DrakeMarshall

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of how close I was to dying. I had posted a handful of reasons for suspecting Rae, especially after I did that day-by-day analysis. The opposition to her lynch was also noteworthy. I didn’t know for sure but I was increasingly confident. She did a pretty good job of blending in, though, considering only two people seriously suspected her and only one of them was interested in lynching her. That was part of why I felt she was a good candidate for keeping alive. I wasn’t sure about you. I figured there was a fair chance that you were evil, but my reasons for stabbing you were simply that I calculated you ought to have a good number of boxings, and that it would be a lot less awkward explaining why I had stabbed someone legitimately suspicious as opposed to somebody I had openly trusted.

In terms of activity, this game was kind of weird. We frequently had well above average levels of content, it was just all from a small number of players. I felt kind of guilty, later in the game, when I was essentially trying to prevent the village from lynching eliminators too quickly, and also murdering some of the more active players to claim their boxings. I tried to make up for it with my own participation, but things were inexorably slumping in the last few cycles, and I ended up just trying to win in as few cycles as possible. I hope I didn’t detract from your experience of the game. I picked up on your first reason for PMing me. I also figured you were sounding me out to see if I had killed Fifth. I wasn’t actually aware that you were offering me help, though At least beyond what we had originally agreed upon (since I have referenced this in thread before, I will clarify for everyone else: we agreed to pass each other our savings if one of us was about to get lynched, with the understanding that we wouldn’t attempt to lynch each other as a way to get the others boxings). I figured you were trying to make sure I wasn’t too close, and acted accordingly.

Dreadfully sorry for betraying, well, everybody I kind of got lucky. I believe Joe intended for one player to start out with a large sum of boxings and have the option to play like a serial killer; that player was me. As long as I survived, it was going to be very difficult for anyone else to reach the mass-kill win con. I almost did need it. I confess that I almost targeted you for boxings, as our agreement never covered stabbings. Fortunately, it never came to that. By the way Fura, I was skeptical at the time and even after, but it seems that you were right about Alv. If I had become governor, I was meaning to PM Alvron and try to strike a deal to make him survivor in exchange for increasing my profit margin. I was definitely getting a kick out of giving PSAs on the majority of cycles frankly stating that I was conspiring to kill everyone Seconded, Butt Ad Venture really did very well. The elims in general did pretty well, considering that their luck was bad in the first couple cycles, with Burnt getting stabbed and Lum getting scanned. @Fifth Scholar you posed one of the bigger obstacles to my nefarious plot, by manipulating my vote onto Rae. Not only did you lynch the eliminator that I was planning to keep alive to keep the game running long enough to implement my plan, but you prevented me from bribing my own vote on Devotary and collecting the boxings from killing her. Considering you set me back once, I felt it was only fair to stab you to facilitate my plan on the following cycle. Regardless, you played exceptionally well in this game. Thank you to Joe for running this game. Well done. It was difficult enough to make good posts on my phone, actually GMing without a computer on a game as complicated as this is seriously a major achievement.

Senator Sheev, soon to be governor Sheev, prepared nervously to address the chambers of the senate. His voice began with a waver and picked up strength as he continued speaking. ”Friends, we stand at the dawn of an exciting new order. For too long, this government has been choked by corruption and petty agendas, defanged by the weak-stomached, and paralyzed by bureaucracy and policy gridlocks. No longer. For too long, this people has languished under incompetent taxation of the outer basin, restrictive legislation oppressing the practice of allomancy, and worst of all bad interior design decisions. No longer! It’s a brave new world. Unfortunately, not one you will be around to see.” He stared intently at Constable Altea, an insane gleam in his eye. He had been waiting to utter these words for a while. ”The time has come. Execute order sixty six.”

In the interests of playing devil’s advocate, HH. I don’t terribly mind either way but I had plans to scan Ad Venture. Also, Drake. “If I am elected, I promise to put an end to corruption.” -Senator Sheev Palpatine

Oh, if you insist Drake. I promise I will use it for a good cause. You are probably right. If we are basically just trying to lynch our way through all of the less active suspects, then this will be much faster. To avoid dragging the game out as we randomly lynch our way through low activity players, I’m okay with doing this, although I still harbor some of my earlier concerns about tied lynches.

Maybe? I rarely do anything 100% seriously, but also rarely do anything 100% unseriously.

Rae is in jail. It is 90% probable that she was corrupt. Personally, I kind of remember having a reason I slightly trusted Araris, so I would sooner lynch shqueeves, but I wouldn’t really mind lynching any inactive. I figure we’re bound to catch the last elim in the next couple cycles. Also @everyone there will almost certainly be a governor elected today, so I am going to ask people to weigh in on that.

Poll answered. As an afterthought: Please tell me you’re naming the prologue “A Deal with the Devlin”

Yay, we can do a governor election this cycle. That should spice things up. I was honestly planning to try and do one this cycle regardless, and offer to reimburse people who bribed inactives as a way to attain a majority. Kind of want the election to become a thing. That said, any villager elected is a plus in my book, and I’ve been at this for kind of a while. Fura. At this point I feel we might want to think about lynching an inactive, since I reckon that’s where the last of the elims is hiding. I don’t believe that there is much criteria for choosing between them, so I’m gonna toss my vote on Rath.

It isn’t inconceivable to use a ledger on a villager as an eliminator to gain trust. If I started with a ledger as an eliminator, the chances of me not doing something like that would be exceedingly low. That would pretty much be the only use of having an item like that. Granted, not everyone thinks like that, but I really don’t believe that using a ledger is strongly alignment indicative.

Alright. Well, three of my major suspects all just got put away. I reckon the only remaining active player I think could be corrupt is Bard. Reasons: Bard’s voting history has already been noted as somewhat suspicious, both by me and a handful of others. We have been thinking of Bard as somewhat in the clear due to his part in the scanning chain, but Bard has not been scanned, and in fact the eliminators seem to have prevented that from happening. Stopping the scan on Bard is clearly IKYK, but that is very likely on purpose. Hear me out. The eliminators were low on cash. If they had boxings to spare on bribery, they could have and would have saved Kidpen that cycle. Instead, they spent those boxings on preventing Bard from getting scanned. If we suppose that Bard were village, that would mean the eliminators unnecessarily sacrificed a teammate just to play head games that might get a single villager framed. Remember also that so far in this game, the eliminators have been fairly direct about protecting each other and Gaea. The simplest explanation is that the eliminators prevented Bard from getting scanned because they wanted to protect a teammate. If Bard isn’t evil then we kind of need to start randomly lynching our way through the inactives because that’s the only other place I think corrupted could be hiding.

Hm, fair. Wanted to see how you responded, and for now, I am satisfied. Fifth.

@Fifth Scholar, are you around to answer votes on you? I suppose I wouldn’t mind hearing you weigh in. I would rather not lynch a second inactive now that I have the time to think, unless there is a good reason to. Reading through the backlog: Cycle 1: Kidpen and Lumgol both voted for Joe. So did Alvron, and either Alv or El was definitely evil. It seems that the eliminators were pushing hard to keep Gaea alive (and, well, they succeeded). Those who voted for Joe who are still in the game and not semi-cleared are Bard, Elandera, and Rae. And then there’s the fact that the eliminators seem to have prevented Bard from being scanned, which makes Bard nominally more suspect of the three. However, for the sake of diversity, I would also expect some elims not to have voted C1, or more likely, to have voted on Wilson instead of Joe. It’s an easy way to accomplish the same result without seeming to be working together. The only player who fits that bracket is Araris. Fifth also got bribed C1 by a mystery person, which, given that passing boxings was otherwise impossible at the time, means that it could have been elims trying to consolidate their cash. Cycle 2: Lum being scanned as evil kind of took over the day. Not much to see here. Rae’s vote, in addition to being timed in such way it could have been a bus, is a bit more forceful than what I usually see when villagers decide to follow a scan: Although, I appreciate that Rae is consistently trying to nominate players other than herself to office, and has generally been more proactive about the governor elections than most. The elims probably did bus Lum since we have reason to believe they had the funds for a bribery and didn’t attempt it to save Lum. Elan could maybe fit a similar description as Rae in terms of reacting to Lum’s scan, except they didn’t actually vote out of concern for skewing the lynch accuracy, which is understandable. Cycle 3: Craziness ensues, there isn’t much to get out of this except that at least two of the elims were around at the end of the cycle to be able to correctly manipulate the vote. People who were around at the end of the cycle, who are still alive and not semi-cleared: Hael, Devotary, Elandera, Rae, Bard, Alvron, and Elbereth. We already know one of Alv/Elbereth was likely evil so at least one of the remaining list also kind of has to be evil. Kind of a big list, but nominally helpful. Cycle 4: A lot of votes on Alv. My instinct is that for a player that hasn’t literally been scanned elim like Lum had, the elims would have tried to protect them, like they did with Gaea. If Alv was an elim, which is kind of a big question mark, then that might implicate Fifth as the most likely protector of Alv. Cycle 5: We kind of just threw together a lynch on Kidpen based on a collective gut read, and turned out to be right. Soft trust to Araris for calling out the Kidpen lynch for being flimsy. It was flimsy. The Bard lynch is ever so slightly suspect, which included Kidpen (obviously), Elan, and Fifth. There were also a fair few votes on Kidpen towards the end, arguably more than we needed although it may just be a bid for more boxings. Cycle 6: Not a very lively lynch, kind of just decided last second. Cycle 7: Well, here we are. This is a huge pain to do on my phone, by the way. Sheesh. Anyways, you see my thought process. I am going to support lynching Fifth for now.

Generally I would support a tied lynch. It’s a method of hedging bets in the best possible way. I have reservations about doing it in this game. There are some things that tip the balance for me: Both members of a tie are lynched. The eliminators have no reason to break a tie between two villagers. Essentially, if we get it wrong, the consequences are worse than usual. Higher risk. Vote manipulation is ubiquitous in this game. The eliminators really don’t have to expose themselves to protect a teammate. And the greater number of potential sources of vote manipulation makes it harder to learn from the lynch being manipulated. Essentially, if we get it right and one of the tied lynch targets is evil, the payoff isn’t as good as it usually is. Lower reward. Also, always having tied lynches gives anyone with boxings a pretty big edge on anyone without, since they can always ensure that the other party is lynched instead of them. I dunno. Maybe we just want to up the pace of the game (although I don’t necessarily feel that the game is lagging). That could be a reasonable justification for lynching more people. I just don’t think that strategically speaking, it favors the village. I am realizing that one of the most unfortunate things about doing this on my phone (unreliable computer rn) is that on a computer it’s way way easier to have multiple tabs open going back and forth to do a big analysis post of past interactions. I’ll try to have something put together soon. The amount of info available is reaching a critical mass where I feel like I might be able to really solve a lot of stuff.

Interesting, that puts us at four votes.

I’m not aware of any reason Elan is definitely village. Heck, they’ve done a few things I thought was suspicious. My gut just doesn’t feel like lynching them. Bugsy Edit: Fura why did we just make the exact same post in different words

Hm. Maybe. I try to avoid lynching people for playing in a way that I know they almost always do, and I would say Araris fits that category for me, but I can see why lynching them might be more constructive than hammering a more inactive player.

The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense to redirect Fura’s scan. Either I am misunderstanding part of what they were trying to do, or they overlooked some better ways of doing it. As it stands, there won’t be a lynch, since I am pretty sure the voting minimum is two. Or worse, the lynch will be decided by an eliminator bribery. I don’t like the sound of that very much. I also don’t love any of the choices for people who already have votes. Hm, ninja’d by Elan. Proposing a lynch on Rath. Considering I have no idea who to lynch and no time for analysis, I could get behind an inactive lynch, I guess. And then Fura votes for Rath too. I suppose this is better than just leaving it up to chance. And I am in dire need of boxings. I don’t usually like to do this, especially last minute, but Rath. Baaaaaaaaaaah!!

Preparing to have a bunch of people over and also my computer has some kind of hardware problem that is intermittently making it crash, so I don’t really have a ton of time today, sorry. A toast to bad puns! *raises glass* I’d say you’re doing alright. I apologize of today I am contributing to the lower participation levels. I will have more time tomorrow. The thing about claiming items is that unless everyone does it, whoever does it first has to worry about being a target of theft. Still, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, so I’ll say I purchased an item for sale last cycle. With limited time, I can’t really think of anyone to lynch. Maybe Devotary? I acknowledge that the founding for this is weak and I encourage others not to follow my lead unless they have their own analysis to back it up. Also, Drake. Might as well, I guess.

I dunno how much time I have today, but I just wanted to say: redirecting Fura's scan cost 3 boxings. It would have cost 4 boxings to save Kidpen by bribing the lynch onto Bard. Assuming the elims redirected Fura, which is likely, any idea why they would do that over saving Kidpen, who Fura's scan would suggest was an elim? When I got the ledger, it just said "Ledger" I was not told any name. I'm not sure if this was a mistake. I am also confused. Kind of have a similar vibe that at least one of Rae and Devotary could be an elim. I feel like Rae/Elandera were supporting each other too openly to be a team but I could be wrong.

Well, I was going to post this analysis in response to @Elandera's post last cycle, but I think it might still be worth saying. I don't think anybody has clearly explained why it is that Striker cannot be evil yet, and I'm hoping this clears up some stuff: Well, you did try to pick the only one who hasn't actually been scanned yet. I'm okay with taking my chances with alignment flips being wrong and lynching Bard, but I kind of thought the plan was for Fura to scan Bard. I specifically chose Fura as somebody who people could trust was skeptical of the existing ledger chain, because Fura was the loudest voice against it at the time. I kind of thought you were okay with that plan last cycle. I also kind of thought you had different reasons for lynching Bard, because it being because of a tunnel on Striker didn't factor into the original explanation. You are aware that you are in a tunnel, but you have no interest in trying to get out of it? This is NAI, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a bad idea. I'm sorry if I'm being a bit forceful on this but I cannot stand by how people are more and more seeing tunneling as something that can sometimes be good. Please please please, don't be content to be in a tunnel when you have the ability to do much, much better. Maybe you justify it by thinking that you could be right, but honestly, there's no merit in being right if it happened by chance. If you are actually right, then why not try and break out of your thought pattern, approach the situation impartially, and see if you actually reach the same conclusion twice? Suppose Striker is evil. Please consider the implications of that for a second: Striker got Lum lynched. Lum flipped eliminator with a pretty high probability of it being an accurate flip, and even supposing it were wrong, elim!Striker would have no way of predicting that outcome. Your assumption requires that Striker would either take an unnecessary risk of being outed as an eliminator with 75% likelihood, just to lynch a villager, or that the eliminators bussed one of their own teammates for no apparent reason, neither of which is likely. Striker tried to hammer Gaea, which would have been a direct counter to the elims vote manipulating the lynch onto wilson. Your assumption requires that Striker and me conspired to both intentionally botch the hammer, or that the eliminators planned to work at cross-purposes with themselves. Both of these are really complicated plans. Like, twice as complicated as anything I've ever seen anybody actually try to do on this forum, at least. Striker was scanned by Bard, and Bard is about to get scanned. I get that you are skeptical of any alleged scans that clear villagers, which is why I already gave you two points which don't involve the scans in question in the slightest, but hear me out. Unless Fura reports that Bard is evil, which you don't appear to be interested in waiting for, your assumption requires that Bard, Striker, me, and Fura are all evil. We can also conclusively say that one of Alvron and Elbereth had to be evil, and an eliminator team of greater than five members is unlikely with this number of players. Thus, your assumption essentially requires that the eliminator team put their entire membership on the line, unnecessarily, with the lynch of a single member being tantamount to the immediate loss of the eliminator faction.

This is so not fair I spend like 3 cycles trying to lynch Bard for that post without making headway, and then the instant I give up and move on to something else, a bunch of people jump on the Bard train. No, seriously, it doesn't add up. If those are your actual reasons, why did they suddenly become important today? You are creating a dangerous tied vote based on justifications you were happy to ignore one cycle ago, which is downright disingenuous. Are you sure you're not evil? Oof. That was pretty much exactly me a couple years ago. It's a lot. Agreed. Note that Snip currently doesn't have any votes, and didn't at your time of posting, because people changed their votes to Kidpen. ^this. In addition to any of the other reasons I've expressed suspicion for a lynch on Bard at this point, why are we lynching somebody who is about to get scanned? I have a few other comments: Kind of getting tired of the discussion being consumed by this scanning chain affair with Bard/Striker/me/Fura. I get it, you don't like trust circles. I don't really like them either. I never asked to be part of this. It's actually kind of inconvenient because it makes me an obvious target. But not liking something isn't really the same as thinking it's suspicious. I'm not really following the logic of how being scanned as village = suspicious. Sure, it could be a massive bluff that risks the entire eliminator team being caught if even a single one of us is killed, but is that remotely likely? If you had other reasons to suspect us, fine, but I know I haven't heard any of them yet. The way this is monopolizing the discussion is destructive. Please either find the courage to lynch one of us and conclusively prove yourself wrong, or don't. Speaking of ledgers, isn't there more than one? One of them has been very high profile but what has been going on with the others? Majority votes are extremely difficult to pass, but this is probably as close as we are going to get. So to those who haven't voted yet: @Bugsy @Butt Ad Venture @Devotary of Spontaneity @Elandera @Elbereth @Fifth Scholar @Haelbarde @Hemalurgic Headshot @Kidpen @Rathmaskal @Shqueeves @Snipexe If any of you want a governor elected, then maybe cast a vote this cycle? I'm not asking you to vote specifically for me, elect whomever you think is trustworthy. I just don't think anyone (including, incidentally, myself ) has a chance at being elected governor if there just plain aren't enough votes. And we can only try to elect a governor for so many cycles before people give up or the game ends. Lynch Vote Tally Kidpen (4): DrakeMarshmallow, Furamirionind, StrikerEZ, Young Bard Young Bard (3): Elandera, Fifth Scholar, Kidpen Fifth Scholar (1): Araris Valerian Governor Vote Tally DrakeMarshmallow (4): Furamirionind, Striker, Araris Valerian, DrakeMarshmallow Elandera (1): Arraenae

The Drake is a mythical creature known for breathing fire and hoarding treasure, and is viewed as a personification of greed across many cultures.

I think you might be comparing 35% error to 100% error, and saying 35% seems low. You should probably be comparing it to 50% error. A 100% chance of incorrect alignment reveal just means we reverse it and we know for sure their alignment. A 50/50 chance of a fake alignment flip is the least informative. This lynch was 35/65, which isn't all that far off from 50/50. 1. So, this is a reason I have certain misgivings about Alvron's flip. Alvron claimed that the deal he struck with Elbereth involved the eliminators passing him daggers in exchange for any boxings or other items he came across. In other words, according to his version of events, we already knew that the eliminators weren't interested in daggers, they wanted boxings (probably for bribery?). But if we assume Alvron was an eliminator and was lying, which you appear to have done, it is harder to reconcile the observation that the eliminators haven't bought any daggers (particularly because, lets be real, elim!Alvron would certainly have been hyping up daggers in the elim doc, and would not have supported any eliminator strategy that did not involve daggers). I'm not saying Alvron definitely wasn't evil. Heck, the bit about the elims not caring about daggers might have been a grain of truth in a bigger lie. I'm just saying we don't really know, there's a lot of reasonable doubt, and we shouldn't overstate our knowledge. The temptation can be strong to snap to a conclusion that makes everything simple, but I'm not comfortable moving forward with a slipshod assumption. 2. I think it's definitely fair to say that most of us would definitely pull off the solo win if given the opportunity. This is your daily reminder that the DrakeMarshmallow "mass murder" hedge fund is still accepting donations. For some reason nobody seemed interested last cycle Do you think it's the branding? Maybe I should do an ad campaign? Ah, fair enough. Well, I think it was a good person to give the ledger I hate to argue against my own innocence, but I wouldn't necessarily say I was hard cleared. Faking a scan result would probably infringe upon one of our agreements, and even if I were an eliminator, I take deals seriously. Although I have a really hard time envisioning any scenario at this point where I am evil and you aren't also an elim plant designed to fake opposition to the scanning chain and then reluctantly confirm it. It's already been established that we both like high risk plays, but... Still. Considering the price of aluminum on Scadrial, I definitely can't afford the amounts of tinfoil that such a theory would require. Drake But seriously, I totally get where you're coming from here. You kind of have a point. Pushing for my election will change the way people respond. Personally, I'm not going to suspect people very much either for voting for me or for not voting for me. I agree that this wouldn't be reasonable. I might pay attention to how they voted, though. Considering I know you are village, I would definitely support your election as governor. Although I'm also perfectly happy being elected myself. I low-key wanted to run for it since before the game started. Other news, Kidpen seems to be on both my elim list and the elim list of every single player I trust. There's little enough information coming from a low-active player, that when there does appear to be any kind of clear inference, I'm inclined to act on it.