Magestar

You know what, your argument seems very solid to me.  I agree.    Orlok.

Araris is definitely evil.    

Well storms.

I give up.  I'm just done.  

3 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Devotary, Araris, and Mage are my suspects. Araris for similar reasons that Matrim mentioned, and the other two for their lack of DOING anything.

...What?  I've done things.  Maybe not as intense as I was in LG67, but I have neither as much time as I did in LG67, nor the incentive provided by boxings.    I've been fairly active, and I've given reads and stuff.  I've done some analysis.  I was obviously wrong about TJ, but I tried.  I probably won't be as active as I was in LG67 again, at least without another incentive like boxings.

I'd be willing to lynch Pyro or Araris over myself.   I'm only mildly suspicious of Araris.  Pyro feels like they're being too quiet to be an Elim, unless they're trying something different.  I could go either way there, personally.  Orlok it's hard to tell, since he spent the first half of the game doing that thing for Wilson, and spent the second half being really quiet.  I wouldn't be surprised if Orlok is an Elim, but I don't see anything specific to suggest it.

I'll throw a vote on Araris for now.  I'm feeling good vibes from Matrim, and since TJ was my big suspicion and he flipped village, I'm not sure what else to go on.  I'm actually less sure of Matrim's village-ness now, since I was basing a lot of that off his interactions with TJ, who I thought was Elim.  I guess this is what I get for putting too much stock in one suspicion.

    Mild Elim:

Lord Silberfarben

Truth

Araris

    Mild Village:

Ilwei

Devotary

Matrim

16 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

That's definitely not true. The vote count when Striker voted for TJ was 

StrikerEZ (4): A Joe in the Bush, Gears, Matrim's Dice, Sart
TJ Shade (3): Araris Valerian, Elbereth, Eternum
Ventyl (3): Lahilt, Magestar, TJ Shade
A Joe in the Bush (1): Ventyl
Gears (2): Orlok Tsubodai, StrikerEZ

Note how TJ and Ventyl have the same number of votes here, and neither of them are currently voting for Striker. Striker votes for TJ, TJ switches to Striker. Striker votes for Ventyl, Ventyl switches to Striker. There's no mechanical difference. Voting for TJ goes against the grain of recent votes, while going for a claimed Radiant Striker knows will flip village increases suspicion on him in future cycles, but both are about equal in terms of survivability not taking the elim team into account. Whichever of Ventyl and TJ had fewer elims voting on them would seem to be easier to swing the vote to, but that didn't actually end up happening, so I'm not entirely sure what was going on with that. Striker/Lahilt/Mage/TJ is a (silly) possibility, but even then neither Striker nor TJ had to die. Getting saved with vote manipulation doesn't mean you're evil, after all. We never actually found out who removed the vote from Gears, since Gears wasn't a surgebinder.

Hmm.  I suppose you're right.  I must have messed up my vote count when looking over this lynch.

And that takes my suspicion of TJ back to being just a bad gut read.  -sigh-  I don't know what it is but I'm having some trouble reading people this game.  I don't know if it's because everyone's been as confused as I am, or because of the amount of inactivity, or if it's something else.  I think to some extent I'm also feeling less motivated to put in the effort this game than I was in LG67.  That might just be because I've recently had more hours working than I did in LG67.

Regardless, with TJ's vote manipulation, there's basically no way he gets lynched today.  I'm going to leave my vote there because frankly at this point I can't be bothered.  I'm not in a terribly good mood because of IRL things.  If I'm feeling better later I might put some more effort into posting but I don't think I'll probably post again this cycle.

36 minutes ago, Lahilt said:

Magestar  I find your tunneling of TJ a bit strange. Can you show us what exactly you find suspicious about them?

...I feel like I’ve explained it pretty thoroughly.   I’m at work at the moment so I can’t write up anything long. . When I get back I’ll try to write up a post summarizing my suspicion of TJ and listing some of my other reads.

30 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Alright, I've tried to overlook your suspicion on me as that of a tunneling villager, but this has gone on long enough even for that. It seems like you're genuinely frustrated that you're saving me for a mislynch and no one seems to be acting on it. The very lack of hesitancy to lynch a village KR, after we've lynched 2 village KR speaks volumes of your intentions. You seem to be hiding behind the "I was just tunneling" excuse when I flip village. 

I just don't have any better options.  Even you, voting on me, are only doing so because I'm voting on you.  In your post just prior to the one in which you vote on me, you even said you had a village read on me.

26 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

How would a bus make sense, man? Bus has to be one way, right? All elims vote for one elim to gain the trust of the village? How would that make sense, me and Striker voted on each other. I was on the lead 5-3 for a majority of the cycle. If there was a decision to bus, the elims would not have even allowed votes on me to gather. They would vote on Striker when it was 2-2-2-2 to give him a lead and lynch him. Everyone else who voted on Striker has turned up village, except Matrim. What, are you accusing him of bussing too? There are hundreds of reasons I can bring up like this for my innocence, and I have brought them up earlier in the game as well, especially the way the D1 lynch went which makes it highly improbable that I'm an elim. Your sheer reluctance to understand them, and your willingness to just brush them off is not a characteristic a villager would exhibit. 

I mean, no, a bus doesn't have to be all one way.  I'm saying that the you and Striker, as Elims, were trying to protect the Elim KR.  What do you mean the Elims would not even allow votes to gather?  Like you said, everyone else who voted on Striker turned up village.  How could they control that?  Idk about Matrim.  I've got a pretty village read on them, but at this point IDK.  I don't think you have hundreds of reasons for your innocence.  The only one that really convinced me earlier was that it didn't make sense for Striker to vote on you - but now I'm starting to think that you being an Elim is the only thing that makes sense.  That would "clear" you, and Striker would have known you'd survive, because of your vote canceling.  

You've also switched sides on a bunch of things a lot this game.  D1, you trusted Ventyl, D2, you pushed for their lynch.  Same with Gears.  Now with me.  Your tone has been off all game to me, and you haven't really stuck to your opinions.  That reads Elim to me.  Even Gears noticed it, right before they died.  

The only other lynch that's happening right now is Lahilt, because they're "Dodging votes and sliding under the radar."  I just don't see it.  Who else should I vote on?  Matrim, Mint, or Devotary, people who I feel are pretty village?  Kynedath, Orlok, Zillah, or Xino, who are inactive?  I'm leaning village on Ilwei, and Shane, Silb, Pyro, and Truth have all been pretty quiet, to the extent I don't have a read on any of them.  That leaves you, who I've been suspicious of all game, and Araris, who I can't get a read on.  To me, you're the obvious choice.  Call it tunneling if you want to, but I don't see a better option.

Someone else check me if I'm being ridiculous.  @Matrim's Dice, @Devotary of Spontaneity, @Frozen Mint, am I crazy?    I feel like this makes sense.

3 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

I really hope you don't lynch me because we'd out of 3 village KRs. There's literal proof of someone else who has been active submitting elim kills as I used up both my actions in D1, and hence could not have submitted elim kill in D1. I Squired during N2, and hence could not have submitted the elim kill in D2 as well, though you'll have to take my word for it, or the word of the Squire, who may or may not be active, which I will not confirm. 

That just means that there's another Elim who's active enough to submit kills.  The Elim KR should never be the one submitting kills?  I'm not sure that this is much of a defense.  

Although regardless of whether you're an Elim or not, you're right in that this does mean that one of the active or at least semi-active players is an Elim, which is good news for us.  The problem is it's also entirely possible to be active enough to submit kills and still not post in the thread very much.  

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

We've had the discussion about TJ being evil I'm pretty sure. Strategically, it may have been a good idea for elims!TJ and Striker to make sure one of them died D1, but strategy doesn't beat out enjoyment and I sincerely, sincerely doubt Striker(dies D1 a lot, hasn't been elim often) or TJ(first elim game) would have chosen death unless there was no other option, and we know there were other options because Gears and Ventyl were villagers. I do have a tendency to underestimate ruthlessness, but I just don't see it.

The problem with this is that Striker would have survived if he voted on Ventyl.  Village!TJ, Elim!Striker, Striker votes on Ventyl and TJ has no reason to put his vote on Striker.  Safest option.  The obvious option, even.  At that point, Ventyl would have had four votes and Striker and TJ would have both had three, and TJ would removed the votes off of himself anyway, so he had no reason to worry.   Ventyl had even almost admitted to being a KR at that point, right?  So the Elims could have had an KR down and saved a Elim.  Plus, as you say, it's the most enjoyable option for Striker.  What happened makes no sense.

With Elim!Striker, Elim!TJ, at least we can see that it's some kind of bus.  TJ and Striker are up for the lynch, and Striker doesn't think he'll survive many more cycles with this much suspicion on him, especially if he's involved in a village lynch D1.  So they set up a bus to "basically clear" a rather powerful Elim KR, one with two vote manipulations.  You want that Elim to survive as long as possible.  Still a little odd, but it makes more sense to me than Village!TJ.

I'm going to put my vote on TJ Shade.  I think they've survived too long on the weirdness of the Striker lynch.  I see no reason why TJ can't, or isn't likely to be an Elim, and I've given my reasoning before as to why I'm suspicious of them before.  Those suspicions haven't really diminished, and at this point I don't see a lot of better options.  Plus it's the only way I can reconcile the lynch in my mind.  I should have thought about that before.  I knew something was bugging me about it.

If this doesn't pan out, I've got nothing.  The Elims are probably hiding among the inactives - Kynedath, Orlok, Xino, Zillah, and maybe a few partial actives?  Lahilt, Truthwatcher, etc?  Idk.  Or they're just really good at hiding and I suck.  >.>

3 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

Slightly suspicious of Silber as I think an elim is more likely to be motivated enough to go through 30+ pages to continue the game rather than a villager. 

Hey.    I do this all the time.

Well, I've got nothing.  I'm fairly happy with the discussion we had last cycle, given that we'd already basically decided to lynch Gears.  I'll look over that and probably write something up on it tomorrow.  I'll try to give some reads and lynch options.

On 7/12/2020 at 0:28 AM, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I think a lot of the reason I was feeling bad about Mage is how much he's focused on TJ being evil when I've been reasonably sure that isn't the case. At this point though, pushing for someone so many cycles in a row with little to no external support is starting to seem more village. 

I've said this before, but there's not a lot else for me to go on.  I'm not suspicious of El, like other people seem to be, Matrim I've got a village read on, Gears just died, Pyro just started being more active, Araris is neutral, and almost everyone else has been quiet enough that I haven't been able to get much of a read on them.  Maybe that's my fault.

I also think this might be a bit of a bad habit of mine, although I usually hide it a little better.  I spent most of LG66 being suspicious of Ashbringer without much to go on besides my gut reads.  Idk.

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

And the Shard doesn’t want to let me type  below the quote... Well like most of my reads this game it’s largely gut.  That probably comes from me disagreeing with your reads, specifically on El, but then Araris convinced me to lay off her for the mean time, so now I’m left with an empty feeling...

So you think that El is an Elim?  Why?

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

@Magestar, you said you’d ‘throw a vote on Gears for now’ but there is no red text  Was this accidental?

I... guess I forgot to red out the text?    Thanks for catching that lol.  Gears.

53 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Mage, this is becoming a cyclic thing. xD Nevertheless I'm actually sort of thankful for it because it has sorta kept me alive till now. According to me, I'm only still alive due to a combination of three reasons - the protection thing me and Mat are doing, the constant suspicion on me which might make the elims think I'm still a viable candidate for a mislynch, and of course me leading mislynches, which would have tempted the elims to see if I lead more mislynches. As I said before, I did not "lead" a lynch on Eternum. I had a very personal suspicion on him. Reasons others gave for voting on him though:

I'm sorry.    I've just got so little else to go on.  Maybe lead might be a little strong - push might be better?  Idk.  I'm also realizing that "leading multiple mislynches" might be a little strong, since there have actually only been two lynches since the D1 Striker lynch.

I definitely agree that it feels like the endgame, but given typical Elim distributions, we still have several cycles left before the Elims win.  Using the square root or 20% distributions, we've got roughly 5 Elims either way, maybe less with a strong Elim base and a weaker Village, or more with weaker Elims and a stronger village.  I'd say at most there were 6 Elims with 24 players total, which would mean at most five left, which would mean we have at least 4 more cycles till the Elims win.  We're not in a terrible spot - the worst thing right now is inactivity, which seems to be slowly getting better?  I think we've still got a shot.

30 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I currently mildly distrust Mage for some reason unbeknownst to me. After Gears’ lynch it will greatly depend on his flip who to lynch next. If he flips village then I’d be fine with TJ. But if he flips elim then that would be a bad idea and we’d have to find another target. Why inactives?

Cool, cool.    I've seen a couple people say this now.   You and... Devotary, I think?  I'd love to see some discussion of this, maybe flesh it out a bit.  Frankly any discussion about someone who's not Gears or TJ would be good IMO.    

4 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

Hey, glad to see you're still keeping up with the game. Slightly concerned that you're an elim, but an elim would have decided to stay quiet seeing as we have decided to focus our efforts on the seemingly active elim killer. 

Yeah, for me, that's the only thing on the village side of the scale for Gears, and the only thing that is causing me to slightly doubt the lynch. Having said that, my reads are off this game, so if I think he's village, then he's probably an elim. xD

No worries, Mint! Don't feel like you HAVE to make long posts to contribute. If you chip in here and there, that's totally fine with me. If you want to, then of course, go ahead. 

Still slightly suspicious of TJ.  The repeatedly leading mislynches only to apologize and then swear to follow other people's lynches seems kinda suspicious to me.  It's a good way for an Elim to get villagers killed before fading into the background a bit.

I'm also suspicious of Gears but I'm a little concerned by the almost total lack of opposition this lynch is seeing.  That, combined with their earlier involvement with Striker, makes me question whether or not they're an Elim.

However, given the number of inactives, it's entirely possible that most of the Elim team is inactive, and we're just kind of failing as a village.  I'll throw a vote on Gears for now.

The only person I'm really trusting at the moment is Matrim.  We haven't had enough Elim lynches at this point for me to clear anyone, and the format of this game makes it difficult for me to trust anyone.  Even my village read on Matrim and El are just gut reads, and El's not been active enough recently for it to be a useful read.

I've looked over most of the more active players in the game a couple times now, and I haven't found anything conclusive or even terribly useful.  I do think it's interesting that after apparently getting lucky C1, we haven't really gotten anywhere with our lynches.  I can't help but wonder if killing an Elim C1 is actually bad for the village, since it seems to lead to a lot of false reads surrounding the Elim - I think it might have something to do with the uncertainty surrounding the D1 lynch.  Although I suppose it is only D4.  It feels like it's been longer for some reason.  The Ventyl focus might also have been part of the problem.  Either way, I find it kind of strange how little I'm finding to work with as far as reads go.

44 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

What I don’t like is the switch to Eternum. I find them village, and honestly, their suspicion of me early on seemed genuine. I’m worried half of our active players are elims. This will not go well if that’s true.

Yeah, this is what's concerning me.  Araris already pointed out how many of our players are either completely or nearly inactive, and with the prominent players (Gears, TJ, Pyro, maybe Araris) controlling the lynch RN, it's starting to be a little worrying.  I'm most concerned about TJ and Gears at the moment.  I'm going to put my vote on Gears for now.

This cycle ends in a few hours, correct?  

Huh.  So, I'm assuming we don't have any PM roles at this point.  Either that, or they're inactive, which I guess isn't all that unlikely.  

So, I promised analysis, and here it is.    I've looked into Araris, Elbereth and Gears since they're the first three moderately active players on the list.  I unfortunately don't have any real suspicions going into this besides TJ and a mild suspicion of Gears.  I think having an Elim lynched D1 somehow threw me off a bit.  Anyway, here goes nothing.

Araris - 

Araris started the game by stab voting Ventyl.  Ventyl's a confirmed villager now, but I don't think that says much one way or the other about Araris' alignment.  He's been fairly helpful this game, although not quite as active as he was in LG66, IIRC.  That might just be a function of this game overall being less active than LG66.  It's interesting to note that Araris basically didn't interact with Striker at all while he was alive, other than to say he was ok with the Striker lynch and that Sart and Striker were unlikely to both be Elims which... well, he was right, and again I'm not entirely sure if that's indicative of anything.

Araris has given a lot of reads this game, something which I think isn't his usual playstyle as an Elim.  I've only played with him once recently when he was a non-village role, but in that game he largely refrained from giving reads, and mostly voted without providing much reasoning.  That gives me a hesitant village lean on him right off the bat - plus, his reads by and large have made sense to me.  I've agreed with a few of them.

This last post of his kind of read as filler to me, and his tone seemed a bit off to me this game... overall, I'd say slight slight village lean, if only because of the last point I made about his reads.

Elbereth - 

Elbereth has consistently given useful information to the village and promoted discussion in all of her posts.  She doesn't have a lot of posts (Thank God, frankly this post is already going to be ridiculously long.) but after going through all of them I have a pretty solid village read on her.  Her interactions with Striker specifically don't seem like they're on the same team - it's a lot of small and meaningless stuff, but El clarified a few things to Striker in-thread in a way that doesn't seem like distancing and makes more sense to do in a doc if they're both Elims.

Her voting patterns read pretty village to me.  She read Striker as mild village towards the beginning of the cycle, but frankly so did TJ and a number of other people.  This doesn't mean she's certainly not an Elim, but I don't think it's super indicative.  I wasn't suspicious of Striker C1.

Knowing El, it's entirely possible she's an Elim and just fooling me, but I'm getting village vibes from her.  If her posts were only asking questions and provoking discussion, I'd be more inclined to think she's an Elim, but she also gave reads and opinions.  I'd love to hear more from her, actually.  @Elbereth.

Gears' first several posts of the game were role analysis.  Normally I'd say this sort of behavior leans more Elim, but supposedly he wrote up the first one of these bits of analysis before the game began, so I don't really feel like they're terribly alignment indicative.  Most of his early posts are either RP or some form of game analysis, with one request for El to explain her vote on TJ, which didn't have any reasoning attached to it.  He does, however, note that he has nothing against lynching TJ.  These posts are all very safe, but not giving me any more than a minor suspicious vibe.  A lot of that could be just because Gears' style of posts are a little different from what I'm used to.

Notes on Gears' vote patterns - he doesn't seem to be in favor of voting early and often, as many people are.  I don't think that's alignment indicative either.  His first vote of the game was for El on El's advice, so I'm not really sure what to make of that.  He later removes that vote because he didn't really suspect El that much?  Just a little odd.  Gears also didn't end up having a vote at the end of D1.  He really kind of led the lynch on Ventyl, who turned village... I'm not sure what to make of that.  

Gear's interactions with Striker - not particularly indicative of anything.  There was a little bit of tension between the two of them, but not anything big enough that it couldn't have been early distancing.

I'm also noticing that Gears - and a number of other people - had Ventyl as a very strong village read early in the game?  I'm just becoming more and more confused about why Ventyl was lynched.  It's also interesting that Gears went from not trusting TJ and thinking they were suspicious, to leaning on TJ's analysis as reasoning for lynching Ventyl.

On 7/4/2020 at 4:21 PM, Gears said:

My alignment has no bearing on TJ's and Ventyl's. The converse is completely false because I have adamantly defended TJ and vilified Ventyl. As such, Ventyl and TJ should be lynched before myself. If Ventyl is a villager, we will lynch TJ. If TJ is a villager, we will lynch me. I don't know what you're planning to do if I flip village.

This post is interesting me.  The scenario he suggests keeps Gears alive for quite a while, and also, in his scenario, gets rid of two villagers before even having a lynch on him.  I also feel like a lot of Gears' posts about why we should trust them descend rather rapidly into IKYK territory, which bothers me a little.

Final notes - mild Elim read on Gears.  Nothing conclusive, just that their posts seem a little off and nothing that would make me think they're village - and none of their defenses for themselves - seem like much more than IKYKs.  Part of the problem is that a lot of his defenses are "an Elim wouldn't do what I did" which seems like something an Elim would say.    I don't know if that makes sense, but it's giving me bad vibes.

Other notes... I think it's interesting that several players in the early phases of the game - Matrim and TJ specifically, and a couple others in passing - mentioned that it's hard to read Ventyl because of their playstyle and then that's basically what Ventyl ended up getting lynched for.  I think at this point it's safe we also don't have any village kill roles, as well as any PM roles?  As I'm writing it down that sounds far more unlikely.  My guess is they're probably all just inactive, which is kind of sad.  Or we have some very cautious kill roles.  I also took a look at how Striker's posts really quick, and I'm marginally less suspicious of TJ because of how Striker interacted with him.  

3 hours ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

Apologies, all. The last 72 hours have been really difficult for me. I'm going to try to get back into the game, but am afraid I'm giving up on doing so as locke the tormented. I just can't bring myself to make the effort to do so at present.

That's fine.    Frankly I think I'll enjoy having regular Orlok around over Locke the Tormented.

I'll throw a vote on Silb for now, because while looking over the thread I realized that most (and I think all?) of their posts are not game related, and I think they've been active enough in on the shard to have time to contribute something.

This post took me way to long to write up.    It's also kind of jumbled and I'm pretty sure I somehow lost parts of it while writing it, but I'm too tired to check over it.  So here it is!  Discuss!  Bring some more activity to this overly quiet thread.  I mean, it's day three.  We can do better than one page.

I think that it might be good next cycle to try and broaden the scope of potential lynch suspects.  We do have something to work with - Ventyl flipping village still let's us do analysis.  It's too bad everyone was so focused on Ventyl, but it's not all bad.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

Mage, I know you retracted your vote on me, but I'll still reply because you put effort and time into your analysis, and it wouldn't be right of me to simply ignore it. 

Thanks.    I'll respond to this pretty briefly since I'd rather not focus to heavily on it during the night cycle.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

First off, that was not my first post of the game, it was my second. As such, Elbereth's vote on me was not poke, as she explains herself later, she finds voting for already posted promotes discussion. Since her reason for her vote on me was to promote discussion, discuss I did. As to why I said what I said, I've played 3 complete games till now, and I've been killed in two, both for my analysis. That's what I meant by telling I think I was useful to the village.

Ah.  I must have somehow missed the prior post?  Sorry about that.  I'm not sure how Elbereth's vote is defined is all that relevant.  I still think what you said was slightly odd.  "I've been useful to the village in the past" just sounds off to me.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

I have other suspects I mentioned in the last night cycle. Would have lynched Eternum or Ashbringer this cycle, but they did not come up at all. 

I guess.  I was a little concerned by how much you tunneled on Ventyl and now they've flipped village...  Oddly though, I'm wondering if that's a point in your favor.  I don't think that an Elim would tunnel as hard as you did on someone who they know is village.  Ventyl said as much.  The problem there is I think that both you and Gears are good enough to know that, and use it to your advantage.  But from there it devolved into IKYK territory, which is problematic for a number of reasons.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

It wasn't an easy question though? I caught a very suspicious question of his and even stated that the question was elim-y, and brought it all your attention. Everyone just brushed it off, and you even called me paranoid, so I dropped it thinking it was just me. 

I think everyone brushed it off because it wasn't that big a deal.  Like I said earlier, I still don't really understand why we lynched Striker.  I mean, you later asked a similar question about mechanics, IIRC.  Mechanics questions aren't alignment indicative in my mind.  I get Sart's suspicion of Striker, I guess.  Distracting the thread from focusing on the Elims is why I was suspicious of Ash in LG66 - although I'll note Ash was village at the time.  But mechanics questions don't make me suspicious.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

Striker voted for me, man. If he wanted to save me, he could have voted for Ventyl. Striker could have joined me in lynching Ventyl, and I could have disappeared one vote off me and another off him to pull off a Ventyl lynch. Striker voted for me (how many times am I supposed to say this?  ). 

I think this is actually the best piece of evidence in your favor, especially now that Ventyl flipped village.  I don't understand why Striker would have voted for you if you were also an Elim.  I... also don't understand why Striker voted for Ventyl, but perhaps that's a mystery I won't be able to unravel till the end of the game.

1 hour ago, TJ Shade said:

I believe you are somehow unable to be objective in your approach, Mage. You have an idea of my alignment in your head, and you find posts of mine that fit and suit your agenda, meanwhile ignoring all the other posts which may signal the opposite. You're also heavily limiting your focus to one player, thereby narrowing your suspect pool a lot. 

I actually only had time to get to you.  I said I was going to do analysis on other players, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  I've been busier than I anticipated, which I'm pretty sure I've said before.

But maybe I was tunneling a little bit.  It's possible I was trying to find evidence to fit my reads rather than the other way around.  Anyway, I'm still suspicious of you, but it's mostly just a gut read based on tone and a few odd things at this point.  I'll work on some analysis this cycle and put forth some lynch options of my own in the next day cycle.

Dang TJ.  That's rather a lot to respond to, with not a lot of time left in the day.  I'll respond to it in the night cycle.  I'm about to get off of work so I should have plenty of time.

The TJ lynch obviously isn’t going anywhere.  Hmm.  I’m checking in from work on my phone and don’t have time to really do any analysis.  I’m not terribly suspicious of Ventyl, but I think their lynch will also give us the most information.  All I have on Gears is their odd tone.  I have no idea why Matrim is even up for the lynch.  I guess of the three, the arguments for Ventyl being lynched are probably the best, and a tie sounds good to me.

Ok, so I just went over TJ's posts, since I've got my vote on him at the moment.  I hope to do the same thing with Ventyl and Gears, then with some of the less-focused-on players, to get some more options out there.  Here's what I've got so far.

In TJ's very first post of the game, he responds to El's poke vote on him by saying he shouldn't be lynched because he's been useful to the village in the past when he's been village.  Kind of a weird thing to say.  I guess it makes sense to defend yourself, but he responded rather thoroughly to what amounted to nothing more than a poke vote.

He's also swapped around a bit on the Ventyl lynch; at first, he agreed with my position that Ventyl's actions wouldn't make a lot of sense for an Elim:

On 7/2/2020 at 7:18 AM, TJ Shade said:

I don't feel Ventyl would try the same thing twice if he was an elim. He also would have simply role-claimed in PMs rather just giving it out in-thread that he has a KR role. 

On 7/2/2020 at 7:18 AM, TJ Shade said:

But, I do think Matrim is right to be apprehensive about Ventyl, since Matrim did in fact fall in to role-claim tactic by Ventyl in the previous LG. If you fall for a particular kind of trick, it's only natural to be cautious the next time you feel something similar is happening. For these reasons, I would not like to lynch either Ventyl or Matrim in D1.

Now, obviously, he's changed positions.

On 7/2/2020 at 4:13 PM, TJ Shade said:

I asked Striker what I thought was a fair question, and when he gave a satisfactory answer, I accepted it. Surely I could have added to the trains of Gear/Striker/Ventyl instead of drawing suspicion for a vote on Ashbringer if I was an elim, yeah? I was trying to see who defends him and who joins me in voting for him, but that didn't happen. 

This was interesting to me.  This almost looks like an attempt at distancing with Striker.  I said D1 that TJ's reasoning for being suspicious of Striker didn't make a lot of sense to me;  asking an easy question and having Striker answer it would be a super easy to do some distancing and make both of them look better to the village, IMO.

I did notice that TJ mentioned when he claimed that he claimed even though he knew it would make him look suspicious, because he couldn't exactly keep quiet as a village KR about to die... that in particular is more of a village thing to say, IMO.  But it's also just good cover.  I'm also realizing that the thought process people are applying to Ventyl - that they let Striker get lynched to protect an Elim KR - could be applied to TJ as well, who's basically confirmed as a KR with his vote shenanigans.

TJ also expressed some confusion with my suspicions of him early D1, in a way which didn't make a lot of sense.  It seemed like he was trying to say I looked suspicious for expressing suspicion on him this game, and he mentioned something happening in LG66 which I'm fairly certain didn't happen. 

Alright now for some responses. 

22 minutes ago, Ventyl said:

3. My thinking was, if I give away some of my role, piece by piece then the people that push strongly for my lynch, could be elims. Because, what elim team wouldn’t want to kill a very likely village Radiant? So, I did think it’d be a great way to start a lot of discussion about who to lynch. Which I generally think is bad for elim teams, because it makes it harder for them to hide, because they’ll have to contribute or they’ll be seen as suspicious. But them contributing also gives them a chance of slipping up and being able to be lynched. 

4. If you see a perfect way to guarantee a village KR gets lynched, wouldn’t you do it? If you see that if you defend someone who as roleclaimed while knowing that you’ll die and flip elim, it would make that person seem very suspicious. So, I don’t know if it was him just trying to get me lynched Day 1 since I’m his brother or if he was actively trying to make me look super suspicious. If it’s the latter, than I’ll be very angry at him when the game ends.

This... actually makes a lot of sense.  I can see this being a reasonable thought process for a villager.  My only thing is that my paranoid half is feeling like this explanation doesn't sound like Ventyl to me.  Part of me is feeling like it could be an Elim teammate giving instructions trying to do damage control...  That might be too paranoid.    I don't want to cast aspersions on Ventyl's abilities.

14 minutes ago, Gears said:

An argument could be made for the fact that Ventyl squired you to gain your trust and create an adamant defender.

12 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

That sounds very complicated. Coming from you, who I greatly suspect, it’s not a good look.

Eh.  I think this actually makes a lot of sense.  I could see myself doing this as an Elim.  It's fairly simple and it's a really good way to try and pocket a villager (is that how you use "pocket"?  Last game was the first time I've seen it used.  )

And that's probably all I'll be able to do this cycle.  I've just learned that I have a morning shift tomorrow so I won't be back home till after the cycle ends.  -sigh-

@Straw could I get a vote count?

1 minute ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Not roleclaiming would avoid the situation? Not sure what you are getting at here.

Sure, but you're assuming Ventyl - or anyone, for that matter - had the foresight to anticipate the fact that roleclaiming would lead to this exact situation.  I personally wouldn't have expected it to get this out of hand.    To use Matrim's example, we could have shrugged off Ventyl's claim.  Or, for other reasons, Ventyl could just not have been up for the lynch.  I think saying Ventyl "set up" this situation might be going a little far.

8 minutes ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

I get this. But why would Ventyl set up this situation??? This situation is clearly bad for the village and could have easily been avoided.

I think you may be overestimating both how easy it would be to avoid the situation and Ventyl’s ability to avoid it.

Sorry I haven't gotten around to posting yet; my family sprung a trip to my grandparents on me at the last minute.  I wrote most of this post this morning and didn't have time to send it.  >.>  Since I don't have much time, I'm just post some quick thoughts on the cycle so far.

18 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Wow, looks like the elim team has Striker, TJ, Ventyl, and Gears, embarking on a cunning plan to get each other killed for trust while simultaneously killing actual villagers trusted for their votes. Next thing you know, the elims will be purposefully submitting kills on each other so they can claim Skybreaker/Dustbringer.

This is the best thing I've read all day.    Thank you for lightening the mood a bit.

17 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

This is not exactly correct. He pseudo-claimed for no reason at all, then hid behind his claim basically holding his KR tag as shield. I claimed only to explain my missing votes so you do not think I was saved by elims. And I'm fine with lynching other people from my suspicion list from N2 thread, but he's the most suspicious of the list and I'm sure he's an elim KR, a powerful one too. Therefore, I'm scared of letting him live even a cycle longer than necessary. I'm really unable to understand the hesitancy of others to lynch him, which only adds to my suspicion as part of the silence maybe from elims. Are you all not seeing what I am? His only defence seems to be "This is my play style." while I've tried to give the most logical reasons and y'all come up with impossible situations to try and put the suspicion back on me. 

17 hours ago, Gears said:

I trust TJ more than Ventyl for precisely this reason. 

Strong disagree.  You pseudo-claimed pretty early D1 after a lynch started building on you to protect yourself.  Ventyl did it semi-randomly, which seems like it's basically their playstyle at this point.  I'm not super trusting of you because I think it's less normal for you to claim than it is for Ventyl, who apparently does this sort of stuff all the time.  Furthermore, I strongly doubt elim!Ventyl would continue acting the way they have.  I feel like their actions are super odd for an Elim.

17 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I don’t really think either Ventyl or TJ are elims. Elim!Ventyl would almost certainly know that squiring doesn’t use Stormlight. Village!Radiant!Ventyl would also know, if Ventyl had actually squired. Thus, we probably have a Vanilla!Village!Ventyl. However, due to probably lying about his role, I can understand the votes on him. The chaos he’s creating isn’t helpful to the village.

I'm surprised more people haven't considered this.  no I didn't consider it either shush.  Frankly, it makes a lot more sense than a lot of the other theories flying around.

In defense of Ventyl, I also thought that squiring took two charges of stormlight.  It's possible the base rules read that way if you're not paying terribly close attention, which I wasn't, and didn't read the clarifications, which I didn't.  

I'm kind of suspicious of how closely Gears and TJ are acting together.  I don't have time to look but does anyone know if TJ has any experience being an Elim?  If not, that could pretty easily explain his frantic behavior, IMO.

Other things...  I'm not terribly suspicious of Elbereth?  I don't know why Orlok is, so I don't feel like I can comment.  Her actions seem village, but I'm fairly sure she could fake that pretty easily.    I don't like how Gears is phrasing things - using "we" when referring to things they want done, so it seems like they're speaking for the village, and the general vibe of them giving permission for us to do things.  It just seems... off?  I don't know.

I'm a little worried that none of the main three up for discussion are Elims.  I've already made my thoughts clear on Ventyl; I'm starting to think Gears is tunneling too hard for an Elim, and I'm not sure about TJ.  Still, I think TJ is the most suspicious of the three.  I'll throw a vote on TJ Shade for now.  I'm surprised there aren't any on him yet.  I'll be back before the end of the cycle with hopefully some actual game analysis.  >.>

10 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

@Magestar, the same goes for you. I had to use up my 2 charges in the very first turn (when I had to spread it over 6), and I've had to role-claim and will likely get killed sooner rather than later and still you say "Soft-clearing is going too far"? Will you still tell that your perception of my vote on Ashbringer negates or overcomes everything I've said in the above para? 

Well, here's the thing.  I'm not suspicious of you just for your vote on Ash.  Your vote on Striker doesn't clear you because not only was it unnecessary it also came really late in the cycle, after you also tried to get Ventyl lynched over Striker.  And your burning two charges to save yourself is also pretty NAI.  Role-claiming as self-protection is almost more an Elim move...  but even ignoring all that, I'm still suspicious of you for your tone.  The tone of your posts just seems a little frantic, which is weird to me.  You never seemed frantic when you were a villager, and I'm pretty sure someone else confirmed that this tone seems off for you, so I know it's not just me.

12 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Probably my strongest defence is the same point I made earlier about Striker voting for me instead of Ventyl:
I'll be as clear as possible. It was 4-3-3 (Striker-Me-Ventyl). I had my vote on Ventyl. At this point, Striker chose to go for me over Ventyl. If I was an elim, why would he do that, especially since y'all seem convinced Ventyl is village KR? Ventyl would be a proper lynch candidate for me and Striker. He could have voted for Ventyl to make it 4-3-4, and I could have Tensed/Adhered a vote off Striker to set up Ventyl for the lynch (3-3-4) . Please give me a good reason why Striker voted for me over Ventyl (i.e. why he voted for his teammate over a village KR, according to you).
Another point is that 3 votes on me were very solid and were on pretty early in the cycle. I had a solid train, not many votes getting off. How would you explain an E/E train? They brought up the Striker lynch as a counter for me? Who is they? Joe? Matrim? Sart? Why would they bring an elim counter against me, when they could have easily chosen a village. Gears and Ventyl were just as easy to lynch as Striker. Why him? Explain please. Seriously, evidence in support of village!me is strong if you just managed to look. 

Yeah.  This whole lynch was weird.  I don't know if I've said this already, but I still think the Striker lynch was weird.  I'm glad we got an Elim, but the reasons for voting for them still confuse me.  I mean, look - 

16 hours ago, Gears said:

Sart: Disliked the distracting discussion concerning mechanics.

TJ: Self-preservation.

Joe: Didn't want to vote TJ.

Matrim: Didn't want to vote TJ.

That's just kind of a silly lynch.  Three out of four votes because they didn't want TJ to die.  It's weird.  Right off the bat this sort of voting reads bad.

The thing is, Striker's vote also doesn't make any sense.  I feel like in LG67, I didn't understand the Elim voting patterns either.  Sometimes Elims do sub-optimal things?  IDK.  I just don't know.

This is probably the only post I'll make till the end of the cycle.  I'll see you guys next day cycle.

Well.  Wow.    That was lucky.  I still don't think that lynch made any sense, but D1 lynches rarely do, I suppose.

1 hour ago, Elbereth said:

And I would really, really love to know TJ's alignment because almost all of the analysis of D1 hinges on whether it was elim/elim or not. >>

I feel similarly.  I just did a skim of the cycle, but from what I could tell, the TJ lynch and the Striker lynch sprung up largely separately.  The lynch on Ventyl also sprang up pretty quickly.  I largely put my vote on Ventyl to see what TJ would do, and if they'd follow their suspicions or self-preservation...  I'd probably be more suspicious of TJ if they hadn't thrown their vote on Striker at the end?  But that could also have been bussing.  It certainly wasn't necessary, given that TJ apparently could cancel two votes on themself.  Idk.  The likelihood of the village accidentally almost lynching two Elims seems low, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that TJ is soft-cleared.

That's all I've got at the moment.  Unfortunately I'll be busy all tomorrow so I won't be able to post much.  I should be able to be fairly active next day cycle though, so I'll try to put together my thoughts and get some reads out then.

Well, at least in my opinion, the stuff Ventyl has done is a lot weirder than focusing on specific game mechanics... which is all I'm seeing for suspicion of Striker.    

5 minutes ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

will get to analysis in c. 30 mins. as said before, key to ventyl lynch is whether we think their assumption re most players being kr is genuine. cant understand how they would arrive at this conclusion @Ventyl (cant uncapitalise mentions ) as squiring mechanic demonstrates need for large number of non-kr in game.

Well, if Ventyl is in fact an Elim, a large number of Elim KR could indicate larger numbers of KR in the game overall.  But that's purely speculation.  I'm also skeptical of the idea that there's a large number of KR in the game, for similar reasons.

Could someone explain the reasoning behind the Striker lynch to me?  I kinda get the TJ and Ventyl suspicions, but the Striker lynch I'm not really understanding.

edit:  And does anyone care about lynching Ventyl, or should I just move my vote.