Kasimir

Talbot Oswin was a man who didn’t have enemies. Of course, you might say, that’s ridiculous. Everyone has enemies. Even worse, some of us have friends. (You laugh at that, now. But the worst enemy is a friend, the close sort. The sort that keeps closer to you than your own shadow. Easiest to hurt that which is dearest to you, that which knows you best. Best keep an eye out for knives in your own back.) But listen. Talbot Oswin didn’t have enemies. Not the former flame, no; they’d met before, and their paths had crossed for a little while before they parted again. No resentment, no bitterness there, surely, nothing left unfinished. Surely not the university chum, in those days of wild abandon, when they caroused and skipped classes to go entertain themselves in the tradition of the young. After all, Talbot Oswin was a Heron, on his ma’s side, and as loaded as they come. Old blood, and old money there, the Herons. In Tremredare in the West, during the days of the Old Empire, it’s said you can’t stumble upon a plot or a business venture that doesn’t trace back to the Herons one way or another. Plenty of amusements you can buy in Elendel, if you’re a young, hotblooded noble, and there was never a vice Talbot Oswin hadn’t tried. Not from fellow nobles either; surely no one at all resented the Oswin marriage to Thekla Heron. A cadet branch of the Herons, all things considered—the Oswins were really nowhere near important enough otherwise. Yet the Oswins moved up in the world with Thekla’s marriage...too quickly, you might think? Quickly enough to ruffle feathers, even? There was no reason for anyone at all to resent or dislike Talbot Oswin. After all, it’s hard to be disliked or hated when you have all the wealth in Bilming and absolutely no compunctions about lavishing it on your companions. And Talbot Oswin was far too focused on his own pleasurable pursuits to really bother with vendettas or feuds, or anything of that sort. Take it from someone who knows, though: someday, your crows come back to roost. So: Talbot Oswin. He had enemies, of course. He just didn’t keep track of them. He never had the energy or time to consider anyone an enemy. But could Talbot Oswin, in his own careless, intensely selfish way have any real enemies, anyone with a grudge burning inside of them, anyone who hated enough to kill? Well. You’ll have to tell me about that. But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren't I? We haven’t come to the deaths yet, or to the corpse. Talbot Oswin, his throat cut like a pig before the butcher’s knife. Or the guests. Let’s start again from the beginning, shall we? It’s a beautiful day, on the outskirts of Bilming, at a manor overlooking the Sea of Yomend. Picture blue skies, with barely any wisp of cloud at all. Picture a gentle sea breeze stirring the flowers. Breezehome, the Oswins call the manor. A summer home, and a place of carefree play. No wonder Talbot Oswin all but took up residence there, in his final months. Talbot Oswin is sitting in his study and writing letters, one after another. Invitations, most of them, in his sloppy calligraphy, because learning to write a decent copperplate or spencerian is too much work for Talbot, and the Survivor defend him from having to learn to print legibly! The letters, ink-blotted and stained and sometimes indecipherable, one after another, will be conveyed on a silver tray to his secretary, the esteemable if intimidating Miss Priscilla, who will in turn be tasked with turning the tortured scraps of card into aesthetically pleasing invitations. Sometimes, she adds flourishes of her own, for authenticity. Talbot Oswin approves, of course. All the less work for him. It’s a beautiful day, on the outskirts of Bilming, and Talbot Oswin is making plans for a party. A grand party; the lavish, sprawling sort you normally see in Elendel. He scrawls invitation after invitation, sometimes adding names from name cards he barely recalls receiving at some function or other. Perhaps an Elendel ball. Perhaps a weekend in Tathingdwel, with an optional hunting excursion. Perhaps a house party in Wyllion, with a detour to the Sea of Yomend for a boating trip. Talbot Oswin is sparing no expense. Since when has he? The remedied invitations leave the Oswin manor, Breezehome, travelling on by the railway and courier post. And that’s where you come in. MR43: Death Comes As The End (aka a Scadrian murderparty) “Life was not a matter of safety — it must be hazarded to win the game.” —Death Comes As The End, Agatha Christie To tell you the truth, I should’ve never accepted the invitation. And neither should you. Bit too late for that now, though. If House Oswin had gathered and collectively decided to produce the greatest waste of space, the most useless person ever since the Catacendre—then they couldn’t really have done any worse than Talbot Oswin. Talbot Oswin; flirt, rake, dabbler, wastrel. Throws the best parties, though. Guess it must be nice to never run out of Mam’s cash. Mam was a Heron, see. Born rolling in the money, as they say. ‘Course, all of that’s besides the point. Talbot Oswin now, he’s dead. Never thought a berk could bleed out that much. The more you know. Shame about the carpet though. And the wine. Thing is, someone iced Talbot Oswin. And with the manor locked tighter than a gixie’s purse, we’re shut in here with them as did it. You’d best be finding them soon, Chief. ‘Cause Talbot Oswin? He didn’t just fall onto a knife now, did he? He was helped. Takes a certain coldness to cut a man’s throat as he’s lying there, helpless, like a trussed pig. That sort of scum? They’re as like to strike again. General Rules: Win Conditions: The Manor: Roles: Sign-ups have opened and will remain open until 5th July, 2200hrs, GMT+8. (Same as any normal rollover for this game.) The IM for this game will be @Fifth Scholar. As indicated in the rules, I'd like to draw your attention to two other things: 1. The current win-con requires the Killers to lynch the Secretary. They may choose to do so by outnumbering the guests. They may not. (This is under discussion and if there is a change, I will inform you all before the game starts, and once again on C1.) 2. This is a partial blackout game, though you really don't have to be Hercule Poirot to figure out what's going on underneath the hood. But again, I make no promises whether this is balanced because RNGesus sometimes desires sorrow and suffering. Play at your own risk. 3. The third thing, because I apparently have a worse memory than the Spanish Inquisition - sign-up RP is fine, but please don't RP yourselves at the party yet, as the party hasn't started Thank you! Quicklinks

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to withdraw - a text from work just came through and the next few weeks are gonna be more coarse and rough and irritating than Anakin's line about sand. I was looking forward to this game too :/ But I don't think I can juggle my commitments and GM and play a game at the same time, however low-commitment I intend to be. So I guess Kamemesir will return some other game. Cheers and have fun:

Alles klar...

Busybusybusy irl because pandemic worklife balance does not exist, and I'm GMing, so yeah, I am gonna play it this way. Minimally active, et al. Sorry not sorry. Kamemesir signing up with less personality than a piece of squashed toilet roll cardboard (yep, been hoarding those.) Just to be explicit (I trust y'all not gonna make me have to say this out loud again) : Anything in this game from me is gonna be a meme under a spoiler tag. Don't open it if you're saving bandwidth.

Yes, you should enjoy your birthday. Sorry to hear, hope things clear up in your favour!

D'oh. Sorry, I think you've clarified it before Lower taxes on Breath Sales – Kindsmile [X] For [X] Abstain [X] Against I am actually going back and forth on this one. I feel this one is especially a position Songbearer could ethically be comfortable with, depending on our various assumptions. In interests of a simple majority though, and by metagaming Kindsmile...yeah. Against. Let's bite the bullet and make it clear who we stand with before we indicate opportunity. Create an insurance system for Dockworkers – Songbearer [X] For [X] Abstain [X] Against It would be very trollish to introduce our proposal then vote against it But okay, yes, voting for.

It seems to me that you're suggesting we could be wrong in our read of the room But let's put that aside for the moment. I'm just really asking about what happens in Council if we abstain and the vote splits 50-50. A) What are the likely ways in which people might respond to that, including Kindsmile, and B ) Practically-speaking, what happens to a vote that is split 50-50? Does the proposal pass or does it not?

Oooh. I like Coinspender more and more - I'd say a likeable barve, at any rate. Which is a fun way to see the character. I wonder about wrangling him with Firesoul, but we're just not that good at playing the game just yet. I also like your Susebron. I find him believable given canon parameters plus whatever position he was in by the end of Warbreaker. @Wyrmhero- a question while I consider our move. What impact would abstaining have, both practically on the votes, as well as in the eyes of the bloc? (I'm thinking we can try to weasel out a bit by saying we're not comfortable making a decision on the issue with the current information, potentially, but of course I bet we'd need charm to sell it. Then again, we have a reputation as a bookish lad...) To be clear, I'm asking specifically about Kindsmile's.

Aight, then add my vote to [X] Find out where the other gods stand on the other two proposals

Cheers, good to know! I'm happy to do that, my only concern is if we're splitting our actions too thin. ( @Wyrmhero, any possibility you could comment on that? Are we asking to do too much at once?) I think we could ask Hera eventually but the issue is we only have one action for the next cycle. I do agree with you the box should wait, though!

Oof. Haven't been here for a bit - RL's been more of a pain than I expected, but I'm enjoying the thickening plot here I feel like we have two options and I'll vote on it later: 1. We can go canvass another likely ally - try to get more support for our proposal. [On this front: @Wyrmhero, do we also have a stats gain if we fail a challenge, or do we gain if we pass a challenge or...? I'm just trying to understand what our Charm currently is and how we can improve it beyond Augury boosts.] 2. We can also try to find out more about the mysterious box we are supposed to have, potentially by asking our priests. While I'm inclined towards #2, it feels irresponsible to go haring off after the box and abandon our proposal Also, 3. We could perhaps get a sense of where the other gods stand on the other two proposals. We don't want to offend an ally we've just solicited to vote on ours, potentially.

Mm. I don't like intervening in these debates outside a philosophy classroom for many reasons that I've mentioned previously in the Discord and various docs That being said, one thing I'd point out that tends to be (but is not always so) at stake in free will debates is moral responsibility. That is to say, we don't seem to think that people could be morally responsible for their actions if they lack free will. (This likely stems from the same intuition as "if I take your money from you and donate it to charity on your behalf, you certainly shouldn't be morally credited with donating to charity.") I'll note that the classical argument we give students in Philosophy #101 is actually a dilemma argument: that is to say, whether the world is deterministic or truly random, we lack free will. Contextualised within such a maneuver, the true randomness v. effective randomness distinction in effect does become toothless - but it becomes toothless because it can't salvage free will! Either way, the disturbing problem with effective randomness is just that it's not clear that free will resulting from effective randomness is any kind of thing that can result in moral responsibility. And if it can't, then the question is: sure, we've salvaged a model of free will, but at what cost? Have we simply thrown the baby out for the sake of the bathwater? One final note is that the argument from neurology is not taken to be especially convincing at the entry level because it relies on certain problematic premises. Tim Lewens' The Meaning of Science is a great look into the limitations of the argument, though I believe Lisa Bortolotti has also written on the matter in her introductory textbook to the philosophy of science. (Of course, once we get into the actual cutting edge research, that's a different story.) Anyway, I'm not going to further engage with this topic for my own sake No one @ me please. Thanks!

Oooh! What is your favourite nib size, then?

Spec doc, por favor.

Actually, not really. If Striker flipped Good, I would have read you as attempting to bluff me off the Striker vote, so I'd have been suspicious - just not suspicious/paranoid enough to flip the table and to try to get voted in >>;; The issue/context I think is that Striker was unanimously (at least among those I talked to) considered Village, so any resistance there wouldn't have seemed quite right to me. Of course, you could try to press me on the issue by reminding me that I had questioned the Rath lynch too, which I think might have made me hesitate, but ultimately I'm not sure how much ground I would have given there, since Striker had a better voting pattern than Rath did. I think for me, on that penultimate cycle, the real question was me wasn't if you were evil - your voting pattern and what Fifth was doing stood out so much to me it'd have taken a lot more to shift me to someone else. The real question in my mind was what you were trying to do by bringing the Striker thing up, and what Fifth was trying to do by asking us to talk about the semi-actives (I didn't communicate this well either, but my guess was either an attempt to smuggle a semi-active Eliminator into the lynch, or to force a hurried ill-considered "oh well we talked about the semi-actives and focused on them but sorry we gotta vote actives anyway so let's just throw hasty votes" situation.) Anyway, thanks for GMing El, and I definitely hope to see this format return, as it's more Avalon than my Avalon game I myself have some ideas for this, if time permits in the future.

Cheers, Chief, all the best with the move! Looking to getting a few other votes/perspectives in this game, meanwhile! But okay: to clarify - when I say visit the Thief, I don't mean visit and leave, I mean let's try to find out what the heck they were doing and so on

Good game to the Eliminators and Village Looks like inactivity was the bane (foe-hammer?) of both sides, though it's never quite that easy to balance for it beyond certain measures. Great write-up, El - I loved the anti-climatic ending, and Rath, the first Villager on the Fellowship, grabbing the Ring and saving everyone is hilariously brilliant With the Corrupted arriving late to the scene. I probably have had some strategic thoughts here and there/comments, but I think I've inflicted them enough on El and the spec doc by now Special thanks goes to @Fifth Scholar - I had rethought my position on PMs but he definitely persuaded me during Elan's MR to make better use of them, and I think I saw some of it in action across both iterations of El's MR, in terms of gaining trusts, and collecting information and just data for me to analyse and work out my suspicions. I do think the one-on-on format of the PMs really helped me convince other Villagers of my suspicions, though not always. (As I said, Bard was right - I was being paranoid ) I think what interested me was how little analysis it took to convince Bard of Wonko: I literally just shot him a one-line question asking him for his thoughts of Wonko's and Coda's vote on Fifth during Aman's election. It probably helped Bard was already suspicious of Coda, and that it's Bard I was talking to, but also, just - I find it an interesting reminder that sometimes you don't need to write long arguments to convince people. Asking an Armour Piercing Question or finding a Silver Bullet can work too

[OOC: Well. Striker. So, out with it. Confirmed Villagers can be wrong. This is true. I may be wrong. But nevertheless, I will finally stop being coy, and hinting, and leaving you with my suspicions. My suspicions are not bedrock. I can make mistakes. Treat them with caution. Find the flaws in my arguments. If you cannot find them, then reason accordingly. I think the Eliminator team includes Fifth and Wonko. I am less certain about Bard and Striker, but this would be my guess. Striker is either a Villager who is doubling down, or an Eliminator who refuses to turn on a teammate. Bard is either an excessively overparanoid Villager, or an Eliminator. If Striker is not an Eliminator, then suspicion should turn to Coda. Avoid voting them unless you must. I have taken a chance on Burnt, but I acknowledge she would have behaved the same either Village or Eliminator. I am more confident of Aragorn and Peji, as they sealed a vote on Ada, against Fifth, my strongest suspect. Wonko and Coda had tied the vote 2-2 last cycle - we know Ada is a confirmed Villager, and we don't know about Fifth. Such a movement should be suspicious. Everyone was asking, "Where is the Eliminator action? Oh, they must be inactive." Why postulate that? The answer is right there: they tried to get Fifth voted. They failed because of Aragorn and Peji. As such, I have a modicum of trust in them. My strongest suspicion is Fifth. Why do I suspect Fifth? A few reasons. Then there's the Wonko issue: For Striker: The one place my theories don't account for: why did Fifth and Wonko vote me? I am not certain. I admit, this could be the flaw in my argumentation. But it could be the IKYK, or it could be just to silence me and dominate the discussion and voting, if I am right about the composition of the Eliminator team. (Bard's 30% odds at #2 doesn't work out - the obvious answer is to vote for someone who isn't any of the above-mentioned, including Striker. And as I'm Village, the Village now just has to get it right one more time. One person out of the entire game pool who isn't compromised. Please, try to manage that And as I have said, I may be wrong. I played a little coy with my suspicions. But I voiced them more explicitly to Bard and to Burnt, and later to Peji as well. ] Aranmir packed the last of his belongings and prepared for a long journey. He hardened his heart against the song of the Ring. Isildur had fallen. Centuries and centuries later, Aranmir would not fail. There was a cloth-wrapped bundle, slightly longer than his arm, resting on the bed. He hauled it up, the cloth slipping free as he did so. He looked at it for a very long time. It was time to go to war.

Interesting, since Bard chose the vote. He was the literal first player to vote on Striker I just happened to agree with him for separate reasons and to support him. But thank you for your response - you have confirmed my suspicions of the Eliminator team That's because I haven't explained myself and I don't intend to, as I'm not campaigning for Striker to be voted in by everyone. I haven't campaigned since Day 1. I don't intend to spell out my reasoning as I want more discussion, and more players to explain where they stand. Doesn't seem like I'm going to get it at this stage, though. Unfortunate.

Dude, I was joking - I said and that my actual vote was based off Striker's voting patterns, and the fact it would be informational It's obvious Villagers can be mistaken, or I'd have gone for the Ada lynch on Day One. I know intimately well better than to make that inference! Fair enough (Oh sorry, another ! I blame El, I'm easily-influenced >>;; ) I used to be a lot more gung-ho on gut, but right now /shrugs I'm hardly going to fight a vote on myself as I don't find myself very helpful to the Village - that being said, I am, for obvious reasons, not going to shift my vote off Striker just yet

Storm it >> Sorry, I think I got you mixed up with Bard Bard is much, much more willing to vote you and Striker than me Honestly, I think his paranoia is kinda cute and I wonder if that's what it's like, being the Dread Pirate Wilson, the Cursor of Doom, the Herald of Chocolate and Deliciousness, but alas I am somewhat willing to vote Peji now, though I have been convinced by the fact Ada clearly thinks that Striker is the right choice Waits for El to twitch Or mostly because Striker has voted straight Village for three cycles in a row. I'm not entirely comfortable with him - there are in fact some things that make me uneasy about him - but I'm willing to take the chance, as I deem it an informative lynch, we do still have room for error, and if he flips Evil, I'll have my suspicions on the Eliminator team make-up moderately confirmed

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Whoops, sorry I was just worried you read it as "These are the people who said they'd vote Wonko", Aman...etctera. Not really - I'm saying that this calculation is too complex for me to figure out in my current state. It's one of those things that have to be mooted to the thread for everyone to talk about because trust is also situational - e.g. I might not be willing to back you, as compared to myself, but if it's a choice between you and Wonko, nope, *slams table* TAKE MY STORMING VOTE, no questions asked (Note: This is an example, as there are some reasons I can think of that Wonko would be interesting as a candidate, but at least right now, I'm more inclined to getting you lynched, or myself lynched.) Basically, I don't think it can be accurately done a priori. We just have to see what the response is. So I really don't know what the final numbers would look like, but it's enough to me to flag that these three seem to have some measure of trust from everyone - let's talk about them, and also the fact we seem to have two rather divided groups! I also dropped into the thread early as I'd rather people talk or have time to. We don't need last-minute hasty discussion prior to a lynch!

I mean, if you want to get into absolute numbers... So yes, you're right that Wonko is a bit weak as a compromise candidate out of the pool of three, but I flagged him anyway as the next in line. The other issue is that this doesn't take into account strength of trusts: for instance, Wonko is more willing to vote for you and himself, given the choice, than me. You are not as high as Wonko or me on Fifth's list. And so on. So I think we can't really count on absolute vote-strength here. I don't really find the absolute numbers as informative

H'okay. So I'm gonna do something I haven't done in a very, very long time, since the Desolation of Elantris and info-dump Basically, I've been sitting on this issue for a bit, but I think it's beyond me, and I also think that getting the thread to weigh in on this would be very helpful. There are two distinct clusters of 'trust' (IDK, trust? Least suspicion?) beginning to form up. I PMed a number of people since the beginning of this game, and especially since last cycle. I usually ask people to identify who they would vote for - in a particular cycle - if they had to pick the entire remaining Fellowship on the spot. Occasionally I ask about their favourite breakfast and other stuff, which is why I now know that @Burnt Spaghetti has an excellent apple-cinnamon turnover recipe, and that @Straw would rather receive $0.01 per step than $0.75 per jump (For the record, Burnt would take $0.01 per step as well.) Cluster One: I've grouped Cluster One together because our lists are more or less compatible: we agree on Bard and Wonko, with weaker agreement on Striker and myself. I put Peji last cycle as I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and distrusted everyone else - I also did not consider myself electable due to the amount of doubt floating around, but am fine with swapping myself back in for obvious reasons Moreover, since only three of this list needs to be Villagers, I feel that the two on which we disagree are actually negotiable. So this appears to me to be one distinct voting cluster. I have grouped @Pejidot with this cluster as she agrees in general on Bard, and has a weaker potential agreement on me (though she also says I've RPed a lot and so she'd need to read through that as well.) While she did not identify herself in her picks, she noted it was also because she didn't feel it was indicative, as everyone would select themselves. Cluster Two: This cluster is distinctive because they trust Fifth - the other cluster does not. They are also more positive (relatively) in their reads of me, Burnt, and Striker than the other cluster. This cluster also trusts Wonko less than the other clusters. I share this information for two reasons. First, because I find it unlikely that both clusters are made up entirely of Villagers, but if we somehow are, then we should be talking to each other. Discussion is how we refine our suspicions. Already, Fifth's posts mean that I have to read through them later on and potentially revise my judgements of him, or in philosopher-speak, update my priors Second, because I'm cynical, I think at least one of these clusters has been compromised by Eliminators, but really, probably both are. In which case, non-communication will allow Eliminators to play both sides and exploit our distrust against each other. So: I think that judging from these, at least, though people may certainly change their views, strong consensus candidates would be Striker, Wonko, and myself. At this point, I am willing to back Striker, though I would also welcome a lynch of myself as I feel I am not adequately helpful to the Village and am more confused than anything The next worry is that if we are in fact infiltrated, then there might be something fishy about our compromise candidates. That being said, if all three of us aren't Eliminators, we'll do just fine I can confirm that it can't be the case that we are all Eliminators but I am also aware that saying it's not true because I'm not an Eliminator is not especially rhetorically persuasive So people. Thoughts, opinions? Edited to highlight the overlaps in clusters better. Clusters do not represent strength of suspicions/trust.