DeTess

Yeah, I've discovered this game that I'm way too easy to sway if someone comes up with sensible plans. Elenion with his coin-flipping scheme, and Joe suggested in my PM with him that I protect Jondesu, which again made sense. As long as I keep learning about new weak points, I can keep getting better, of course.

.... ELEEENIOOOOOOOOOONNN!!!!!! .... *ahem* Anyway, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'd like to say well played tot he elim team, and great attempt to the village squad. I also now know a bit about what @TheMightyLopen felt like in LG30, when the provided logic proved him right beyond reasonable doubt, and yet the village went against him anyway (in this case, the village being HH).

Welcome to the shard, Alpha_. If you won't take the cookies, how about some freshly Soulcast Chouta?

I'd say the easy answer is that an elim got caught drawing a line of vigor and is making a ferocious last stand, not that the elims had a plan in motion to frame Aman that they have been working towards since C1/C2, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, I'm not sure how much more I've got to add at this point, so have a piece of RP. Neil looked down at his defences. It had taken three tries to get the concentric nine-point circles right, but it had been worth the effort. Now, Neil was sitting in a veritable chalk fortress. 20 circles, 25 defensive chalklings, enough lines of forbiddance to protect against attacks from any direction. At the other end of the Circle, wild chalklings where gathering. Maybe they were attracted by the commotion in the camp. Maybe there was some truth to the claims of Forgotten having infiltrated the camp. Neil didn’t care. “Well, come on then, you bastards. Let's end this.”

So, what you're saying here is that we should be very paranoid for people going for physicking this game?

I wouldn't say a tie is indicative of 'the plan' that you claim I'm part of is working, especially if Orlok is village, as any plan depending on a king-maker deciding in your favor is an inherently bad plan. If I'd been an elim, I would have gone after Joe or Seonid this cycle, as they where the focus of most voting last cycle. Oh, I'm not saying you should give up, I'd just prefer a bit more analysis and logic, and slightly less rethoric . Speaking of which, I'd been planning to take a look at your big analysis post of Jondesu. TL:DR: I start reading and analyzing from the start, and mention a lot that Aman is portraying Jondesu's comments in the worst possible way, and from the assumption of guilt, which doesn't help with others trying to make up their mind. Aman mentions this himself all the way at the end too, which would have saved me a lot of comments if I'd read that first. Not much to add here, apart from pointing out that you keeping your vote on SB when others switched to stick and straw could be considered in the same way as Jon's vote. Unfortunately there aren't any time-stamps there, so I can't properly judge whether you where sticking to the sidelines on the voting after initially trying to appear active, or whether you where just not active for the last couple of hours of the cycle. For the rest, I can't help but feel that this analysis is more 'because I know Jon is evil, this is suspicious', rather than, 'this is suspicious, reinforcing my claim that Jon is evil'. This is a theme that seems to continue through most of this post. Note on something gut and tone related I picked up on is in the spoiler tag. Skip it if you want to stick with analysis. I don't see why Jondesu's comments here are suspicious. For practicing PM-safety it doesn't matter much whether the conversion is random or not. The only thing it changes is that you can talk more openly about who you have PM's with without the risk of someone being targeted for conversion to get the information you shared. Jon also never says outright that people shouldn't be talking in PM's or trusting eachother. If anything, he says that it should be fine to do so in the first couple of cycles: As I said before, this looks like you're trying to find suspicious things based on the premise that Jon is evil, rather than trying to present evidence to support your claim that he is evil. I'd like to point out that Jon is not the only one to state waryness of Aman and Len here. To quote Lopen's post from the same cycle(page 4 of the collated thread): Once again, Aman seems to be picking up on things that would only be considered suspicious once someone is confirmed evil, and which would be considered completely innocent when someone is confirmed good. This might be useful for making up his own mind, but it doesn't help anyone else reach a decision as they don't share that certainty of Jon's alignment. I don't have too much to comment on this. This is the first part that actually reads like someone trying to prove that Jon is evil, rather than the writings of someone who 'knows' Jon is evil and points out suspicious things to himself. However, I don't really see why hard-clearing someone would be something only an elim would consider. in fact, I would expect that this is something a village duelist or artist (as Jondesu claims he is) would consider as well. I'd say the explanation of why Jondesu is wary of Aman's analysis and his subsequent agreement do not require any eliminator intent. He states he must be wary of Aman's analysis because he needs to ensure he critically thinks it through first, not because he is convinced Aman is evil. With that cave-at out of the way, I don't think it is too odd for him to subsequently agree with Aman. Also, Aman, I stated that Elim!Lopen probably wouldn't kill DA before you did, so any argument about joining the 'trust Lopen' train could be used against you as well. From page 6 of the collated thread: I'd agree with you here, if Jon had merely made that defense as a belated defense of those people. In his own words: So he didn't state that to defend the dead, just as part of a request to focus on the people that had been ignored. So why did they kill PK, if one of the elims was the main person suspecting him, and they already almost lynched him once? Jondesu voted on someone he suspected. Aman then wonders why he hasn't voted for Joe or Len. I don't understand why Aman thinks he should have voted for them though. I might have missed it, but where did Jondesu suggest either Joe or Len are good lynch candidates? For his stated goal (not letting his vote go to waste) Jon's vote makes sense. However, I've said before that his actions this cycle seemed somewhat odd to me. Also, whre does Lopen state that he started to believe you where village? his exact words where (emphasis mine): This sounds like he decided there where others that where more likely evil than you. Of course, stating that he was trusted by Lopen would only help Aman's case, given that Lopen is confirmed good. This is a possible interpretation, though it could just as easily be that his reasoning is exactly as shown. This is once again a case of working backwards from the premise that Jon is evil, which is useful for making up your own mind, but doesn't help others to make up theirs. Again, a comment that by Jondesu that is presented in the worst possible light. Of course, the same can be said about the comment Aman makes about Joe trying to implicate Jon could be made about him asking Orlok to make analyzing me his lowest priority. Okay, Aman mentions himself that a lot of his analysis hinges on Jon being evil, so that's a small point in his favour. Oh, and before I forget: Frozen Mint, who backed your claim, is also part of this group. Lopen had claimed to her (?) about his role, and seemed to trust her with other info. So I do agree the group was compromised, but Aman is conveniently forgetting about a possible suspect here.

I don't really see how I'm twisting logic. As I've said before, I don't think it's particularly likely that Len and Jon are team-mates, but I have pointed out that I made the assumption when I presented my reasoning. Likewise, I've explained why Jon lying about when he took his actions would be extremely dangerous, as a single case of someone using a line of making on him would show the lie. Also, Aman, you haven't explained yet why someone looking to pull a fake accusation would target you, of all people. The way I see it, you're the worst person to target for a ploy like that. I hope everyone tries to use logic for placing their vote, rather than follow the lead of the person who's shouting loudest that we'll all lose if we don't follow his lead.

Alright, HH has claimed to have protected Brightness. That means there are now 4 mandatory actions for the elims, if we assume HH isn't lying. To reiterate: Kill on Brightness Kill on Lopen Breaking Vigor on Lopen Breaking vigor on Brightness Even if they had pre-scanned Aman, in his story a fifth line would still still be needed to break my or his line of warding. These are possibilities. However, it relies on either two specific people being elims(and I'm nto convinced of Elenion's evill-ness), or Jondesu lying about when he did what actions. However, if Jon claimed to scan on C2 and C4, but did so on C1 and C3, there are 4 cycles in which a line of making could out him, so this is an extremely dangerous lie. I agree that in the scenario, it makes sense to accuse someone of using vigor. It makes even more sense to NOT falsely accuse Aman of using vigor, as it immediately turns the full might of your analytic powers against them. If this had been their scheme, why not accuse HH, who has already had some suspicion from time-to-time, or Joe, for the same reason? A team capable of coming up with this scheme would also be smart enough to not target you. It also makes less sense to do so if the team didn't expect to be the target of the lynch this cycle. I'd say there was a good chance we'd have lynched Joe this cycle, and he most likely isn't on Jon's team. In this case, why would they bother coming up with this lie, targeting it at the most dangerous player around, when they could have won by sitting around and doing nothing? Vote Tally: (4) Amanuensis: Jondesu, Elenion, randuir, Seonid, (4) Jondesu: Amanuensis, Seonid, Hemalurgic_Headshot, Frozen Mint, A Joe in the bush @Hemalurgic_Headshot, since you're the only one on the Aman-side of things that I am not reasonably convinced is an elim at this point, would you consider switching based on what I've outlined above, including your claim? Joe, would these two other people be willing to step forward and support what you've said? Otherwise this looks a lot like 'We talked about it in the elim-doc and decided bussing Aman was a bad idea'. @Sart, sorry for badgering you about this repeatedly, but this could be kind-of important: Does a line of vigor need to be targeted at the one who drew the line of forbiddance, or at the one protected by it to break the line?

Alright, thank you Elenion. I assume you've contacted @OrlokTsubodai about this and he can confirm your story? Anyway, on to my own thing. Some people have been looking at Aman's and Jondesu's past posts to try and figure out which of them is evil. However, figuring out which of Jon and Aman is evil is actually more like a logical puzzle. Allow me to demonstrate. Before I start though, there is 1 assumption I have to make, and one 'You'll just have to take my word for it'. First, I'm assuming Orlok and Seonid are not both Elims. Secondly, as I said before, I claim to have made a line of warding last cycle. To add to this, I'm also a Sentry. Lopen knew, and maybe he has told someone still alive that can corroborate this part of my claim. anyway, moving on, we actually know of three of the actions that the elims have taken this cycle. These are: Attacking Lopen Attacking Brightness Disrupting Seonid's line of forbiddance (if Seonid is village) or having Seonid draw a line of forbiddance targeted at somebody else than Lopen so he can gather trust by pretending he protected Lopen if he got scanned(if Seonid is an elim). Now, let's look at the case in which Jondesu is right. What other actions would the elims have to take? The answer is actually none. If I was the only one to draw a line of warding, three elims could have been enough to break the defenses. If there where others, then a fourth elim could have broken one of the lines of warding to ensure a failure of the defenses. Now, let's look at the case in which Aman is right. The elims would have to take the following additional actions: Disrupt either me or Aman with a line of Vigor (as otherwise there would have been at least 4 lines of warding guarding the village) Scan Aman to determine his specialization. This second action needs more explaining. As Aman hasn't shared his specialization with anyone alive, the elims would have had to determine it the hard way for Jondesu to make the claim he did. As Jon's other scan is accounted for, he's had to scan Aman C4. Alternatively, if the elims have two artists (of which the other one isn't Elenion), it could have been that the elims determined it earlier, though I do not think it very likely that they had a second artist (who is not Elenion), found this information and kept it unused until now, as it could have been used to build trust with Aman. In conclusion, for Amanuensis's story to have been true, the elims would have had to have taken 5 actions last cycle, which would mean there are 5 elims. As there are only 9 of us left, this would have already resulted in a game-over. So, is this complete airthight? Unfortunately, no, as I've had to make two assumptions. However, I believe both are fairly reasonable assumptions to make.

I know that I've been reasonably quiet this cycle now. I haven't been idle, however. I only need to hear from Elenion who he scanned with what results and I'll be ready talk about the results of my research. For now I'd like to claim that I drew a line of warding last cycle, so if there is someone out there who can confirm that, I'd appreciate it.

Okay, thank you Aman. @Sart, if you place a line of forbiddance on someone, does a line of vigor need to hit the one who made the line, or the one protected by it to cancel its effects? @Seonid, do you know if anyone apart from yourself and Lopen knew you where going to protect Lopen?

Okay, I assume lines of making don't tell you the target of a line of forbiddance? Anyway, I've got some questions that might reveal who is lying. Jondesu, in what cycle did you scan Lopen? Amanuensis, did you tell anyone apart from Lopen your specialization?

*notices @Jondesu and @Amanuensis bickering* Go act like grown-ups you two. Find evidence to prove your villagerness or the others evilness beyond a doubt, instead of having a he-said, she-said argument! (I'm just kidding. Kinda. I know both of you are responsible adults, and you aren't really acting like children, but the second part of my argument still stands). Anyway, I've got some hopefully useful information. Despite Lopen claiming to the full thread, it might still be useful to know who else knew his role beforehand. after all, Lopen was only killed after he revealed his role to the entire thread (though he might have had protection C3). Anyway, Lopen told me C3 that the following people knew his role: Brightness Radiant, me, Seonid, Jondesu and Frozen Mint. Furthermore, Brightness told me in C2 that she'd told her specialization to me, Lopen and Elenion. Given that the assassin took a shot at either Lopen or Brightness (based on the write-up it looks like the assassin hit Lopen), I think we can assume that there is a forgotten assassin. This would make sense if there are only 3 forgotten. The reason I think we haven't seen the assassin's kill clearly before is because he hit protection uptill now (or the forgotten kill did. Doesn't really matter in this case). Edit: Before I start with RP, I'm wondering if there's still someone we all agree is certainly village. if that's the case, those that drew a line of warding could contact him/her. This could be used to check whether Aman drawing a line of warding is even possible within the context of the defenses getting broken. On that mater, there is a reasonable chance that Brightness drew a line of warding this cycle, as she told me she scanned me with a line of making C1. I'm not entirely sure though, as she might have shifted to the odd cycle somewhere along the way. So, RP. The mood in the camp had turned sour after the latest deaths. Many people where just sitting around morosely, while Cole and Kyle where bickering like children, accusing the other of being a forgotten and trying to get the rest to lynch their target with no other argument than 'because I say so'. Neil had had enough. He didn't know if this talk about forgotten was real, or that people where just making stuff up to justify their deeds, but Neil decided he'd rather take his chances with the chalklings. At least those monsters wouldn't try to stab you in the back. He packed a bag with food for a couple of days and a bed-roll, as well as a large amount of Chalk. Then he marched out of the camp and towards the Circle. When he arrived, he noticed a large cluster of chalklings where already swarming around on the other side, looking for an exit. As usual, his gaze remained transfixed on the horde for several moments, but then he was able to tear his gaze away. Those creatures weren't nearly as horrifying now that he'd seen the things his fellow men where capable of doing. Neil checked the section of circle nearest to the camp, but there weren't any new breaches, or damaged sections that could turn into one. Satisfied, he set down his pack and started drawing.

Ah, yes, if you take it past just double-tapping it does get broken.

Wouldn't it make more sense for double-tapping proficient in Hyperbole to only give you 6 votes though? I mean, using it once grants 2 extra votes, so the second time would be expected to do that too. That might be less broken, and one less exception you have to make. Of course, this might still be broken. I haven't run the numbers, after all.

There's 12 people still alive, less than five hours left on the clock, and only 5 votes cast. People, please vote if you think yourself capable of making an informed decision, as this might be one of the most important lynches of the game. Vote tally: Joe (2): Lopen, Brightness Seonid (2): Len, randuir Aman (1): Ornstein edit: ninja'd by Brightness, added her vote to the tally.

Btw, can you use the same action twice in the same turn? For example, if you have two rhetoric action periods, can you use law of contraposition twice? Apologies if this has been mentioned somewhere already.

You sounded a lot more sure in the post in which you first brought it up: You're right, you didn't actually say this. You'd said you'd found SB a very odd kill, and was later wondering why they didn't attack you in C2(relevant quotes in the spoiler-tag), and I extrapolated from that. I should have marked that more clearly. I kinda brought it up in the beginning of C2, but didn't think about it too much after that. You did mention PM's in that last post of C3 (relevant quote in spoiler-tag), but I might have been reading too much that, as this interpretation would match that comment as well. Good luck with the inspection!

Okay, I mentioned 6 people that I wanted to take a further look at. Since Lopen has expanded his claim to the entire thread, I won't bother including him (He'd told me last cycle, and a third party confirmed it, so I don't have any reason to distrust him). So, let's start with @Amanuensis. His posts in the first two cycle seem to be typical for him, with lots of analysis, involvement and opinions. He himself pointed out to brightness that that's not particularly alignment indicative. As I said before, I don't really disagree with anything he said, but he hasn't collared an elim yet either, so these posts aren't really alignment indicative. It starts to get interesting in the last post of C3, where he accused Lopen. I'll try not to bring up any points that Lopen hasn't already discussed with Aman. The strange thing about his accusation is Amanuensis' conclusion that DA must have been an assassin kill, and therefore he himself must have been the target of the elim kill. I find this an odd conclusion, because it requires a villager to have found a reason to kill DA, and the eliminators to not have anticipated self-protection on C1. Aman also considers the possibility of him having been a 2 target for the elim as well, which would have required a second assassin to attack SB5 (who, granted, might have been a valid assassin target). I can think of 4 reasons why Aman might have presented this reasoning, and stuck with it even after I pointed out that he wasn't the only one to use a line of forbiddance in C1. Aman is the assassin that attacked DA. I think this is highly unlikely, as Aman would have required an actual reason to do so. I'd also expect him to somehow get this information to the thread, as he understands the importance of sharing information. Aman has been PM'd by the assassin that killed DA. I think this is also unlikely, as Aman would probably have shared this info with the thread to support his reasoning. Aman is an Elim, and provided this idea to either sow confusion or because he knew DA had been an assassin kill and was hoping the assassin would step forward to support him. I'd say this is reasonably likely, especially the second of the two stratagems. If I had been an elim in that situation, I'd definitely have considered it. Aman is a villager who decided that DA was an illogical first attack by the forgotten, knew he had protected himself, and took those two facts to the logical extreme. This is also a decent possiblity. Anyway, there are a couple of other small things that I think are odd in Aman's recent posts (FE: he said no one has brought protecting themselves up in PM's, but also claims he hasn't really had any PM's), but these are not necessarily alignment indicative. Overall I'm still unsure about Aman's alignment. I think we've got better targets for this cycle though. Next up is @A Joe in the Bush. As I said before, I mostly had an elim gut-read on him, as his posts didn't seem particularly alignment indicative to me. However, there are some things I'd like to highlight in his most recent post (emphasis mine). At this point, we really need to lynch an elim. Joe knows this. This makes me think that part might have been intentionally put in to make us second-guess ourselves regarding his alignment, and to make us reconsider lynching him. After all, he's offering himself up, and no elim would do that, right? Or maybe this is genuine, and I'm being overly paranoid. Anyway, next! I don't have much to add to my earlier observations on @OrlokTsubodai. He isn't as active as I've seen him in other games, but between running LG32 and the general busy-ness he talked about in his last post I'm willing to give him a pass for now. Next is @Jondesu. I had a Neutral read on him before, but there's something that irks me about his posts in C3. He started out by voting on Paranoid King, then switches to ecthelion to 'make sure his vote isn't wasted' (though his reasoning for why ecth was suspicious wasn't bad, it's just the mention of not wasting his vote that strikes me as odd). When asked if he's willing to switch back, his response amounts to 'Yes, but I don't want to be the first to change my vote'. Given that he also states that he'd be back before turnover, I see no reason for him not to switch his vote if he was more supicious of PK. If no one had come by to break the tie then he could always have switched back to ecth. This reasoning makes me wonder whether he wanted to keep supporting the ecth lynch, knowing that they'd take down PK anyway (maybe the elims had good guesses for what warding group both of them where in, and it would work best to lynch ecth and kill PK?). It's not exactly the be-all and end-all of evidence, but it makes me wary of him. So, last up is @Elenion. I've said before that I'm inclined to trust him based on his planning in C1. The rest of his posts seem more Neutral to me, and there's nothing that jumps out to me as furthering an elim-agenda. So, that's it for the six I'd mentioned previously. However, @Seonid has been on my radar for a while now (read my previous posts on him if you want to read more of my opinion on him). From his most recent post: I really don't like this dare to lynch him any more than I did the one from Joe. A villager in this situation would (should?) be trying to find ways to prove his innocence to prevent a mis-lynch, not daring us to lynch him despite his knowledge that he is innocent. So in summary, I've got a bit of a village read on Elenion, a Neutral read on Orlok, am Wary of Jondesu and Aman, and suspicious of Joe and Seonid. I'm picking Seonid over Joe as my suspicion of him are founded a bit more on things he said, rather than just gut.

I believe I was on that list partly because someone you trust had used a line of making on me in a previous cycle. Feel free to ask someone to do so again in a future cycle if you still aren't sure.

So, just to summarize, the following people have been killed these last 3 cycles: Darkness Ascendant, Silverblade5 and Paranoid king. with the exception of DA, all of these had a bit of suspicion going against them. I'm having trouble figuring out why the elims would be going after them. If they had let them be, than they might have been lynched. At this point I'd have expected at least 1 kill attempt against a more high-profile player (as far as I know, those are Aman, Joe, Lopen and Orlok, with honorable mentions for Jondesu and Elenion). As I asked before, if an assassin was the cause of any of these kills, please let the thread know in some way*, as who they decided to kill might be an important clue for figuring out the elims. Until an assassin comes forward, I'm going to assume that these three where all elim kills. To quote @A Joe in the Bush form C1: I'm wondering whether this is what's going on. Which makes me wonder whether Joe knew more than he was letting on here. I'll be going through the posts of the people I've mentioned above again to see if any of them stand out. also, this is an even cycle, people: *Read my previous post about this for suggestions in how to do this somewhat safely.

In case Aman's right, and an assassin took DA out, it would be a good idea if you could get this info to the thread. I'm not suggesting you roleclaim (that would be a really bad idea), however, if there is someone you trust, maybe PM them to ask them to pass this info on to the thread. I'd ask that you pick two people for this, if you think you can do that safely, so that we can avoid a situation in which an elim claims to have received such a message where that isn't the case to spread misinformation (yes, two elims could claim this together, but I don't think they'd expose two of their number to spread misinformation).

@Amanuensis, in your scenario, why do you think a villager would have attacked DA? Also, from some of my PM contacts, I can confirm that you are not the only one to draw a line of forbiddance to protect yourself. That's all I'm going to say about that, if the relevant people want themselves to be known, they can post in the thread , or PM you.

Your words(bolding mine, and removed tag): As I said before, you first apologized for not being active, and then you very heavily implied that Lopen was a forgotten going after active people (namely, you). That's a bit contradictory, imho.

If you predicted straw was village, why did you vote on him in C1? I kinda want to vote on you because of this, and several other suspicious things you've said, but on rereading your posts, there seem to be a number in which you seem confused about what exactly the rules are (regarding specializations and the number of elims (this is not a solo-elim game, afaik)). I would expect an elim to make sure he knows the rules very well, and to ask questions in the doc if something is not clear. I don't think you'd fake this if you were an elim. This leaves me with the issue of who to vote for. I'm currently somewhat wary of Ecth, Joe and Seonid. Ecthelion hasn't been particularly active, and his sudden vote on Elenion seems to really come out of nowhere. As far as I can see, Elenion hasn't been acting any differently than usual (his comments and actions regarding 'good' and 'bad' bandwagoning remind me of QF22, and he was village in that game). Unfortunately, apart from that comment there is nothing Else I can say about Ecth, is he hasn't posted anything else. This post also seems odd to me: First, he apologizes for not being very active, but then in the next sentence suggests Lopen is voting on him because he's an elim going after people who are active. What makes me suspicious of Seonid is his insistence on getting information from Lopen that would be harmful for him to share if he was village. I find it also noteworthy that all his posts in C2 where focused on Lopen, despite him not being "Hugely suspicious" of Lopen. Like with Ecthelion, I don't have much else to go on, but Seonid hasn't been posting much either. My reasons for being suspicious of Joe are, unfortunately, not as well-founded as those for Ecth and Seonid. It's mostly gut right now, and I rpobably won't act on this suspicion untill I've got something I can point to to support a vote. I'm going to place my vote on Ecthelion for now. Vote tally: Joe(0): TheMightyLopen Ornstein(1): Paranoid King Elenion(1): Ecthelion Paranoid King(1): Jondesu Ecthelion(3): TheMightyLopen, Elenion, Randuir @Amanuensis, @Ornstein, @BrightnessRadiant, @Frozen Mint, @Seonid, @OrlokTsubodai, none of you have posted yet. Could you maybe come by and give your opinions on those currently considered for the lynch?