DrakeMarshall

How is a random lynch a good thing? I'm okay with a two way tie, but I don't think any more than that is a good idea. Well I'm glad we don't have a three-way tie anymore. EDIT: Oh wait, we do again. Also. What useful information had you hoped to get from Manukos?

I'm pretty sure Flash's Princess Bride game has actually already been approved as a non-sanderson game that will be run. On an unrelated topic, is there any general advice people have for a setup where players gain abilities over the course of the game? I've seen this done in a lot of successful SE games (LG30 and LG33 come to mind)... But is there anything in particular I should watch out for, if I were to use such a mechanic? For example, does the inclusion of such a feature make a game more swingy, or less swingy? On one hand, it automatically makes it that any role that dies can be replaced, with some effort. Which seems like it would make a game less swingy, because it means backup roles are a built in feature. But on the other hand, it means that the balance of the game is dependent upon who ends up getting what ability. Which might make it more swingy, depending on how exactly abilities are gained.

Then a tie it is, I suppose. I'm okay with a true tie, but I rather hope a vote manipulator doesn't spoil it. EDIT: Also, interesting thing I'd like to point out. In the cognitive realm, we see that somebody "was so-and-so" as their role. But in the spiritual realm, that identity is stripped of them. It no longer says that Straw "was kiin" next to his name. So I think that constitutes pretty solid evidence that if somebody does return from the spiritual realm, they have an entirely new identity, role, and potentially a different alignment (I'd guess that their alignment is unknown if they return in such a way, because otherwise it would be kind of silly).

Your super power setup sounds fine, actually. Obviously, you haven't told us any of the powers you are considering, so I can't say if any of those are balanced... But in theory, you could assign each character a unique power load-out, if you are confident that you can balance that. I highly doubt I could find a hero that you don't know already, heh. And I think there are some seriously awesome roles you could make for this game. I would say my biggest concern however is the conversion element. Conversion instead of kill is a really massive advantage. Cultist/vampire factions tend to be very hard to balance. To start with, a convert doesn't result in a death that reveals alignment. But it still takes a villager out of the game. That alone makes the convert kill automatically have a "janitor" setup built into it. What's more, every conversion increases the numbers of the eliminator faction. If you can make one conversion every cycle, you literally can't lose because the villagers can only kill one of the eliminators per cycle, at best. Plus, adding more people to the elim doc makes that document exponentially more useful. I had issues with this in the first game I suggested. Having access to a doc is not something to be underestimated. So, basically, if you are going to keep the conversion mechanic, you need to do a lot to balance that. One possible route would be to give the village certain roles that are, themselves, also quite powerful. For example, a role that can deconvert players, or possibly multiple roles that are flat-out immune to conversion. The other thing you could do is make the conversion ability an every-other-cycle thing, or impose a similar restriction. However, an every-other-cycle restriction would not be enough on its own to balance the faction, because that would assume that the town is capable of hitting evils on average once every two cycles.

Tell me honestly though. Were we wrong to pursue the Sons of Honor the way we did? Look which faction is still standing at the end of the game.

Or maybe they won't kill those people because I'm wrong and one of them is evil. Or maybe they won't kill those people because they want us to think that. Kill strategy is always laced with IKYK so it's hard to get solid information from it, or to predict it. Please clarify. Are you implying that we should lynch systematically...? It looks like my theory is true, though.

You are? Interesting. Well, in the interests of peace, and to ensure both the fastest and least boring victory for all involved... I hope you don't take offense if we lynch you tomorrow. This gives both unaligned races the highest odds at victory. If we were comparing the Voidbringers and Sons of Honor, I would definitely agree that you have been a generally more tolerable secret faction. You've played well. But otherwise, you aren't really making a fair comparison. The unaligned Parshendi had to watch out for their own interests in addition to those of the Alethi. Specifically, we had to watch out for the Sons of Honor. At the end of the day though, Yitzi is quite right. We have a kingmaker scenario. Although it isn't actually a kingmaker scenario with the entirety of the Alethi unaligned. It actually all hinges on one person, if you think about it. @Elbereth If you protect Joe tonight and vote to lynch a Parshendi tomorrow, the Sons and Alethi will probably win. If you do anything else, the unaligned of both Alethi and Parshendi will win. At one point, you were interested in supporting the Sons, and you were honest about those intentions. However, you also decided to protect Alvron instead of Striker. Regardless, I'm pretty sure you get to decide the outcome of this game.

Mostly just because I thought it was humorous if Ecthelion had told us all that we luckily "found" spanreeds on the first cycle, when everybody got one. I'm not sure exactly what makes you think possession of a spanreed reflects upon a player's role. If my theory is indeed true that everybody got one, it would just mean that PMing is pretty much a universal action. I don't see why it would hurt the village to discuss this, any more than it would hurt the village to bring up the fact that everybody has a power to spend a day action and gain 1 gold.

I didn't start with one either, but I found one on the first cycle. I'm just wondering if everybody "found" a spanreed on the first cycle, I guess.

Well. I think this is pretty nearly the end. Almost everybody has been scanned. The last Voidbringer is getting lynched today. No arguments there. The last Son of Honor is getting bladed today. Thank you for not protecting Striker this last cycle, Elbereth. The Ghostbloods are all dead, to my knowledge. It looks like everybody else is about to win. That was kind of anticlimactic, to be honest. Still a fun game, heh. Faction games are highly interesting. Well played everybody. The only case in which the game doesn't end this cycle is if Yitzi is actually a secret faction. If I had to guess I would say he isn't, but if he is, that would make the game last one additional cycle.

I scanned Straw as an unaligned Alethi I'm pretty sure.

Report of the day is that Sart is unaligned. My reasons for scanning an Alethi were that Cloud is the last Parshendi aligned, and we all know about him. And speaking of that. Cloud. What... What? I don't even know. But I will gladly lynch a Voidbringer after that went down. Congratulations on cementing my dedication to peace.

I believe you on that count. I'm pretty sure Yitzi personally killed Flash. And there are still 3 eliminators left who could have killed Striker. So even if you are an eliminator, this statement has a 2 in 3 chance to be true. EDIT: Random, totally unrelated question. As far as I can tell, it looks suspiciously like every single player received a spanreed at the start of the game. Is this true? Can anybody confirm that they do not own a spanreed? It doesn't really matter, but it's nice to be able to figure out how this game is set up.

I know that you are hard to read, what with generally being evil. In some ways, I feel like you aren't acting evil enough. I have to conclude that the evil hasn't simply disappeared, it has just found a less visible means of expression. Like killing other players. As for being a fan of a tied lynch... I doubt that really matters since both Straw and Cloud were likely innocent. This tied lynch point honestly feels like a distraction. Still, I'd be game to try to set up a tie vote with you and somebody else. Or maybe you have a power that lets you decide tied votes. That would be humorous. Hm, does this mean we do have a tied vote? Splendid.

Inactivity happens. I was pretty inactive in L35, lol. But thanks for your commitment to participate soon. It's always nice to see someone resurface. Here's a very quick rundown: -STINK was evil but committed suicide by deliberately not using his essence mark. -The D1 lynch vote was between Straw and Cloud. Neither were very good options. We ended up lynching Straw, who was a villager. BR tried to make Manukos a third option. -Flash got killed by the elims. He was roleless. -The D2 lynch vote was on Yitzi. This is because I revealed that I am the Doctor, and had used a scanning ability to identify Yitzi as Odium. -Striker got killed by the elims. He had a role. -It is now D3.

That would be a poorly chosen connotation, but the literal definition would fit this situation, yes. That is an effective distinction. Thank you for explaining your position.

8 - Roshar The Unkalaki peaks... They were special. If Silverlight captured his mind, these peaks captured his heart. They were Requiem's first glimpse of another world. Much had happened since the day Requiem had died. He had tried to make contact with the living, only to discover that they couldn't hear him, and could barely see him. They effectively percieved him as an oddly behaving shade, no matter what he did to get their attention. He also inevitably encountered real shades. This was part of what cemented his conclusion that he was not himself a shade. At least not a normal one. The other shades he encountered were mindless, drifting along through the forests. It was by observing them that Requiem discovered that he could pass through solid objects, provided they were sufficiently thin. It was also by observing them that Requiem learned to avoid silver. Since his death, Requiem talked to another person only once. When he witnessed a homesteader die in the forests, Requiem was amazed to see a spirit like himself emerge over the body. One that could think and talk. He got halfway through trying to explain the situation the two of them were in, when the spirit suddenly disappeared before his eyes, dragged away by some unseen force. And all this time, Requiem had put up with the deep-spirit following him. The presence, the thing that was a fragment of the forests itself, would not part with him. Or perhaps more accurately, it was part of him. And, drifting aimlessly through the shade-world roughly a year since first dying, it came to pass that Requiem decided to drift up into the sky, simply because he had never done so before. Imagine his surprise when, after a relatively short trip through the shade-world, he found other planets. During the 1164th year of the Rosharian local calendar, on the fifth day of the month of Chach, as the first moon Salas just began its rise across the twilight sky, on the shore of the Emerald Ocean upon the Horneater peaks, something remarkable happened. A parshman emerged on the banks of the waters, coughing and struggling to its feet. Or, perhaps more accurately, a parshendi, for it bore the distinctive carapace of warform. This was remarkable, because nobody could imagine how it got there. It didn't come from outside; the Unkalaki would have seen it. Nor did it very much seem to be a god (after all, it didn't even speak the Unkalaki tongue, or any intelligable tongue for that matter). And yet the fact remained, that one of the parshendi had waded out of the Emerald Ocean and into the midst of Unkalaki, speaking an incomprehensible language and displaying apparent confusion at the most commonplace of things. Even such simple acts as sheltering for a highstorm or lighting the hearth seemed to trouble him. Tha Unkalaki were unsure how to respond to this enigma. After much deliberation, they ultimately decided to do nothing about it. And so the parshendi lived among them for several years, slowly learning their ways and their language. They called him Kyn'tamu'kumumari, which roughly translates to "of the water." When the Unkalaki discovered that he was a second son, he was taught their ways of gathering and cooking. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kyn'tamu'kumeomari put fewer shells in his cuisine than most Unkalaki chefs. And, at the close of the fifth year of Kyn'tamu'kumeomari's stay in the Horneater peaks, he departed in search of his people, the parshendi. In other tongues, he was known as Kyner, a simplification of the original Unkalaki word. That was a long time ago. And yet, technically, it hadn't happened yet. Language wasn't good at describing time travel. Since then he had occasion to use Cultivation's shardpool several more times. It beat using Odium's shardpool, that was for sure. If he weren't currently located in the past, the Unkalaki might have recognized him. He always wore a different body every time, but alaii’iku always seemed to be able to see through that regardless. But unless Hood had taken them forwards through time again, this was long before Requiem had first visited the peaks.

Lol if anyone other than you said this, I would find them suspicious. But you genuinely mourn for dead villagers, and it's NAI for you. You're a better person than any of us Anyways, below I am reading through previous cycles and quoting any post I find somewhat alignment indicative. Unlike L35 this game doesn't have 30 pages for a single cycle. Even so, fair warning: this post is gonna be long. Clanky: I am noting here that Clanky expressed skepticism that Odium was the evil special role in this game. At face value, this would mean they aren't an elim, because an elim would know who their boss was. But they could have included that detail deliberately so as to appear not too knowledgeable about things. This comment is very slightly village leaning imo. Aonar: I read this as pretty village. He is open to risking his life just to work with other players. If he were an elim who genuinely wanted to do something like this he would take advantage of BTSC and do the swap with an elim buddy. Plus he reads bad on Yitzi on N0. That could just be distancing, but imo distancing is usually marked by being more cautious and reserved than this. Also distancing is frequently marked by the other person mostly if not totally ignoring it, and Yitzi didn't ignore it at all. Shame he has said he will suicide by essence mark by cycle 6. Manukos: An eliminator's goal is often to walk the line between appearing helpful and not being excessively helpful. Trying to stop somebody from killing themselves is pretty helpful. But a clever elim will do a few things like this to blend in. Very slight village read. Alvron: This was N0, so there wasn't much you could have seen but your own role PM. Just sayin' Please give me my wallet back Roadrunner: Clever, that. I'm still curious if Ruin is some kind of independent role. Regardless, I think this means you probably aren't Ruin, if that is the case. Otherwise it's NAI unless Ruin happens to be on the same team as the evils. Asterion: Voted on Yitzi D1 and D2. Basically certain to be a villager. Roadrunner: Poke votes are usually solitary things. Intentionally throwing a poke vote on somebody who already has a vote is a way to get somebody lynched without assuming responsibility. Could be a fair mistake though. Still, this post seems very slightly elim. Roadrunner: And here we have one that's slightly village, heh. At this point, I for one had no idea what Arelon villagers were. Possibly an evil wouldn't know to use that word. Still, if that is just the name for "roleless" then the eliminators could easily have a roleless. So it's not as alignment indicative as one would hope. Yitzi: This doesn't reflect on Yitzi's, but it reflects on two other people's. The first is Orlok, who cast the first vote on Cloudjumper 7 minutes before Yitzi made this post. Elims usually don't cascade vote like that. It's bad news when it comes to distancing. So Orlok is quite probably village. The second is Cloudjumper, who was a serious lynch target at this point. I still hold that D1 bussing is very poor form. And I believe Yitzi is an honorable player. So I'm inclined to guess that Cloudjumper is very likely village. And then Yitzi retracts the vote immediately. That is... Interesting. I find it unlikely that it is some kind of ploy though, because it reads as an honest change of mind. If it were a ploy though it would imply that Cloud is a team mate. But chances are it's just backpedaling on a vote he's not sure about. And he put the vote back eventually, so I think he probably meant it. Roadwalker: I'm not sure you ever answered when Orlok asked what those sentences were. If you did, my apologies. But otherwise, I think that this is slightly suspect. Still, villagers bandwagon all the time, so it isn't that incriminating. But it is slightly. BrightnessRadiant: This should be enough of a post to give me a read, but in my mind this evens out at NAI. On one hand, disparaging a known mislynch is a typical eliminator strategy. On the other hand, she acknowledges in her post that this is typical elim strategy, making this IKYK. And defending the lynch is a fair tactic for either alignment. If, however, Manukos turns out evil, then that would imply that you are village. Although given that Manukos was in little danger of being lynched this is a valid distancing tactic. Clanky: I don't suppose this is hinting at having a revenue generating role, is it? Megasif: For a new player it's hard to read it as anything but a genuine question. But deception like this is pretty common for elims. So maybe a slight village read. Yitzi: Prediction: exactly one of the votes on Straw was cast by an evil. Don't bother asking me why I think that, it's just gut. It is of note that the second line here seems to be a subtle reference to L35. Where, it turns out, an elim (Stick) was trying to save their teammate just sayin' Araris: Now, what exactly makes you think it is last man standing? The village and eliminator win conditions were confirmed by Ecthelion. But it's possible that in your role PM, you didn't receive a traditional alignment? That would explain why you are asking this. This might potentially mean you are an independent role. Possibly Ruin, if Ruin is a role. And your playstyle fits with an independent role quite well; you played a pretty capable thief in LG34. I kind of hoped you would get a third spike and become the Serial Killer, after you stole Meta's Alvron: This post seems slightly odd to me. You basically say your vote wasn't serious, and that you only decided to keep it there on a whim when Straw didn't address it. But after we all piled our votes on, your vote was serious. It was contributing to a lynch. And I'm pretty sure you were active during the time the additional votes landed on Straw, so this wasn't all an accident. There are fair reasons to decide to lynch Straw, particularly if you consider the alternatives. But what seems weird here is how you are dodging responsibility for helping lynch a villager. Disassociating yourself with a D1 mislynch is more often an eliminator tactic than a village one. Elim read from this post. Orlok: There's honestly too much stuff to quote here, but the kind of analysis he is doing at this time tends to strengthen my village read of him. Roadwalker: Well, I agree that asterion's knowledge about both Odium and the Doctor seemed a little odd. So I can't fault this lynch that much. I'm still half-convinced that asterion is a special role nobody knows about yet, but at the same time I'm pretty sure he isn't on the evil team, what with voting on Yitzi so readily twice in a row. Roadwalker: Possible instance of distancing when you mention Yitzi here, given your previous lynch of choice. Araris: Speaking catches... I'll just mention that I'm wondering about Bavadin's name drop in the writeup, because he never got mentioned later. Sounds like a perfect Chekhov's gun to me. But we'll see. Alvron: Interesting guess. I have very little read on Sami except for the comment you referenced, so I'd say this post is neither here nor there. ...and I think that's about it! So? Who is evil? Most of my analysis was that people are village (which, when you think about it, is as it should be, because there are more villagers than elims, and it isn't that common for an elim to do something incriminating). But lets pull up a player list, and narrow it down some, hm? Cloudjumperasterion137BrightnessRadiantSamiManukosMegasifClankyOrlokTsubodaiAonar FaileasDrake MarshallRoadwalkerAlvronA Joe in the BushDaniyahAraris Valerian Of those, I'm removing Cloud, Asterion, Orlok, Aonar, and myself from the list. I do not suspect any of them, after completing my analysis. So now that's 10 people. I predict a 5 eliminator team. Yitzi and STINK are already dead. So I predict that in those pool of 10 people, there are the last 3 eliminators. I don't really have any kind of read on @Sami, @A Joe in the Bush @Daniyah. Please, talk about game things so players can get a read. But for now, my most evil read is Alvron. There's some gut reading to this and there's some of the analysis I've done above. Alv is hard to read on a good day, but I'm still more suspicious of him than of anybody else. Also, don't any of you dare vote the way I vote without reasoning it out for yourself first. I'm the Doctor, not the Mayor, thank you very much. Plus I need more eyes on this. Am I going crazy or is Alvron actually looking evil to other people.

It bears mentioning that when I asked for a post that indicated that I was "anti-neutral" you referred me to one in which I was actually arguing against lynching a neutral. So I am still very curious how the message got out that I was anti-neutral. And now you bring up a new subject. You disagree with what I said about blackmail earlier in the game. Typically, when somebody accepts a different definition of a word than you do, especially when they openly acknowledge that they may be using a word differently than you would, the correct response is to interpret their statements according to the author's own meaning of the word. I obviously define the word "blackmail" differently than you do. Specifically, I was taking the broadest definition possible, because I was trying to demonstrate that the term "blackmail" alone is not sufficient to distinguish what is and is not acceptable behavior. You are perfectly free to disagree with how I define "blackmail." You may think that my definition is utterly erroneous. But if you are interested in understanding the intended meaning of my statements you will condescend to parse them according to my definitions. Even if you think that they are wrong. Even if they are objectively wrong. It is apparent that my terms "acceptable blackmail" and "unacceptable blackmail" are analogous to your terms "legitimate threat" and "blackmail." That being said, if we are going to discuss the proper definition of blackmail, how precisely do you distinguish "legitimate threat" and "blackmail" if you do not accept attitude as a legitimate criteria? If you hold a belief as strongly as you do, I believe it is proper to be able to articulate that belief. By what objective criteria do you distinguish "legitimate threat" and "blackmail"? In a purely linguistic sense, "threat" and "blackmail" have nearly identical definitions, and the key difference is the connotation. So if you want to have a proper discussion about this, you should explain how exactly you distinguish these two.

The tactic you are referencing is called bussing. And yes, bussing is a good eliminator tactic. I will freely own to being very fond of elaborate bussing schemes. Typically however, bussing isn't done unless it looks likely that a team mate is getting lynched regardless. I would conjecture that this isn't really for tactical reasons so much as just proper conduct. Even if a D1 or D2 bus would be tactically quite effective, it also doesn't give your team mate a fair chance at the game. In my opinion such a strategy would be poor form. It devalues your team mate. That being said, paranoia is your friend in SE. Viewing anyone as above scrutiny would be a mistake. Personally I don't want to be above scrutiny. I'd rather be under scrutiny, and hold up to it. And with that, goodnight. On the topic of scrutiny, analysis incoming tomorrow.

Okay, so. Would somebody point me where I said anything at all like this? I keep on hearing that "Drake was anti-neutral" from you all, but I truly don't recall saying anything of the sort. On the first cycle I voted on Joe, but that was after some back-and-fourth PM in which he actually agreed to be voted on. He confirmed this in-thread. Other than that, I pretty much ignored the neutrals (to be fair, it could be said that I ignored everyone, because in the mid-game I was pretty inactive). I don't think I ever intended to come across as "anti-neutral" and if that happened this was miscommunication.

Just because I'm good aligned doesn't mean I'm always right, I'm definitely not Take any advice I give with a grain of salt. But chances are the upcoming day cycle will be a good time for analysis. Analysis is the bread and butter of every village. We've gotten lucky with one eliminator suiciding and another getting hit by my scan. But we can't expect to ride that for the rest of the game. I don't think any of the other eliminators are planning on suicide. And my scan is most effective at finding Odium specifically, less so for finding other evils.

Sigh... The Alethi still outvote the Parshendi, the Sons of Honor have a shardblader and a lot of unaligned allies, and the power of the Voidbringers is directly related to their numbers, since they don't have a faction kill. Our only asset is a shardbearer who doesn't have much of a crowd to hide in. And our extra lives, which are basically all depleted. And with the abundance of Alethi surviving attacks I'm inclined to suppose that you might be outdoing us in the extra lives department. I don't think it would be very close in an open fight. To speak bluntly, if you want the highest probability of winning, you should definitely throw it in with the Sons of Honor right now, and try to kill us all. So. Do you actually want peace? Think about it. You are irritated that I haven't scanned a Parshendi. I find this rather ironic, given that the unaligned Alethi never even dreamed of scanning one of their own people before they died. And given that the Sons of Honor are still the biggest threat in the game right now to someone who actually does want peace, and yet the Alethi remain extremely reluctant to deal with them. You are worried about being backstabbed. Well. I'm not sure what gave you the idea that we wanted to backstab you, given that we have everything to lose from doing so. And given that to my knowledge, none of the Parshendi have done anything as an act against the peace. I'll even confirm for you. Lynch Cloud, and you will have removed the last Voidbringer. Cloud admitted to being a Voidbringer in the Parshendi doc just today. I give this information with no strings attached. Which is more than the Alethi have done for us yet. On the other hand, you will also yourself be in a pretty great position to be doing backstabbing yourself. You demand quite a lot of insurance against us, but you aren't willing to give us basically any insurance against you. If that's the way it's going to be, peace talk is now over. So. Do you actually want peace?

That is a very interesting revelation. So basically the world is actually flat in the cognitive realm.

To the original question, "where does Houd get his feruchemy" I'm not sure of the exact process, but remember that Hoid has access to god metals. We know for a fact that he nabbed a bead of Lerasium. And he worldhopped using the pits of hathsin before, so he would have access to Atium. I'm not sure the exact mechanics of this, but I'd guess that with both of those metals (possibly alloyed) you could gain access to feruchemy.