DrakeMarshall

Okay, lets do a quick blow-by-blow of the voting last cycle. I don't think I'm gonna do a huge multiquote block today, because tbh I think that habit is why I put off doing analysis because giant multiquote posts are hard to do, so I'm just gonna summarize each thing that happened and any additional thoughts. Without further ado, this is my summary of the C1 votes: There are a bunch of scattered poke votes. I don't think there is any point into reading into one-off votes at this point. Except that I didn't get a poke and I wanted a poke Szeth places the first doubled-up vote of the game on Xino, accidentally. We know Szeth was Dasann Reborn village. Matrim casts the first intentional and serious doubled-up vote, on Madagascar. Reasons unclear beyond applying pressure to one of the people who already had a vote. Szeth retracts and pokes Ventyl, I make a stab vote on Szeth. Bookwyrm pokes Silhouette. This one I feel is a bit weird, because in the early cycle everyone was just doing one-off pokes, but by this point there were some developing trains to discuss, so it feels a bit more like a deliberate decision to just go with a poke vote. That said, I would call this fairly minor. Fifth switches off Wizard to vote on Xino, reinforcing a train on Xino (Ashbringer was the first person to poke Xino). Fadran retracts a vote from Matrim. Szeth votes for Xino and then unvotes Xino after Xino posts. Xino casts a self preservation vote fairly early. I feel like the simplest way to read this is that Xino didn't expect to be online at the end of cycle. Seeing that Xino in fact did stop posting in the cycle not long after this lends some credence to that explanation. Szeth and Xino continue to do a back-and-forth, Xino proposes voting for Turtle but then immediately switches back to Szeth based on an incorrect VC. The 180 from Turtle in a short timeframe makes me think that the incorrect VC wasn't a calculated trick or anything, Xino really did believe that was the VC. However, this is basically NAI. Fadran votes for Szeth, it has already been noted that this is probably just to preserve a shardbuddy, NAI (although notably it does put Szeth tied with Xino). Madagascar votes for Ventyl. I want to file this as a joke vote but idk. Wizard does not like ties and votes for Szeth. Szeth changes to Madagascar, which might be interesting for analyzing Szeth's alignment except Szeth is a confirmed (dead) Dasann Reborn villager. This vote does put Madagascar in second place instead of Xino, though. And it happened less than an hour before the cycle ended. Which is actually fairly interesting, I think! Now, most likely I'd wager the vote manipulation that happened was a combination of "haha vote manip go brrrr" plus a side of "instill paranoia", and in that case whether it was the jedi or sith who did it is basically unimportant. However, I'd give maybe a 1 in 4 odds that the vote manipulation had more purpose to it, and 1/4 isn't nothing, so it's worth entertaining the possibility. In the case where the vote manip was actually trying to do something concrete, I figure there's two options: Jedi/Sith tried to save their teammate Xino, and wasn't online in the last hour or so when Madagascar became the 2nd place train instead of Xino. Jedi/Sith tried to save their teammate Madagascar, and was online in the last hour, but was cautious and didn't want to leave it up to last-minute changes. * If this is about saving a teammate, I'd say it's a good bit more likely a Sith saving a teammate and not a Jedi, if only due to the simple fact that there are more eliminators (if you count the cultists) than there are Jedi Knights. ** The people online (or at least, the ones who posted in the cycle 1 thread and thus have records of them being online) after Szeth's post which switched Xino to Madagascar were: Fifth, Matrim, Madagascar, Ashbringer, Silhouette, Szeth, Wizard. *** I think it is entirely plausible that a sith vote manipulator would not be online in the last cycle. If we assume the sith chose a kill and submitted a kill order more than an hour before the rollover deadline (not guaranteed, but also more likely true than not imo), that means that regardless of if other elims were online, putting in the vote manip order was up to a single player (that is, the sith who didn't submit the kill order). Soooo idk with the number of players (6 if we exclude Szeth) that were online at the end of the cycle, I'd say it's honestly pretty close to 50/50 that the sith was online at the end of the day. Which is not very helpful. Matrim retracts off Madagascar. I'm curious why. Ashbringer (who poked Xino way earlier in the cycle, which developed into a train) decides to keep a vote on Xino, but says they also were suspicious of Szeth. I feel like Ashbringer voting on the majority to avoid close votes has been a thing in the past, so sticking with the Xino vote was a decision that was made, although I have literally no idea what kind of a decision Fifth does not like near-ties and votes for Szeth. I feel like this is literally always going to be an inoffensive justification to place a vote, so I squint a little bit at it, particularly when it is the only reason provided. However, I actually kind of don't suspect Fifth in this case because of it? I feel like the vote manipulation in this game is both guaranteed and very strong, which changes the landscape, and in light of that fact I can't really disagree with the decision to ensure a consolidated train at the end of the cycle. Matrim decides to vote for Shining, which is mainly a symbolic gesture since Shining had no votes. That is all the voting from C1, I think. ...in conclusion, I'm a bit tempted to vote for Madagascar's flip, and also a bit tempted to vote for either Bookwyrm or Silhouette to get more of a read when it feels like they somewhat decided to avoid the main voting discussion. Matrim also avoided the main vote to an extent, but did at least weigh in enough to say "I'm unhappy with the current trains." Xino is an okay enough voting candidate I guess, if only because they were up for a lot of D1. Would be kinda awkward to have my cardgame buddy die mid-game though. Fifth I don't really get the voting train on, so I am inclined to push against it out of principle. Edit: Vote Tally Fifth Scholar (3): Ashbringer, Silhouette the Debonair, Bookwyrm the Perpetual xinoehp512 (2): Haelbarde, Madagascar Silhouette the Debonair (2): Matrim the Tall, Fadran the [Redacted] Haelbarde (1): Xino the Forgotten

Death sticks are something you eat?

my tallybot has betrayed me I apologize thank you for pointing this out

I believe Shining has 2 votes, 1 from Fadran, just to set the tally straight. I still don't know who to vote for. If I haven't reread last cycles voting patterns by the end of this cycle feel free to bother me about it.

I do think Mat's general strategy is intellectually sound. But I'd also say two things: Mat was the first vote on Shining this cycle, so I don't think the logic of stacking multiple votes on somebody to increase the pressure is necessarily relevant. Putting a suspect's name in red to see what they do makes very good sense, yes, but it doesn't explain why they are a suspect. Yeh, fair. I guess what I'm asking indirectly is whether or not you think the fact that Devotary apparently killed TUN (early) in the last MR is relevant or not, and somewhat by extension what your thoughts on Ashbringer are

Comprehensible, have a nice day. Wizard. You pass the vibe check. Can I ask why you wish to avoid ties? Welp, I must have skimmed over that post Sorry. I was not observing that you haven’t tried to explained yourself at all though, more just that I think the Wizard train had arguably been explained in more detail than the Shining one at the time. Also, I’m not sure your explanation actually changes my assessment. I believe in pressure absolutely, but with all due respect, I do not consider it a reasoning for voting, since it applies equally to everyone. So if applying pressure is the main additional reason for following up on a self-proclaimed throwaway vote last cycle, I am gonna mentally sort the vote as kinda arbitrary. And for the time being, that’s okay. I don’t think voting should need a bunch of great reasons, at least not this early on, or not without other factors creating suspicion. None of us know what we’re doing. While I have your attention, though, didn’t you say last cycle that you were feeling paranoia about Devotary? Has that read changed any?

"Scrap is a most apt designation, yes! Precious little remains of our communications infrastructure but scrap. Nobody knows for sure what happened, except for I reckon the folks who did it, of course they would know. Smarts was the clever droid who reported the damages to our communications infrastructure when it happened. I wonder if perhaps Smarts saw more than I did? Or perhaps Smarts even did the breaking?" Dacken wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, tossing in the necessary credits to stay in the running with Tantyck. It was too soon to call the game for sure, with the third card not yet revealed and the spike dice not yet rolled, but Dacken was a great believer in optimism. "A thought occurs: a place such as this one usually has security footage, right? I've no doubt the likes of this world's security systems are primitive and rundown to my cosmopolitan eyes, yes, perhaps, but... Has anyone thought to check?"

@Ookla the Forgotten I do believe it's your turn on the betting pool I have elected not to peek at the spoilered cards for a more complete card game experience Re: Wizard There are only two votes on Wizard, though I will grant, they basically happened one right after the other and so it may feel like there are more: Vote Tally Shining Silhouette the Debonair (2): Matrim the Tall, Fadran the [Redacted] Wizard the Myopic (2): DrakeMarshall, Madagascar Fifth Scholar (1): Ashbringer That is the same number of votes as there are on Shining. I would further point out that Madagascar has provided a nice paragraph explaining their reasoning for voting Wizard, whereas to my knowledge neither you nor Matrim seem to have done the same for your votes on Shining, beyond implying that your motives stem from the vote manipulation last cycle, so I think I could reasonably ask you to answer your own question ...but anyways, I literally didn't explain my vote at all, making me the worst culprit of the bunch, so maybe I should share some answers, yes? I'm pretty much in accord with Madagascar on the subject honestly. To be more specific, the justifications provided by Wizard for voting on Szeth had evil vibes:tm: No shade for the actual fact of voting on Szeth, I mean, I pushed voting for Szeth. But the reasons Wizard provided felt... Both fairly short, and like they were trying to come up with as many reasons as possible. I guess I'd say that sometimes villagers don't do a lot of reasoning, which some amount of is well and fine with me tbh, in which case I wouldn't expect them to communicate a lot of reasoning. And sometimes villagers do a lot of reasoning, in which case I'd expect them to communicate a lot of reasoning, and possibly come up with points that nobody else came up with before. But Wizard cited quite a lot of reasons without convincing me that they were putting a commensurate amount of effort into evaluating the validity of the case against Szeth specifically, since at the end of the day like Madagascar says it was a pretty darn short post and I believe all of the reasons Wizard cited had already been brought up by somebody at the time. Which leaves me with the feeling that more effort was placed into the presentation of the vote than in choosing who to vote for. If that makes sense. Idk. I realize Team Evil members aren't the only ones who have good reason to care about how their reasoning is presented, but I do think they care about it disproportionately more than villagers, since it's their goal to make their arguments seem justified without actually in most cases being justified. That is my reason for wanting some voting pressure to exist on Wizard, which hopefully makes sense. I find Ashbringer's analysis interesting too tho. I don't think it's an ironclad case, because I guess 4 games ago sounds like a decent amount of time to me and I honestly might not remember that somebody died early on in a game 4 games ago, but at the very least I do buy that it makes Devotary more likely to be village. ...man, analysis is hard

RIP pazaak was a neat thing Also there's only like 3 votes so I guess maybe I should probably do my part Wizard (AKA @Ookla the Myopic) I choose you for consideration!

Well, I'm using this as a reference: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Corellian_Spike It's kind of like a mashup of blackjack and poker, but IN SPACE!

My name isn't Drake and I approve of most of this message ur one to talk I don't even recognize your pfp I don't think. Do I know you? I've been wondering and I can't tell. "Well, I'm not really the speculating type, as I'm sure you know," Dr. Dacken Humtumb lied, "but I can tell you the bare facts." He lifted his own cards from the table and peeked: a red nine and a green ten. He tried for an enigmatic smile, with mixed success. There was an art to an enigmatic smile, he figured. Layers. Most people didn't appreciate a good enigmatic smile. "Something's thoroughly blundered and beefed up the spaceport central communications array. I don't mean just a little short-circuit either, I mean it's properly slagged. Practically melted. Here, take a look," he held up a half-burned circuitboard. "I salvaged this from what was left of the comms, which is very different from stealing, because I'm reasonably sure nobody wanted it." As the player to Nodice's left, it was Dacken's job to start off the betting. He threw in three credits, signalling his intent to raise the bet by a pittance. "Coulda been a mechanic with a welding tool and a grudge a couple parsecs long. Coulda been a few rounds of blaster fire from one of the sith worshippers that are supposed to haunt the place even to this day. Coulda been a bloody terentek swinging a bloody lightsaber while beatboxing to the tune of the bloody imperial march. Force if I or anyone else knows for sure. Point is, we don't have comms anymore. And it for sure wasn't the gizkas fault. I was thinking of trying to rig something up to replace comms, but we seem to be a bit low on parts, so that might be off the menu." "Anyways," Dacken looked expectantly at the betting pot. "Not dwelling on it, that's my policy. What'll it be, stand, raise, or scrap?" edit: and yes, I did actually use an online card drawer to pick those cards

“I think we should change your name to Yesdice, friend,” Dacken chuckled. “It’s the classic rules that have Nodice.” “Well, I’m game for anything. Smarts, you in?”

"Hrm... A philosophical quandary, to be sure. Which is worse, a murderous comms unit or no comms unit at all?? How does a murderous comms unit go about committing murders when it has no body worth speaking of? These questions and more plague my thoughts." Dr. Dacken Humtumb started as the spacer loudly shuffled his cards behind them. When the Force had he gotten here? Last Dacken checked, the poor sap had been passed out in The Drunk Side. The Force and also alcohol worked in mysterious ways... Well, Nodice didn't have a gambling problem. He could stop at any time. Nodice had said so, and why would Dacken doubt him on this? So surely there was no harm in taking a short break to play some cards. This whole comms business was making his head hurt. Dacken sighed. "Is it correllian rules, or classic?"

Dr. Dacken Humtumb was doing repair work on the spaceport comms array. Well, perhaps repair work was an excessively charitable designation. He was ripping out parts from the scorched mess without much caution or subtlety. At least he had the good sense to disconnect the thing from its power source after getting electrocuted once. Hindsight and all that. Something rustled in the vents, and from the shadows a pair of eyes shone with reflected light. "Nova, my favorite gizka, I thought I made a nest for you in a cave outside the spaceport? How the Force did you even get back in here?! Nevermind that, get over here, it's been too long! So far, nobody else has shown up to help with the comms repairs. I'm left to my own devices, left to do all the important work by myself. Well, I don't need anyone else's help. They'd just get in my way. Anyways, would you be a dear and hand me those pliers?" The reptile stared at him blankly. "They're closer to yo-- Ugh, fine, I'll do it myself." In a surprising show of nimbleness for a man of Dr. Dacken Humtumb's... Circumference... He jumped to his feet with the help of his walking cane and stalked over, picking up the tool and using it to wrest a half-melted circuit free. He chucked it into his satchel. "Not much of this is salvageable, you know?" he complained. "I'd be surprised if I could get anything working from this rubbish. Maybe if we cannibalized other essential systems for more parts... Kinda feels like a bad idea now that I say it out loud, though." Dacken hummed thoughtfully. "...Maybe we should take apart one of the droids. Say, just for example, the HK exterminator unit."

On mobile, it splits the green part of this onto a different line, so it really looks like it's a red flip >> And I was like This is cruel and unusual >>

This is the votes, by my (admittedly rather fallible and lazily automated) count: Vote Tally xinoehp512 (3): Ashbringer, Fifth Scholar, Ookla the Omniscient Ookla the Omniscient (3): DrakeMarshall, Ookla the Forgotten, Ookla the [Redacted] Madagascar (2): Haelbarde, Ookla the Tall JNV (1): Ookla the Myopic Ookla the Debonair (1): Ookla the Perpetual ookla the POKE VOTE (1): Ookla the Debonair Sorry about the rash of ookla names in my tally (perhaps I can define a lookup table in my code to display everyone by their original names....... I will definitely do that at some point.... probably), but the point is, I believe Hael-K47 and Matrim's Ookla are both voting for our resident alchoholic grogu, and not Szeth. Just to set the score straight before I sign off for the time being. Cheers

So, I have decided to keep my vote parked where it is. Not particularly because of Szeth joking about being the head honcho elim, I mean, regardless of their alignment that was funny and I approve More due to the ongoing interaction with Xino and the overall response to being pressured a little. I really am sorry, but I do have to vote for some1. Good lord I didn't even notice that I think you're right. Off the top of my head, that means the number of cultists is probably smaller than it would otherwise be, it means the village has more reason to want to take down cultists, and it means there are probably more reasons to use the dueling power. I am excited about that last one because I do really want to see a duel Village points for you maybe?

You're welcome But how are things going with you Thank you for elucidating matters! And concisely at that. Jolly good show. Okay, last and final question in Drake's D1 game show, I swear! drumroll Here is ***THE FINAL QUESTION*** it is sadly not worth a million dollars, I do not have a million dollars Q: So basically, you are saying that the pressure to be more active that is created by multiple votes is less than the sum of its parts? I do think it's at least possible that the answer to that question might change depending on the person. It feels like somebody who is already very active probably would be physically incapable of doubling their activity, whereas somebody who hasn't posted anything can effectively increase their activity infinityfold by posting even once so that might be relevant to this idk

I haven't been poked yet Where's my poke Splendid, how have you been? Alright, I think I follow, however: I would assume that a poke is a poke. It is not obvious to me how removing a vote from one player who hasn't posted, and adding it to a different player who hasn't posted, increases the amount of activity encouragement happening, since neither of them have posted and so both of them need encouraging equally as much. However, there does seem to be a less savory possible motives to removing a doubled-up vote: if you perhaps wanted to avoid the attention of suggesting a leading voting train, for example due to being EVIL and therefore rightfully scared of the village mob ...or if both you and xino were on TEAM EVIL, and you were trying to create distance by voting for them, and therefore did not ever want xino to be in any real danger, because the vote was more performative than functional. Many such conspiracies possibilities loom large in the mind! I am, most likely, very wrong about all this, since it is D1, but since it is D1, there is also precious little to discuss. In light of all this, I don't suppose you could see your way to elaborating on your explanation?

Szeth I am now poking you!!!!!!!!! At least I think you're Szeth. Are you? Also, at the risk of opening up a can of worms, may I have a quick explanation of your reasoning for avoiding doubling up on a poke vote?

Let me know if you need any more of the good stuff, I know a guy. And to clarify by "the good stuff" I mean good old paranoia, not death sticks. I am still unsure as to the sourcing of a death stick. Hey, let's do a vote tally Vote Tally xinoehp512 (2): Ashbringer, Ookla the Omniscient Madagascar (2): Haelbarde, Ookla the Tall Alvron (1): DrakeMarshall JNV (1): Ookla the Myopic Ookla the Myopic (1): Fifth Scholar ookla the POKE VOTE (1): Ookla the Debonair My tallybot making mistakes due to Ookla season is probable and verging on inevitable, so let me know if and when you spot errors in my tally. However, I think it is broadly correct currently? I've at least gotten the bot to stop registering votes for Elbereth when El isn't in the game, so I'd call that progress.

Makin me feel old over here I am definitely not the oldest geezer in this game though, I think that distinction might belong to Alv or Hael. With Kas as a mention, the Honorability of which you can judge for yourself. Kas is very Honorable of course My impression was you've been around the shard for a good while (or in the very least are prolific enough to give Sanderson an honest run for his money) but I dunno if I've seen you playing in Sanderson Elimination specifically b4 Usually I say hi to people I've never met in private messages, but those aren't allowed in this game, so I guess the thread is now audience /shrug Knowing y'all, one of you has probably already formed a theory about how this post might be a faked plot to distance myself from Fadran and make you think we aren't in a doc together when we really are well there's nothing much I can do about that except maybe not say any of this and thereby draw attention to it, but where would be the fun in that

"What's a death stick?" Dr. Dacken Humtumb was morbidly curious about this, and also about how the creature was putting away more booze than it appeared to have body mass.

so I was looking through my google docs and had a chuckle when I remembered this brief game description for https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OqNlQZYXwDxdJMfNirqxAKZfkGSrpOecLEye340VNPY/edit?usp=sharing

"It wasn't the gizkas, I swear!" Dr. Dacken Humtumb limped off-kilter into The Drunk Side, dabbing the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He took a look around, nonplussed. "What the Force happened here??" He worked his way to the bar, taking in the situation. The corpse that had been there was cleared out by now, but there was still collateral damage. Regardless, Dacken was of the opinion these things were best contemplated on a full stomach. "I'll take a pint of your best ale and whatever you got that's edible, for starters. And a pint for the little fellow, Moff, was it?" The small creature looked thirsty, and Dacken had an uncharacteristic impulse towards generosity. "Now, where was I... Right, gizkas! I know they've been chewing through the wires from time to time, but this goes a lot further than that. Sabotage, if you'd believe it! I have proof! Took a gander at the 'port comms array, it's completely shot. Way, way more damage than any wild animal could do." Dacken wore an almost entirely stainless lab coat with bulging pockets, but when asked, he was cagey about what he was actually a doctor of, and was perfectly happy to use the vagueness to make authoritative claims about any and all technical fields, when it suited his fancy. "In summary, it is my opinion that the gizkas are a distraction being used by bad actors as a scapegoat. It's possible they were shipped here for this reason in the first place. If you can give me more time," he pleaded, "I'll have them out of your hair. There will be no need to resort to more... Violent methods." forget about being an ookla season game master, I'm not sure if I can even handle being an ookla season player I'm pretty sure I know who everyone is at this moment, but only pretty sure This is outrageous and unfair, we did kill you eventually To show my affection of course! Also possibly to kill you idk I won't pretend that I don't usually change my vote a few times on the first day, but the important thing I think is that "usually" is not "always" and thus the pressure of the vote is still approximately real. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your evilness today? wrong answers only I did make a pretty jargon-y little post there at the bottom of the first page didn't I :thonk: Sorry about that. Well, feel free to ask about literally anything! I am happy to answer and I'd wager I aint the only one. Also I don't believe we've met but you are RPing so that's pretty cool