Magestar

And here I was about to move my vote to Kynedath to stop Pyro running away with the lynch.

Dang this is fun.  Good job Striker.

Edit: Wait no now it's only Drake.

Uh.

I guess that's good.  I'm a little concerned by how little resistance there is, other than from Pyro.  Guess we'll see.

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

@StrikerEZ I moved my vote to Kynedath.

Oh shoot so it's tied?

Dang.  This'll be fun to watch.  This game is going great!  Day 2 and already so much stuff going on.

@Experience if you drop a vote on Drake you've got a chance to save yourself.    Figure I might as well give this a shot.

I'm pretty sure one more vote on Drake and it's a tie.  That'd be pretty sweet.  Anyone got a vote count?

2 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

1. From your phrasing, you sound like you are saying it's better to give the elims control later on in the game? Clarify? I'd say it's very much the opposite. Early in the game the village greatly outnumbers the elims. We have much more control, but don't know how to use it. What we desperately lack is information. So it can be a good thing for the village to sacrifice control in the early game in exchange for information. But in the late game the gap between the village's control and the eliminator's information has shrunk considerably, and it is much more important for the village to fight for every ounce of control it has and not give any of it up.

That's not quite what I was saying.  I wasn't saying one or the other so much as I was saying neither.  I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that we should occasionally have competition in the lynch to try and ferret out Elims, but I don't believe that it's necessarily bad to just have a single strong lynch either.  If I felt strongly about the Exp lynch, I might just leave it alone.  Basically, my problem with what you were saying was that it gave too much control to the Elims.  I don't know quite where you got that I thought it was better to give it to them later, but that's not what I was trying to say.

5 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

2. Since you've declined to explain what you mean by this, I have no way of responding to it. I'd really like it if you did explain what you were thinking here, though. Regardless, I'm not sure why my voting patterns are elimy, because I'm not really sure why elim!Drake would waste so much effort stirring things up and drawing attention to himself. What does he gain from it?

Well it muddied the waters pretty well.  Enough that todays lynch seems not in that much of a better place than last day cycles lynch.  People are still basically voting based on gut reads and the analysis of one or two people.  Even if that wasn't the intent, the shenanigans between Coda, Karnage, and Hatz successfully muddied people's reads, in my mind.

8 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

3. I will generate much more information in the long run if you keep me alive. I'm not about to stop generating discussion. In any case, I am curious: you are saying that knowing how I flip would be useful, and you may be right, so if I flipped villager, who would you then be more inclined to trust or suspect due to that information?

I'm not saying you'll stop generating discussion.  I'm just saying you'll help my reads if you die.  So would Karnage, as I've said, but I don't have any real suspicions of them.

I'm not sure how I feel about giving that information... I'll give a bit of it.  If you flip villager I'll be more likely to trust Pyro, who I'm kind of middling on at the moment, as well as two others I won't name.  I'd be more suspicious of Xino and Araris and another I won't name.

9 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

What parts of what TJ said do you agree with? Because as far as I can tell the main thing they said this cycle was that I didn't provide enough information up-front in my reads post, which is something I am a bit inclined to say applies to you as well.

I haven't really done read posts.  I've only given my reads on people who I've voted on or who seemed village, IIRC.  At least that's what I've been trying to do.  If I give a read without some anticipation of the responses it might get, I don't really get anything out of it other than alerting the player I'm suspicious of of the reasons I'm suspicious of them.  (That sentence is kind of a mess but I think it makes sense.)  My suspicions align with TJ on some of your interactions with players.  He kind of limits it to Pyro, but I've got a few more ideas that I'll share if you die.  Anyone can hold me to that if they like.

The biggest problem with my suspicion of you is that it might come from your interactions with the Shouty Shout thing.  That whole PM is kind of a weird wrench in the fabric of this game for me.

That's all I've got at the moment.

The 17th shard ate the first version of this post.  >.>  Take two, I guess.  Sorry if it's messy but I kinda lost patience lol.

36 minutes ago, Matrim's_Dice said:

Ah, I noticed I have you voting on yourself. I'll change that....

Edit: Vote tally for real: @Magestar

• Experience (4) - Elandera, Lahilt, Ventyl, Araris
• Araris Valerian (2) - Xinoehp, Drake 
• Karnage (1) - Ashbringer 
• Emi (2) - Karnage, Experience 
• DrakeMarshall (1) - TJ 
• Walin (1): Pyro 

This isn't quite right either, IIRC.  I believe Emi is voting on Exp.  You keep ninja'ing my corrections.   

Also, not voting is not a good idea.  As much as I might have some suspicions of Drake, they're right about one thing; an uncontested lynch isn't super great.  If no one is against it, than it means the Elims aren't losing anything from it.  I'd suggest picking someone who already has a vote on them and giving it a shot.  That would at least be a start. 

30 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Apologies, that came out wrong. It would have been better to say that I've been backing the major lynch targets both cycles, and that it seems that some people have voted based on my posts rather than anything Coda/Experience have actually done.

Don't worry about it.  I wouldn't actually disagree with this.  I feel like so far a lot of the lynch discussion has come with relatively little backing.

I personally am gonna put a vote on Drake.  I went through all of their posts earlier, and I picked up a few suspicions.  Here's some quick reasoning:

1. They made a few posts early in the game that seemed rather Elim-leaning.  Specifically this one:

Quote

Letting the elims choose who dies isn't the worst thing, I don't think.

At least you forced the elims to do something.

In my experience, the worst outcome is when the elims don't have to do anything at all, because the lynch is between 2 villagers. Doesn't leave the village with much info, and without other sources of info people tend to look for somebody to blame for the mislynch, which can be a bad cycle to start.

Which bothered me a little bit.  I strongly disagree with the idea that it's ok to let the Elims decide the lynch, especially in the early cycles, where the lynch is most likely to be between 2 villagers.  Even in the later cycles, it's kind of iffy.  It gives the Elims more control than I'm comfortable with.  This post just read as off to me.  There were others, but this was the big one.

2.  Odd voting patterns.  There was a lot of switching back and forth in the first cycle, especially towards the end.  There's some more I could say about this, but it's kind of complicated and iffy.  Suffice it to say, I saw some patterns in their voting that matched up with what I'd expect if the Elim team looks like I think it does.

3.  Good info.  Lynching Drake will give us something to go off of next cycle, regardless of which way they flip.  They've interacted with enough people and followed enough votes that lynching them will help us get better reads on other players.  I almost regret trying to get them lynched because of how active they are... I feel similarly about Araris, but the defining differences are that I actually have some suspicions of Drake right now, and that Drake has interacted with the lynch and with other players a little more heavily than Araris has.

There's this stuff, plus I agree with some of the stuff TJ said earlier about Drake.  A lot of my reasoning for voting on them is such that "if drake is Elim, then this that and the other thing" and "if drake is not Elim, than probably not this or that." and it's not all stuff I necessarily want to dive into before knowing Drake's alignment.

Ergh.  I explained this better in the first edition of this post, but I'd kind of been writing it as I trolled through the thread, and I don't feel up to doing that again.  I've already been ninja'd a half dozen or so times while making this post.  >.>  I think I also said some things about the Exp lynch, but I'm forgetting what they were.  Basically, I'm not seeing enough competition for it.  It's too easy, and I'd like to give it some competition.

@Matrim's_Dice, if you feel like your vote doesn't matter, drop a vote on Drake for me.  You don't have to worry about it too much cause I'm suggesting it, and your vote gets to matter.  Plus it brings that lynch closer to the Exp lynch.  Win-win.   

Blech.  I'm posted out right now.  I might be back in a little bit.

I can't leave the game for more than an hour without crap going down.   

4 hours ago, Emi said:

As I took a look on the earlier posts, I would vote on Experience. He seems quite suspicious according to Magestars comment on a previous page.

What?  Where did I say that Experience was suspicious?  I'm pretty sure the most I've said is that they're only as suspicious as anyone else.

I'm don't understand the Experience lynch.  I'm not against it, as I've said previously, but it's existence fills me with paranoia.  It moves too quickly, and without enough backing.  The most I've seen from anyone against Experience is that they're maybe avoiding posting suspicions or reads, and a few tone or gut things.

4 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I'm going to try something a little different. @DrakeMarshall, why do you think I'm Village? On your list, besides yourself, I'm the only person that you have as Village instead of "slightly Village", which somehow I don't know if I warrant.

I'll take a look at Experience, and probably Pyro/Drake's tones in an attempt to read someone. Not voting on Walin until someone else does, because following the Pyro vote is how I got us into this mess in the first place. Although Pyro did take the first opprotunity to take his vote off Karnage... I agree a different vote is probably better.

Kind of an odd question here.  Doesn't seem particularly Elim behavior, but I'm confused as to why you're asking why someone has a Village read on you.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

I think I just missed this, because for the most part I have been rather odd in different ways, but I may as well say it now. I never voted for Araris, or even mentioned them (I think).

That post was directed at Drake lol.

41 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Well, part of the problem seems too be that I seem to be dictating who we lynch. Both the lynch on Coda and the current lynch on Experience have been largely prompted by things I've posted (this is why I have Pyro as a slight village read, since he set up the lynch swing D1, and Coda was village). I can't really set up opposing lynch trains by myself, and everyone (or almost everyone? I haven't checked the count since Striker posted it) not voting Exp seems content to waste their vote on a target with no other votes, while not trying very hard to convince others to join them. 

Jeez lol.  I'm pretty sure I was the one who started the Coda lynch, and at least one of the votes on Exp claimed they were getting their reasoning for me... a flawed argument, to be fair, but there it is.  Several of the people voting on Exp now gave their own reasoning for it.  I wouldn't say you're dictating the lynch.  

Ashbringer.  That's obviously not going anywhere.  Could someone get me a vote tally?

I could put my vote back on Araris, but I'm no longer terribly suspicious of them.

This post is kind of all over the place because that's kind of how I feel right now.  I'm not really sure what's going on with the lynch.  People's reasons for voting are confusing me.

4 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

So... we have 6 inactive players this cycle - @Emi, @Walin, @Kynedath, @Elkanah, @The_God_King and @ILuvHats. It'd be great if you chipped in guys!

Has Walin posted at all this game?  Kinda makes the Devotary kill the other night even weirder.

3 minutes ago, Ventyl said:

I think Experience has a chance of being an elim, mainly because it seems like they try to avoid game-related post and analysis whenever possible. As many have pointed out before, the lack of game-related post probably made the elims very happy, and Experience trying to keep it that way just reeks elim!Experience to me.

Ah gotcha.  I sort of see what you're saying, but not enough to jump on an Experience lynch myself.

I know one of the people Araris actually did provide some explanation for this suspicions on was Experience... I don't know.  If they flip Elim, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised, but I don't know that I'd know where to go from there.  In that, I kind of see what people are saying about them avoiding game discussion.  However, I wouldn't say that's true more than it is of any number of other players in the game at the moment.

This does mean we have a clear lynch now, without any vote manipulation.  I see Experience has ninja'd me.  You still haven't voted or really said much about your reads this cycle, however.  I'd love to hear a bit about those.

Just now, Experience said:

Also, I don't really get why everyone is getting after me for not wanting game-related discussion. One thing is that pyro had even more posts than I did, and no body has said anything about them. 

The main difference here in my mind is that Pyro has given their reads on a few people, IIRC.  And personally, you and Pyro are about on the same level for me. I wouldn't be surprised necessarily if either of you were Elims, I don't have particularly strong suspicions of either of you, and I doubt the both of you would be Elims together.

Just now, TJ Shade said:

Praise the Lord Ruler someone is discussing voting again. @Magestar diversifying the votes at the beginning, I understand. I feel at this time, we should be shoring them up, not spreading them thin. 

Psh.  That's what the last half hour of the cycle is for!

In all seriousness however, it's not like there's a solid lynch right now for me to try and shore up.  With the amount of vote canceling that went on last cycle, I don't feel that adding my vote to the three way tie would be very helpful.  Ideally, I'd like to receive some feedback on my vote.  It'd be great to have people agree with me and get Ash lynched, but like I said, there are other people I'd be willing to vote on if I hear mostly negative feedback surrounding my suspicions of Ash.  I'm going to wait a bit before I do anything else with my vote.

Of course, if you feel inclined to also vote on Ash, that'd be great.  It wouldn't shore anything up, per se, but if you really wanted to do that you could vote on one of the three tied individuals.

And good grief Ventyl.  Did you really go through all of Exp's posts?  That's insane.  I've been struggling to even get through the lower posters.    I'm intrigued by what you've done, and I see the individual Elim-leaning posts you've pointed out.  However, I also see a lot of village lean posts.  Am I right in saying the main reason you're suspicious of them is because they appear to be avoiding game discussion, or is there more to it than that?  A TL:DR might be helpful to consolidate your suspicions, even in a new post.

19 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Also, WHY IS EVERYONE DOUBLE POSTING.

Because the mods aren't cracking down.  Why in my day *devolves into old man noises*

Ok, so I've finished analyzing all of Araris' posts and unfortunately he reads rather village.  I don't necessarily agree with everything he does, or the reasons behind why he's doing them, but in the very least I think I understand how he justifies his actions.  As for why I'm taking my vote off of him, it's mainly because I don't think he'd be pushing discussion, analysis, and posting reads as much as he has been if he was an Elim.  There are a few odd things about that, such as the fact he's not sharing his own analysis...  we'll see.  I also noticed a lot of our posts and thoughts on the game lining up.  It's possible that he's just really good at playing villager as an Elim, but I'm not good enough to say.  Most importantly, I don't think his death will give me as many answers as I'd like.

So, in other news, Ashbringer.  I've discussed my suspicion of them before... I have a little more to go on now.  I might bring it up later if I feel so inclined.  We'll see.  I also feel like I'd learn a bit from their death.

There are other people I'd be willing to vote on, namely Drake and Karnage, but I'd like to diversify the lynch a little, to borrow one of Araris' phrases.

It was difficult to be surprised that another individual had died.  Locking a group of people up together, telling them there's a traitor, and leave them to there own devices?  It was a recipe for disaster.

Reginald puffed away at his pipe.  What had been surprising, however, was the person who'd died.  Adomert,  Reginald thought.  How odd.  Reginald hadn't even remembered seeing them before.  It was truly bizarre.  Who had killed them, and why?  Reginald had spent quite some time thinking about this.  He'd stared at the body for a while, unsure what he was looking for, or why.  The man's clothing had been ruined by blood, of course.  There wasn't much he could tell about the way they'd been killed, at least not before their body had been removed by Darson's men.  All that was left was the odd contraption they'd left behind.  Reginald had eyed it for a while, but he was not a man of science.  It would likely have been useless to examine it further.

Reginald stalked angrily down the hall.  Another one dead.  And for what?  At this rate, Darson would sacrifice all his Metalborn just to weed out a few traitors.  Ridiculous.  Reginald would be surprised if Darson made it through the next couple of days.  Darson would be the target now, with both the Metalborn he'd held hostage and the traitors on his back.

Reginald shook his head.  He was letting himself get sidetracked.  Adomert's invention.  That was the only clue.  He'd have to take another look at it...

5 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

The word counter I've been using says they're all 200, but some of them count certain things differently.

You really didn't have to draw attention to that fact, though 

Anyone paying close attention knows that this means I'm claiming Gasper.

Ah.  I didn't think much of it, personally.  I figured you were going for 200 and missing.  I haven't payed much attention to the Gasper role.

I feel like this makes it look like I'm analyzing the game more than I am so I'll clarify that the only reason I knew your post counts is because I was keeping track of people who might have more 200+ word posts than me.  I was going for the boxings last night since everyone was quiet.   

4 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Something you can respond to, though. Could you walk me through your thinking about asking me to switch to Ashbringer on D1? It might help.

Sure.

1. It looked like the Coda lynch wasn't going to go off.  People were starting to question their reads on him, plus it seemed like a few people explicitly wanted him to stay alive.  That's not really good when trying to get off a D1 lynch.  Also, at the time I believed that ties killed a random player.    So I kind of wanted a strong lynch.
2. The Karnage lynch had built up really fast. I didn't love that.  Seemed kind of iffy to me.
3. I also I had some suspicions of Ash, enough that I was more willing to lynch them than another player.  They were genuine suspicions, and I believe I documented them in that post.  I had remembered you expressing some suspicions before, so I figured you might be willing to shift your vote to this lynch.  I... I guess I was wrong, since you then immediately created a three way tie with Araris, who you also said you didn't want to kill?  That's a little odd.

So yeah, that was my basic reasoning. I'd just gotten home after having been out since about noon, and I was trying to catch up and get a post out so that my explain why the tone of the post was a little rushed.  If you've got any other questions let me know.

4 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Sorry for the double-post, but quoting something: Ashbringer said they'd also lynch hatz. They did not mention walin, which seemed like a preference to me. Something to look into if Walin is elim/Hatz is village...

You can actually copy paste quotes into other posts.  

I'm not unhappy with this tie.  All three of these lynches will give us some pretty useful information.  I'm not super suspicious of Exp or Karnage, but I'd be interested to see their alignments.  I might move my vote later depending on how the cycle goes.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Ventyl knows my role (and I know his, assuming he told me the truth, but I’m not telling), but he seemed easily convinced of my innocence. Other than that, he seemed a little off toward how quickly he went from suspecting me to confiding in me. I trust him, but more out of the hope that village!Ventyl and I working together can be a good team than any real reading. 

I'd like to hear more from @Ventyl about their thoughts on the game in general.

Just now, Shard of Reading said:

So, I clarified on my PM with striker and it is storing that canceled my vote.

Ah.  Well that's good to know.  It does begin to confirm my earlier suspicion that no soothers were involved with the D1 lynch shenanagins, although it's still possible that there was a single soother.

7 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Also, eliminators sometimes have it a little too easy hiding in the pool of less active players. From a meta perspective I think that being part of that pool of players should always come with a risk of being singled out and lynched. Active players aren't particularly more likely to be eliminators and they do tend to make the game more interesting regardless of alignment.

I agree with this.  I believe someone said earlier that Elims would tend to nudge each other into being more active, but from my experience being on Elim teams, this is neither always effective nor always the case.  Lynching actives can also be dangerous to the village.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Karnage lynch.  If we're going for someone inactive, there are better choices, and I'm not really seeing the suspicions.  Ash's suspicions are more related to the scenario surrounding yesterdays vote, and Pyro seems to be of the philosophy that any lynch is a good lynch.  I guess I'm just interested to see how it progresses.  If anyone has any real suspicions of Karnage from the thread, I'd love to hear them.  If not, I'm just a teeny bit paranoid it's an Elim diversion.

I'll probably do some RP in a bit, then call it a night and see what the thread looks like in the morning, unless something big comes up in the next half hour or so.

15 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I don't think you made a coherent enough argument against me to defend from. You mostly said that you didn't understand if what I was doing was part of my playstyle or not. Also, I don't think enough people have me on their suspicion radar that there is any pressure to defend. 

Dang that hurts.    Guess I'll come back when I can make coherent arguments.

On the Twinborn discussion; I'm willing to admit to the thread that I am indeed a Twinborn.  My personal theory was that Twinborn were a way for Striker to get some of the strategically "weaker" or less exciting roles into the game without having any player have too boring or too useless of a role...  although if everyone's a Twinborn maybe that's just me.  It does raise the question of game balance... I can't help but wonder what the Elim team looks like.  I don't really know how Striker does his distributions, but Role Madness games tend to be odd to begin with so I'm curious what this Twinborn filled game will look like after it's over.

I'm also interested that there was only one kill last night.  Do we have a cautious or inactive village coinshot, or none at all?  It seems there's a lot of possible protection in this game, so I'd be surprised if there was no village coinshot at all.  I'd bet on cautious or inactive.  

20 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

These are my reads, no explanation or context provided (will be provided on request):

1. Drake- Village, Obviously
2. Ashbringer- Village
3. Araris- Slight Village
4. Pyromancer- Slight Village
5. Hats- Very Slight Village
6. Experience- Neutral
7. Elandera- Neutral
8. Matrim's Dice- Neutral
9. Mist- Neutral
10. Xino- Neutral
11. Karnage- No Read
12. Elkanah- No Read
13. Reading- No Read
14. Emi- No Read
15. Lahilt- No Read
16. Walin- No Read
17. God King- No Read
18. TJ Shade- Slight Suspcion
19. Ventyl- Slight Suspicion
20. Kynedath- Slight Suspicion
21. Magestar- Slight Suspicion

Cool.  I'll request some explanation, for the sake of discussion.  You're the second or third person to read me as Elim, and while that's not entirely abnormal for me, I'm curious what it is that makes me give that vibe.

12 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

The two main things I have against Experience are the early vote on Joe, and a comment on Mist having 3 votes. Also, Experience was invovled in the most posts war, and I'm mildly suspicious of everyone there (at least more than if they weren't). They are both sort of small things, which can probably be explained easily. But I still feel like an elim would be more likely to do each of them.

@The Young Pyromancer The elims are basically guaranteed to get the lerasium if they want it, since they can pass boxings, and steal 20% on kills. They don't need a thief.

I'd also like to echo the call for @Lahilt to explain the vote on Experience. I doubt you have the same reasons for voting on them as I did.

Also, for what it's worth, either Xino is trying to fool everyone, or he's a Gasper. Each of his D1 posts that I looked at had exactly 200 words (ignoring the quotes), which means he gets cash, and can still store. He also, by my incomplete tally, probably has more money than any living player as well.

@DrakeMarshall could you clarify the difference between "no read" and "neutral"? Also, I feel like Karnage has been involved enough to get a read on, so I'm curious why you have no read on him.

Drake Marshall's posts also tended to have about 200 words in the night cycle.  Several of them had 199, which seemed bizarre to me.  Not sure how important it is.  I didn't count all of them, so I don't know for sure it's a pattern.

For me, the difference between no read and neutral is that no read means I've got nothing on them and neutral means my Elim and Village reads balance.

I'm kind of surprised you didn't defend yourself.  You didn't even mention my vote or analysis.   

17 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Magestar, I look forward to seeing your analysis of me! 

Also, please comment if you were stolen from, and how much. This could help us calculate how soon a theoretical elim thief could buy lerasium.

No wait now there's pressure.  It's not that good.  I'm not good at analysis.    Also I wrote it before you said anything.

Whatever.

Here it is.   

Another point of discussion I keep seeing come up is suspicion of Pyro... as I said earlier, I'm not terribly good at reading them.  But in the very least, I can confirm that their play style has always been very chaotic, at least when I've played with them.  That's what I remember from before my hiatus, that's what I've heard has been the case since, and it's also what probably led me to read them as Elim as often as I did.  I can't be entirely sure, but I'm getting a fairly village read on them, taking into account the fact that most of my "elim" read on them would just be from what's basically their normal play style.  Plus, I don't think they'd have done the Shouty Shout thing as hard as they have if they were an Elim.  That's the big thing for me.  Pyro has been really active in that PM, and from what I know has also been pretty active in a lot of other PMs.  That tends to make me think they're not also in a doc, unless the doc they're in is super quiet.

Other reads I don't mind sharing... I'm having trouble getting a read on Elandera.  Pinch hitters are tough. They also pinged all the people I wanted to ping, which reads well, I guess?  I'm going to have to take another look at the person they subbed in for before making any comments, but my early read on them is balanced.  I'm getting equal parts Elim vibes and Village vibes from them.

The other people I'd like to hear more have mostly been pinged already... I don't think @xinoehp512 or @Emi have been pinged yet, or commented this cycle.  I know Emi has been on, too. 

I haven't been stolen from.  I don't have much coin.   

And that’s all for this post.  Pyro, that’s my read on you right now.  Hesitant village read.

More posts to come.   

13 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

I mean, I don’t think we’ve played together enough for you to say ‘notorious’, but okay.

Is there anything I could do to help your reads?

Hmm.  I don't really remember which games we've played together, or have a way to cross reference them, so I can't say for certain, but I distinctly remember consistently reading you as Elim in at least two or three games.  I'm also pretty sure you weren't Elim in all of them.  Perhaps notorious isn't quite the right word...  in the very least, I don't feel very confident in my ability to read you.  That's all I was really trying to say.

Eh.  Idk.  I'll speak briefly about my read on you in the post after this one. 

18 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I've currently got Experience flagged for more things than any other player. However, to diversify the votes, at least initially, I'll place on Magestar. Again, none of my suspicions/reasons are concrete enough to be worth arguing over in the thread yet, so I'm not going to offer further explanation.

Araris, I'm confused.  Your voting is confusing me.

6 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

Speaking about Araris:

Started the vote on Mist with full intention on lynching them. Does not believe in poke votes. Does not seem to believe in tied votes either. Would rather vote on an already voted person to build a train. That's why their vote on Experience is odd. I believe no one had voted for Experience when they voted for him. Cited vague reasons. Then ended up voting for the same person Experience voted for. If you do not trust them, why do you vote with them? Similar odd behavior this cycle, their voting style opposite to that in the first cycle as they look to 'diversify' votes rather than build a train on their main suspect. 

4 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Responding to the post above:

Just to quickly respond to this: I have a different voting pattern when I feel like the village knows nothing, and when there is enough information for an informed (or at least semi-informed) lynch. Early lynch trains force discussion to happen. Clearly, lots of good discussion is happening this cycle without me starting a lynch train (also, I think my vote on Mist C1 was pretty ineffective).

[Italics mine] See, this is what's confusing me.  Doesn't it make more sense to put some backing behind your votes if you're against poke votes and are trying to provoke discussion?  I get not wanting to tip people off to what's making you suspicious of them; that's why I don't post suspicions unless it's for a lynch.  That I understand.  It prevents them from changing their behavior based on your input.  But if you're really actively going to pursue a lynch, it doesn't make sense not to provide backing for it.  Even if you don't have a lot of evidence, it's better than nothing.  I get possibly having different types of voting patterns, but none of your votes make a lot of sense to me.  I don't think I've played a ton with you, and it's possible I could just be misreading what's actually just your play style, but I'm getting Elim vibes.  Kind of odd since I like a lot of what you're saying.  But your posts and your voting just reads Elim to me.  Not necessarily very strongly, but strong enough for an early second-cycle vote.

Araris.  I don't get the Experience lynch.  I'm not seeing the evidence, I'm only seeing gut reads.  Personally, I'm not getting those vibes from Experience.

Interestingly, by voting on Araris, I'm kinda doing what he wants.    I'm diversifying the lynch and I'm doing it not even halfway through the cycle.  Discuss!

Sorry I haven't been terribly active yet this cycle.  I was rather busy and then I wanted to try and analyze Araris' play style from other games, which led me down the rabbit whole that is LG65.  I'm gonna start by responding to things from this cycle and then move towards analyzing specific people.  I think I'm going to semi-randomly pick four or five people and analyze both them and their interactions.  So uh.  Here are some random quotes and my analysis of them.  They're all out of order.   

18 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Okay, that supports the Twinborn theory. Interesting that the elims killed someone that had very little thread presence. Did Devotary express suspicion of anyone in pms?

4 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I think it has become something of a meta trend for the elim team to kill inactives, and there are a few reasons behind it. First and foremost is that there was a long time where the most active players were always killed first each game, either by lynch or by elim kill. Those games devolved into having 1-2 pages of posts at most each cycle. That’s no fun for the elim team, even if they win, so I think that partially led to the trend. Also, as Elandera already mentioned, a kill on Devotary doesn’t give us anything to go on. Supposing I had been killed instead (and flipped village, naturally ). Then you guys could discuss whether the people who voted on me were suspicious or not. You would also know that all of my reads were honest, if not necessarily accurate.

I can't think of a lot of in-game reasons for killing Devotary, so I basically agree with Araris.  It seems more likely it was a meta decision.  Devotary had what, one post all game so far?  Idk.  I get wanting to kill inactives.  Leaving the actives alive makes the game more fun and more challenging as an Elim.  The time period Araris is mentioning is one I remember very clearly.  I hated it.  It ruined a number of games for me.  Even as an Elim, it's not fun at all when all that's left is inactives.  There's no challenge.  You just gently guide the lynch and wait until you kill everyone.  Yech.

I know saying this might make me read Elim, but I don't really care.   

18 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

My suspicion was that if Karnage is elim, having a group get him very close to being lynched and reversing it very last-minute would be a good way to draw suspicion away from Karnage. And Pyro organized both the Karnage voting and the swap to Hatz.

Could just be me trying to figure out the logic behind the situation, but it is very weird. I don't know why elim!Pyro would move voting off of Coda (village), onto Karnage (?), then onto Hatz (probably Village), in any situation, but especially with Village!Karnage. 

Now that I think about it, I'm not positive Elim!Karnage leads directly to Elim!Pyro, but I think it does the other way around. It looks like Pyro was protecting Karnage with a "change of heart", which could be from Elim comaradarie or  from realizing he'd said he wasn't going to be active. 

I don't see any of this.  The biggest problem is that Karnage isn't suspicious to begin with, so any attempts to draw suspicion away from him would be rather lack-luster as compared to an attempt to draw attention to another player.  That would be much more effective.  And I really don't see the links between Pyro and Karnage.  I admit to being notoriously bad at reading Pyro (by which I mean they always read Elim to me), but moving their vote around a bit cycle one doesn't seem terribly Elim-leaning.

Alright now someone else post so I can keep going.    Am I blatantly splitting my posts into 200+ word segments?  Possibly.  Am I also avoiding a nearly thousand word post?  Also yes.  My next post will have a vote!   

The mists were swept through the night, the winds of fate shaping them and giving them life.  They coiled and swirled above the warehouse complex as men argued, alliance were forged and broken, and people plotted the death of others.  There was discord in the air.

Yet Reginald slept on.

Someone would die tonight.  Anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention would be able to feel it in the air.  The more superstitious Scadrians might say they could hear the mist whispering of the violence to come. 

But Reginald slept on.

Noise drifted up from the warehouse, disturbing the mists.  For some reason, the people within were still shouting.  It could mean nothing good.  They ignored the more serious problems, the issue at hand.  There were traitors among them.  They would need to be found.

Still Reginald slept on.

And so, the night went on.  Time flowed swiftly, more swiftly than it did in the day, for there were less men awake to witness it's passing.  It was almost daylight now.  The mist would retreat soon, falling back while the sun awoke from it’s slumber.

And Reginald -

3 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

As far as analysis of the last cycle goes, I'd assume that one or two of the canceled votes were cause by Feruchemy. It's also probably worth considering that people who didn't place votes may have been either Rioters or one of the Feruchemy roles that cancels a vote. If I were an elim, I probably would have Soothed one (or two, if possible) of the votes on Hatz. The reason being that Hatz was totally inactive, so there was no incentive for the elims to want to kill them. However, Hatz is now slightly suspicious, having been saved by vote manip. I'd like to hear from (them/him/her?) next cycle if possible to get a more solid read. Here's my updated reads list:

Elim
Experience
Kynedath
Magestar

Village
Karnage
Pyro
Reading
TJ Shade
Ashbringer

I've pretty much just added some village reads based on people either trying to solve the game or saying things that an elim probably wouldn't say. I might add Drake and Xino to the elim list, since the fact that I don't have a read on either of them despite several posts makes me somewhat suspicious. Everyone else basically needs to say more things. I know it's currently night, but once day hits we should get some serious lynch discussion going. I'll probably vote on one of the 5 names above, although the result of the night cycle could influence that somewhat.

I'm curious what you'd have me do to try and "solve the game" that would get me off of your sus list?

I personally think that saving Hatz is more likely to be a plot to make them look suspicious than an actual attempt to save a team member.  But that's just my two cents.

13 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Don't worry. There's six pages in the pm and the first two amount to nine parts so far.

Ah.  So you're saying there's no chance of any game related discussion any time soon?   

I guess I'll have to do the heavy lifting myself this evening.  I typically prefer to be quiet during the night cycle, but I suppose putting myself in the spotlight for N1 won't be too terrible.    Elims, don't kill me please.  I have more to give!  I'm still rusty from my hiatus!

I'd like to hear more from @Kynedath and @Shard of Reading.  Kynedath, because I'd like to get a better read on them, and Shard because - Oh look, they just Ninja'd me.

12 minutes ago, Shard of Reading said:

I might I am not completely sure how my role works.

Ah.  I see.  Perhaps you could PM the DM?  I don't believe they're active at the moment, because they have not yet answered my rather silly questions.  Or even looked at the PM for that matter.  You could also PM me, if you'd like.    I'd be glad to help you figure out your role.

Or, I suppose, I could try and help you here.  That might be less suspicious.  You don't have to respond to this if you're worried about your role being revealed.

If you are a...

Connecter, Sentry, or Sparker, and you stored a charge last night, your vote would have been cancelled.  If you are a Rioter, and used your ability last night, your vote would have been cancelled.  And finally, if you are a Soother, and soothed your vote last night, your vote would have been cancelled.    In theory, I guess, you could be a Pinaccle, stored a charge, and voted on someone who didn't have a vote on them.

I know the second to last two are unlikely, but I figured I'd include them anyway.  I don't know if that last one works, either.  Feel free to correct me, if I'm wrong, everyone. 

Well.  This has been an interesting and admittedly bizarre diversion.  Perhaps we could try to tilt the discussion back in the direction of game related content?

2 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

I like this analysis.

One slight nitpick though, I would not recommend that people speak up if storing is what cancelled their vote, because in that case 1 of the 2 possibilities is that they are a Sparker, which is a very valuable role for a villager and should probably be kept secret for now.

I see what you're saying; however, I'm not asking that they reveal anything about their role other than that it caused their vote to be soothed; IIRC, there are at least five roles that could cause this to happen.  Admittedly, common sense dictates that only three of them are likely, but I don't think sharing that would reveal anything especially dangerous to the Elims.

So, as far as the vote tally from the previous cycle goes, I've done some digging, and I'm fairly certain that there were, in fact, only three instances of vote manipulation.    This may seem somewhat obvious, but I was rather confused by the manipulation that occurred, and I had wondered if perhaps a rioter and a soother had somehow cancelled each other out.  I no longer believe this to be the case.

I also am starting to doubt that there were any soothers involved.  This is more of a slightly evidence based hunch than anything else, but I think most of the cancelled votes came from storing.  I've heard tell through my PM network that there are a couple Twinborn in the game, and given the rather low power level of some of the lose-your-vote-while-storing Feruchemy roles, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had been put with other Allomantic powers to even things out.  I would comment more on possible game balance elements, but I don't feel it's particularly useful at the moment.  Suffice it to say, I would not be surprised if all three Feruchemy lose-your-vote roles are in the game, and were also used last cycle.

This would unfortunately mean that the "vote manipulation" isn't as useful as I was hoping it would be towards analysis.  If I'm right, I would guess most of the cancelled votes were just people who weren't too worried about the outcome of the lynch.

Good grief.  I've been ninja'd like five times now and I keep expecting to have something to add to my post.  BUT NO.  ALL I HAVE IS COFFEE, CLAXONS, AND UNNEEDED DISTRACTIONS.  

Reginald cringed involuntarily at the sudden outburst.  He wasn't quite sure why the woman had suddenly stood and begun proclaiming in a loud voice a bunch of seemingly meaningless nonsense.  He paused for a moment.  Perhaps this was the result of being confined for too long.  He had heard that some people didn't react all that well to being confined.  It could be that-

Reginald's thoughts were interrupted by yet another outburst.  What in the rust was going on?  Had everyone spontaneously gone mad?  Reginald shook himself, trying to focus on the task at hand.  He briefly considered the possibility that these people were using their outbursts as a cover for more devious acts.  But no, Reginald thought, even if this was a cover, it draws far too much attention to those people than warranted.  It's too dangerous.

Reginald tapped his fingers on the arm of a chair he'd acquired.  The previous day had not gone at all as he had planned; his shenanigans with the pies had, after quite a bit of uncomfortable silence as the child balanced pies on her head, ended with a child crying and chaos ensuing.  To top it all off, the people in this room appeared to have picked up quite the mob mentality, and had actually beaten a man to death.  Now that was scary stuff.

So it was no wonder Reginald couldn't sleep a wink.  He'd attempted to retire to a corner to get some rest, to no avail.  He was simply too grumpy to be able to sleep.  So he got up instead, and began wandering about.  In the very least, since he couldn't seem to get any shut-eye around here, he could get some work done.  The sooner he figured out who the traitors were, the sooner he could go home.

So he watched people.  Reginald shifted through the crowd, keeping an eye on certain individuals as they passed, those who had raised their voices the loudest in defense or accusation of others.  People were all much the same; very little changed from one person to another.  There were small differences, to be sure, but most people were motivated by a fairly narrow range of things, desires common to men.  And so most people acted in predictable ways, under circumstances such as these.  This was what Reginald had discovered in his time among nobles and his time on the streets.

But there were discrepancies; these were what Reginald watched for.  Furtive glances, twitches, movements that seemed abnormal or unnatural.  The poorly lit warehouse of a room left made it difficult to find such discrepancies, but Reginald looked all the same.  Something would turn up, eventually.

And if not, a nap would be nice.  Perhaps he could find somewhere quieter.

44 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Alright, here goes. (Written before my last post and then copy-pasted, FYI)

 

And another person is suspicious of me! I think that makes seven, although not all at the same time. All I can say is I am Village, I'm not very good at all this subtlety and alignment reading, and I was looking to make a larger tie than Coda-Karnage.

And, Pyro was the one who suggested targeting Hatz. Twice. And the first to vote for him once I said I would move from Karnage, who people had pointed out had said he wouldn't be very active, if someone else voted for Hatz. And he can confirm that we haven't PM'd about lynching Hatz, only not-letting-Coda-die in the chaotic new-player PM.

He's also the one who started the Karnage lynch attempt, then shifted almost everyone who voted Karnage to Hatz. I haven't read into anything to suggest he's elim, but the entire vote shifted from Coda>Karnage>Hatz in the last 3 hours/pages of the cycle with Pyro at its head. 

If:

Ash is Village, Pyro is Elim: If this hypothetical scenario is the case, Pyro wanted to move a strong vote from Coda (a village) to Karnage, then to Hatz (who's probably also village). It could be a ploy to protect Karnage relying on his posting to sway my vote (he can confirm he didn't PM me about it). Could lead to Elim!Karnage. I still think unlikely.

Ash is Village, Pyro is Village: If this hypothetical scenario is the case, then I suppose it takes the simplest explanation, where everything was just a bandwagon. Most people (myself included) would rather lynch someone completely inactive than someone who'd posted once to say they couldn't be active. Doesn't point to anyone in particular, although Elims could have joined the wagon to get a better lynch.

Ash is Elim, Pyro is Village: If this hypothetical scenario is the case, then Elim!Ash and the rest jumped on an opprotunity to lynch someone other than Karnage. However, it's important to note that I didn't start anything related to Hatz. I suppose Elim!Ash could have organized another Elim to PM suggesting a Hatz lynch to Pyro and have me be the first to jump on it, but Village!Pyro should be able to say this isn't the case. This scenario would point to Elim!Karnage as well.

Ash is Elim, Pyro is Elim: If this hypothetical scenario is the case, then the elims did a very poor job of teaching me to be subtle, since we were obviously working in conjunction. Perhaps the elims could be using Elim!Ash as a shield for suspicion, but that seems to have backfired, at least for me. It also doesn't explain why the Elims wouldn't want to lynch Village!Karnage.

-

I know the last two are false, because I'm village. But that doesn't help much, and who knows how solid my logic is. I suppose one of us could be the Kandra, but Kandra!Ash would make my Kandra conspiracy theories a very odd ploy, and Kandra!Pyro would have little reason to be so invested in the lynch. 

I'm not accusing anyone yet, but I'm going to start make reads. If I get killed then that means I'm probably on to something. Or some village Coinshot is tired of me. (If anyone’s wondering why I'm suddenly so analytical, 1) I'm under suspicion and trying to contribute, 2) I'm on a computer now and can better read through the threads, and 3) I have actual data.)

... and Pyro just posted. This is awkward.

Pyro, I don't really suspect you yet, because you seem nice to the new player group and I haven't seen anything with strong evidence besides the save-Coda initiative. If you could confirm that I (or anyone else) didn't PM-orchestrate the bandwagon Hatz lynch with you, I think that could help clear both of us.

Hypotheticals are cool.  I personally am a fan of this form of analysis, where you put together the possible options and analyze the situation from each perspective.  I think it's an interesting way to draw your suspicions into conclusions, especially late game.  Here, however, we don't really have enough information, and Occam's Razor suggests option 2 as the most likely.  I admit I personally have and likely always will have some difficulty reading Pyro, but from my admittedly limited understanding of their play style, I'm getting village vibes this game.

My reads on people a the moment are somewhat in flux.  My suspicions of Ash, despite being some of the stronger suspicions I had C1, really weren't all that strong.  It's hard to get good reads cycle one.  Additionally, Ash's more recent posts read more village to me so... I imagine I'll have to re-think some of my reads.  I do think that the lynch did give us some interesting leads to follow, so I look forward to digging a little more deeply into that.  That's probably what I'll work on next.

That's all I've put together at the moment, although I hope to post more analysis before the night cycle ends, as well as some RP.