino plan to be. Don't believe we have sufficient sight of the distro just yet. Think the question of the degree to which docs have been compromised is an open one, dependent on how the GMs set up the docs to begin with. Wyrm basically had one or two uncompromised docs IIRC in LG7 - those were the Houses that got hit the hardest (Araris can correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember Seeris and Elariel being especially untouched by the kill.) Of course, now that I've said it, maybe they'll play mindgames with us with the NK. Who knows, not my problem right now! In LG50, he changed tack because he's an old troll: Houses are basically the same as Empire docs, here, FWIW. Orlok and Araris should especially remember this as they were the Village powerhouses that game and I remember it because Wyrm was commenting on it/them to me every single day >> On the Empire numbers issue - and really, anything about my Empire, I'm leaving it to internal discussion before acting unilaterally. I have made my views clear but also don't really feel right making a decision for them without prior consultation, so that's just how it's going to be. But given that we have been told there are four Empires and there are eighteen players, and Aman has claimed 5 players in his doc, I think the two main possibilities are: A: 4-4-5-5 B: 3-4-6-5 There are slightly more kayana possibilities, which I've ruled out. B is if the GMs want to be a bit more tricky; personally I'd lean much more towards A, as I think they'd want to spread the discussion groups out as evenly as possible (hence four out of six Empires.) My thoughts so far on what I'm seeing (a bit rushed as I have AoE2 session with Wyrm in a couple minutes but he has graciously given me time to post this if I promise to praise him and advertise LG50): Feel the dispute over extent of doc compromise is moot right now; we can't assume and we don't have enough distro info to work on. Distro assumptions should not override analysis - this is how Beagles bite your face off. On one hand; slightly positive gut on Aman from extrapolation, on the other hand, unnerved by how fast that reads list came out - would like to know reasons for <Exp/Kas/Thaid> reads if possible. DOn'T STOP ME NOW 'CAUSE I"M HAVIN' A GOOD TIME ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Why would you know any better, sule? Ilu too bro <3 <3 <3 I'm just getting brekkie then YEAH SLEEP TIME SLEEP IS GOOD HELL YEAH

hi guys ilu all the world is wonderful everything is wonderful and beautiful God is good ilu all will reply mat when i have slept on it but essentially, still fundamentally disagree and ascribe low probability to such slips, think it's helpful because people will be basing reads off doc interactions as well so it will come out eventually anyway doc is beautiful now i have prettified it all is well wishing you best energy and much love GOD IS GOOD THERE IS A GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'M SO HAPPY EVERYTHING IS OKAY LESGO

If we don't know what we don't know, how do we know if someone does know more than they should know?

Don't worry Archer, if you don't get the joke, you're not the one it was meant for I'm pro-claiming, for what it's worth. Agree with your line of thought there. Edited to add: :eyes: I am the Last Son of House Urbain, and I welcome you to our ranks

You mean we should reach out across faction lines: Glory, Moderation, and Heritage Factions all and unite and bring the wrath of the Village down on the Discovery Faction? Because I absolutely agree with @Orlok Tsubodai - they have an absolute informational advantage on us, and we should target them first. :eyes: #changemyview

RIP anyone viewing this game on data ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Would like to see who'd try lying about it when their Empire-mates and the other Empire can call them on it Not that opportunity for deception doesn't exist, but eh. Thaid.