Orlok Tsubodai

I’ll vote for Wonko again, for many of the same reasons as my vote yesterday, and to widen the field of candidates for this lynch. I have a strong village read on Rae, and as such certainly wouldn’t support a lynch on Snipexe.

I’d argue that I may as well be confirmed non-Cthaeh - what Cthaeh in their right mind would alienate an eliminator team by killing off one of their roles D1, particularly when the Cthaeh has more villagers than eliminators to kill to even the numbers out? I’m no longer sure where to point to as the source of my dislike of mayoring, Rae, but Wilson’s influence on my early playstyle, and her experiences in LG4 were undoubtedly formative.

Locke crept out of the wagon, taking care not to disturb his parents. It was late, and with the recent murmurs of ill news and skindancers in the air, he’d get in even more trouble for sneaking around at night. A few fires were lit, and Locke tiptoed nearby. Figures sat talking, and he was desperate to find out what was going on. The troupe had been on edge lately, and conversations stopped abruptly whenever he or the other children came nearby. As he approached the fire, though, the voices continued, and he was able to catch the occasional word. “Encanis....Rhinna...Banish...” Locke startled - he knew the name Encanis. As he drew nearer, the voices became more distinct, and Locke settled behind a tent to listen. There he stayed, until a heavy, hand clamped down on his shoulder, pulling him back, an iron dagger behind his throat. A moment later, the hand relaxed, and Locke was spun round to see a visibly relieved Alev. “Demonsin Locke, you scared me! Come on, back to your tent. You shouldn't be out so late at night.” Locke, startled, took a moment to respond, and when he came too was shocked to notice the voices - and the fire, had gone. “You’re out, too”, Locke replied, falling back into habits of impertinence. “Anyway, there were voices, and a fire - just here, I swear!” Locke turned once more, as if to check that his mind hadn’t tricked him, sure that they couldn’t have been his imagination. “They were talking about Encanis - they seemed terrified. One of them said something about a Rhinna flower, too. Have you heard of them?” Setting my fledgling attempts at RP aside, I’ve been contacted by three separate individuals with very similar claims about game secrets, and think there’s little harm in revealing them. 1) Encanis seems to be “difficult to banish”. 2) Encanis has an unblockable kill. 3) The Rhinna Flower has healing properties.

That’s certainly unfortunate, although ultimately doesn’t impact my own vote for you. I’m not voting because I think you deserve to have a vote (or indeed three votes), but because I’m genuinely suspicious, and the rationale for the other votes doesn’t impact my own preference to see you lynched over Rae at this stage. That said, I’m sympathetic towards your situation, which must be frustrating, and I’m terribly sorry if you’re lynched and I’m wrong.

I’ve got a village read on Rae (partly from our PM, probably), and am not terribly keen on how Elandera has jumped on Rae. It’s 4:30am, so I’m afraid further thoughts will have to wait for tomorrow. Wonko, Elandera.

Partly to see who weighs in on this from here, and partly because I’m getting a mild gut evil read on Wonko, which I think is probably both from his asking these clarifications in thread, and from it feeling like he’s trying to distance himself from the evil characters, but Wonko.

I think it important to be clear to everyone that I believe we as SE ought to be a welcoming community, an understanding community, and a compassionate community. I wholeheartedly disagree with the sentiment I feel this statement exudes. Drake has always shown himself to be an upstanding member of our community, and one that we should want to keep hold of. If we make passive aggressive remarks about absences, when it’s overwhelmingly likely that there’s a good reason for the absence, we create an expectant, accusatory atmosphere for the GM to return to. We have had instances of GMs leaving partway through a game, and if would be a terrible outcome if we were to shame GMs who disappear briefly and so incentivise their not returning. Fundamentally, people are human, and do respond to pressure. If Drake, or indeed any other GM, were having a difficult time personally, I think it quite reasonable to expect that a GM could feel too ashamed to return if players create this sort of atmosphere. Up to this point, it has been lovely to see people enjoying the thread and joking about lynches. I think this is the spirit we should seek to keep, not one of expectation and passive aggressiveness. NB: This is said without my mod hat on, but is based on my personal views. Seonid is the IM for this game.

I’ll sign up as Locke. I have an exam about 30 hours into the first cycle, so will have limited activity before then, but will be able to give the game significant attention thereafter.

Whilst the thread remains open, due to the nature of the ongoing situation, please do not submit new actions.

Voting is now open for the nominated candidates, with those who have withdrawn removed. Voting will remain open until the 1st May.

The vote will go up when I wake tomorrow, to ensure that nominations are possible through the 24th regardless of timezone.

Please do not make edits to posts that are not the most recent post in a thread, unless you’re fixing minor spelling/grammar errors. Any change to the meaning of anything in a post is against the subforum rules.

Elenion. The Drought lynch has been going for longer than the 16 hours he’s been away, and it feels really quite off that he wouldn’t intervene at all as either Sophie or a convert. Your reasoning for keeping it on Drought feels strange to me, and as such I’ll tie this between Drought and yourself, both to see what happens from here, and because I wouldn’t mind you being lynched.

I can confirm that Bard can confirm Randuir’s claim. I messaged Bard earlier in the cycle, and he told me he knew the Knight’s identity. I know the identity of the Steward, and trying to solve the game asked if he’d tell me the identity of the Knight. He did not, but asked the Knight whether they’d be ok with him telling me, and hadn’t yet had a response. Ten minutes after I asked Randuir who contacted him in thread, Randuir confirmed to me that it was Bard. This doesn’t strictly guarantee that Rand is the Knight, but it makes it very, very likely.

We’re nominating now, @A Joe in the Bush. I’m hugely grateful to those who have nominated me, but will have to step aside this year on health grounds and for work.

Well, it looks like I’m going to have to stay up a bit. My original list of suspicions was Rand, Drought, Eternum and Elendera, but discounting Rand, I’ll vote on Droughtbringer, unless someone counterclaims, or the individual who had claimed to be in touch with the Knight says that it wasn’t Rand. @randuir, someone told me that they’d contacted you, as I’d asked them to give me the Knight’s identity. Would you PM me with their name, to verify your story isn’t a last minute attempt to get out of the lynch?

Thanks Aman! As before, we'll have period of nominations, which will last a week, until the 24th April. After that, we'll close nominations and will create a poll of the nominees, through which we'll select our representative. Please submit your top two nominations in red in this thread. The three nominees with the most nominations will go through to the poll on the 24th. You are able to nominate yourself should you wish to do so. It's worth reminding everyone that the championships are about representing our community. As Meta put it two years ago, we don't necessarily want to send our best player, but the player who best represents our forum. Players and spectators in the championship often visit other forums, and we want them all to know how wonderful a place Sanderson Elimination can be.

@Devotary of Spontaneity, what was your reasoning for setting those criteria? Why did you initially choose Bard? Randuir, I’m afraid I maintain my view that it’s not really believable. I believe Sophie to be one of yourself, Drought, Eternum and Elendara. I think Eternum is much less likely based on his post last cycle, and would lynch Drought after you, if you do turn out to be a villager. I think my initial post was quite in keeping with how I normally start games. I don’t like poke votes that are shakeable merely by appearing, and placing a higher bar typically forces more information out of the player targeted. @Droughtbringer, all I can say to that is that I was incredibly busy until yesterday evening, and am still dealing with jetlag and insomnia. I’ve now got more time, hence the change in play style.

@randuir, I struggle to believe that you read through the rules post enough to comment on the role progression, the subject of your post, yet didn’t see in the same post Joe’s very obvious “Melhi's Bots are a Conversion Faction, only starting with one player: Sophie who has multiple lives.” Would you explain this? At present it reads to me like you were trying to distance yourself from Sophie. Looking back at this, I think this is a genuine updating of understanding, rather than realising the thread didn’t know and correcting his position. As such, Elenion. This strikes me as too obvious a statement for Sophie to make, announcing lurking. That said, the fact that this position has been accepted means I’d be surprised if Crimsn wasn’t high up the list of Sophie’s convert priorities. @randuir, would you explain what initially felt off about my post, beyond simply encouraging Elenion’s activity? I’m including this to encourage people to consider it further, or rather to remain aware that Walin’s death gave us no information, but that he announced that he’d return to activity. Elenion decided that killing him would be my style because of this, but I’d point out that when I’m an eliminator I tend to hold myself to very strict rules on not killing new players, those who have died recently, and normally a couple of other conditions. Killing a player soon to return to activity would feel wrong to me. See QF25’s eliminator doc if you want to see evidence of this. @Devotary of Spontaneity, would you explain why you voted for Bard in particular, over other players? I think the above post makes me lean strongly village on Devotary. It’s a useful way of reducing information for Sophie, and a suggestion I wouldn’t expect Sophie to volunteer. I’d be very reluctant to lynch Devotary over that. A long time ago, I led a lynch on Ripplegylf for calling the eliminators by the name of the village faction (or some slip of the tongue like that) only to find she was a villager. I’ve only once seen an actual slip of the tongue (Nyali giving away Wilson in AG3), and don’t think this worth pursuing. @Devotary of Spontaneity. Interesting - I’d misinterpreted your initial vote on Bard as a protection vote, and would be yet more interested in your explanation for voting on him. Would you explain your vote on Droughtbringer? @Elenion, why did you think a contribution crusade was a sensible idea in turn 1? What did it gain us? A no lynch would have been preferable, not removing an obstacle from Sophie, as would a lynch of someone who had actually contributed. I disagree that a lynch on an active would hurt discussion. People had contributed, and given following activity there remained time to people to discuss a lynch on a player that might generate information. This is a QF, and a small one at that. We can’t afford to have lynches that don’t give us information. I think this clears Bard to some degree to me. I’ve recently been quite difficult to lynch, and am perhaps an obvious conversion target. I think acting as Bard did helps the village considerably. On reflection, Bard could have been Sophie having already not to convert. I’ll need to think about that, and would revise my statement to this making me lean village on Bard. I can’t see this a real attempt from @Crimsn-Wolf to kill me. At best it would have resulted in a tie, and it put Crimsn in the spotlight. I see this as nothing more than a genuine mistake. On first reading, this seemed to be genuine confusion to me. On reflection, such confusion is NAI. This struck me as off, but I can now see it as a village reaction. @Crimsn-Wolf, why would you have joined the vote on Coop? What was your reasoning for wanting to support the lynch of a D1 inactive? A paranoid part of me wants to think that Elenion knew the rules differed from the status quo he knew about, and used that to fabricate this reaction, but I think that’s really, really unlikely. As such, I think it’s worth clearing Elenion for now. @Elandera, would you give your own reasons for supporting his views? What are your thoughts on Randuir, Elenion, and Bard, and why? @randuir, I think you’re leaping far too far with your claim about player experience. I can see both Crimsn and Eternum playing like that - Crimsn has had two games evil, and Eternum has played 9 games. As with Elentara, would you justify agreement with Elenion’s reads? @Bort, on reflection I think such a situation is highly unlikely, particularly given Joe didn’t notice the error until this turn. Had it been a deliberate strategy, I suspect he’d have mentioned it in the eliminator doc. @Elenion, I addressed this earlier, but it’s both a strategy others can use, and it’s not my style to kill players who have just announced that they’ll return to activity. Concluding thoughts: I think at varying points Bard, Elenion, Crimsn, and Devotary prove themselves village (or much more likely to be so). Knowing my own alignment, that leaves a list as follows: DroughtBringer (Player List) Eternum (x/0) Randuir (Cane) Bort (Black IC) Elandera (Rayda) Of those players, I’d like to hear more from Drought and Eternum, will watch Elendera carefully, as they’ve been playing the “new player” card a bit in my PM with them, but am most suspicious of Bort and Randuir. I’d like to hear more from Bort regarding his vote on Elenion, but really can’t see Randuir misreading the rules as he claims to in his first post. Randuir.

@randuir, I hadn’t thought much on the idea, and was spitballing. With the limited number of players, and the new situation regarding kills, you’re probably right. @Elenion, good to know on Bard. I do think that his move there is a pretty strong village move, although this being a conversion game, that also makes him an excellent target. This post rings out as false, to me. It strikes me as trying too hard. Something feels off about your actions regarding me, and with this I’m going to join Bort and vote for you. Elenion.

I’ll be back on with thoughts later - I haven’t really had time to look at the game at all. @Elenion, would you explain again why you’ve cleared Bard? More thoughts, as I apparently have time. I might encourage the Steward to claim now, for an early lynch. Sophie can’t have converted yet, which means we can nearly guarantee a village convert scanner without significant risk of it going to an eliminator. @Elenion, I’m not the only one who plays like that, and am slightly suspicious of your vote on me for such a reason. It would also be a strong move for any other player, or indeed one who wished to create a mislynch on me.

@randuir, it was a vote intended to draw thoughts from Elenion beyond simply announcing his presence. I’d be supportive of seeing him as a second place candidate, so will leave my vote on him.

I’d expect no more than two lives for Sophie, and for them to be used relatively early. I think it likely that conversions are on higher profile, active players. Whilst these players get more attention, they’re commensurately more difficult to lynch. As such, I think it important to ensure we do have a well placed second candidate for the lynch. For now, I’ll throw a vote on Elenion, until he convinces me not to vote for him.

We’ve now decided that Seonid will be your IM, and I’ll sign up.

@Elandera, LG12 - the original version of this game, was my second game, and certainly didn’t feel too overwhelming. I’d never played mafia before joining this forum, and think you’d be absolutely fine to play this as a first game.