DeTess

I'll finish my list of opinions on people this cycle. I ran into a lack-of-sleep issue yesterday, and it's been my experience that I should avoid posting stuff when I'm really tired. For now I'll respond to Orlok's questions and say some other stuff (I think). First, @OrlokTsubodai, the plan I'd mentioned was something I'd actually started on before the game started. My idea was that each cycle 6 people would publicly announce that they would be drawing lines of warding. this would make it impossible for the elims to disrupt the defense without one of them announcing they would be joining the defense, and with only 6 people to scrutinize in a case like that, it would make it possible to find an elim if the defenses did fall. However, another player joined before the game started, and with 18 players I can't assume that there are only 3 elims. Having 8 people publicly declare would only be sustainable for 2 cycles, and it would be harder to pick out 1 elim from the group if it came down to it. Might I ask why you think stick's lynch was your fault? You weren't the only one to vote on her, and you didn't break any ties either. On that matter, could you expand on your suspicions of Joe and me, and about what makes you consider Lopen cleared? I had another observation I'd wanted to make, but I'd like to hear Sart's answer to Lopen's question first, as the observation hinges on DA having been an elim kill.

It remains neutral, and might switch to elim if his actions warrant it.

I've done a reread of the thread, and will now give some opinions about some of the players. First up is Elenion. He came up with the coin-flipping idea, and then modified it to be pretty robust and tamper-proof. I don't think an Elim would have done that. Nothing else from his posts particularly stands out at this time. Therefore I've got a village read on him as well. As for Aman, his posts seem to be his usual brand of heavy-duty analysis. Given that that's something he's well known to do, I doubt he'd give it up if he was an Elim. That having been said, I've seen nothing that I particularly disagree with, or that struck me as being attempts to manipulate public opinion in nefarious ways, so I've got him as tentatively village. I'd like to have more posts from SilverBlade5 before I form an opinion on him. He seems to act similarly to other games I've played with him, but given his rather minimalistic style that doesn't say very much. There is something I'd like to say about his first post, though: Any attempts to try and control where lines of forbiddance go strike me as somewhat suspicious, as its something the elims would try to do to increase their chances of success. I'm somewhat suspicious of SB5 because of this. I don't have much news to add to the discussion around Stick, and I might end up voting on her (skip to the end of this post if you want to know). Th things that strik me as most suspicious are her attempt to spread paranoia in C1, and her surety of the circumstances of DA's death. Her most recent defense seems just a bit on the far-fetched side of things (though not impossible, it would require a very sneaky or lucky Elim team to orchestrate the situation she describes). Up next is Seonid. I'd like to hear a bit more form him as well. His C1 post wasn't particularly instructive regarding his alignment, and his focus on Lopen on C2 didn't help his case much either. Given that he said that he's rather busy arranging to move house and whatnot, I'm willing to give him a pass, for now. So, up next is Jondesu. He voted on me, and I'm village, so he must therefore be evil. Case closed. Well, not really, actually. Jondesu hasn't been particularly active in C1, but he warned us about that beforehand, so that's not something I'll hold against him. In C2, he seems to be back to his usual level of activity, though he doesn't say much that I can use to try and guess his alignment. He mostly talks about his peristent weariness of some players, but he also brings up a good point about Paranoid King. More on that later. for now, I've got him as Neutral. I could probably write quite a bit about HH. However, I'd be basically repeating what I said in C1, and what Aman has said about him in C2, so I won't bother. For now, I'm still suspicious of him, for the reasons outlined by me and Amanuensis. Orlok has posted a lot in C1 (and very little on C2, but he has valid excuses). His point about the village really running against the clock here was important, though I'd have liked to see him present some ideas to stretch the deadline, not just state that there is one. Overall he has made some good points about the possibility of dictatorship and Stick's paranoia-inducing comment. however, none of these are things I wouldn't have expected him to say if he was an elim, so for now I've got a neutral read on him. If stick does prove to be evil, that'll switch to a village read. I'll finish this with the remaining players at a later point, as I feel my attention slipping. In case I don't get around to it, my other village read is Brightness radiant, and I'm also somewhat suspicious of paranoid king for similar reasons as Jondesu. For now I'm voting stick.

Seonid, I don't think it would be a good idea for Lopen to publicly state the line he made last cycle, if he's a villager. The reason being that if he didn't draw a line of warding last cycle, he'll be drawing one this cycle, leaving him vulnerable to the kill if no one covers him with a line of forbiddance. If he drew a line of warding last cycle, then he would likely be drawing one next cycle, again leaving him vulnerable. If you absolutely believe that him making that claim to you is necessary, I suggest you PM him about it.

That's why I asked that question. If blocked attacks aren't mentioned, it becomes a possibility. Otherwise it is indeed very unlikely.

@Sart, if a kill attempt is blocked by a line of forbiddance, is it mentioned in the write-up? It would be unfortunate if we assume DA was an elim kill, while it really was the act of a trigger-happy assassin.

I hadn't actually spotted it before now, but in hindsight I think that if I had been looking for people betraying their roles in the thread, I'd have picked up on DA probably having the non-rithmatist role. I reckon both Lopen and Amanuensis, had they been looking for it, would have been able to figure this out as well. There are probably others that could have figured it out as well if hey had been paying attention, as DA didn't exactly try to hide it. That having been said, I would expect both Elim!Lopen and Elim!Amanuesis to have tried to get DA to give their team some useful specializations before killing him, so I'm not particularly suspicious of Lopen or Aman right now. Anyway, the point of the above two paragraphs was to point out that it wouldn't have been necessary for the elims to have gotten a roleclaim from DA. I'm going to be busy for the next day or so, but I'll try and get a bit of an analysis post up before the end of the cycle. Don't forget to flip your coins and put in your orders, people.

What I accused HH of was expressing a single suspicion, and then failing to act on it. I expressed two suspicions: Stick and HH, and then went with HH. I settled for HH as I believed his line of thought was the more suspicious of the two. I could have voted on stick, as you said, and made the vote swing towards her. I might still do so in a future cycle, but at the moment what seemed to me like an attempt to guide the lynch without committing seemed mores suspicious than the attempt to breed paranoia. I'll have RP up in a second. Edit: this makes me wonder, @Jondesu, @BrightnessRadiant. If you believe Stick is an elim, why not vote for her? If you don't believe that, why wonder why I went for the second of my two suspicions? I do believe I'd explained why I was suspicious of both adequately (tl;dr of my previous post, stick was breeding paranoia, HH was supporting a lynch without committing to it). Edit 2: RP: Neil hurried along in the center of the formation of friendly chalklings. He kept his eyes low, so that he wouldn’t get distracted by any nearby wild chalklings. As long as he didn’t look at the monsters, he was functioning just fine. It shouldn’t be too hard to keep doing that either. All he had to do was… A big clump of wild chalklings crashed into the side of the defensive formation around him, and Neil stopped in his tracks. The friendly chalklings around him where well-drawn, but there where just so many of the wild monsters. Running at this point was pointless too, as they moved faster than he could. Neil lifted his chalk hesitantly. Maybe if he made a circle of warding... His thoughts were interrupted as a furry animal of some sort jumped right in the middle of the cluster of fighting chalklings. It bounced around aggressively, and it left only broken chalklings in its wake. In a matter of seconds, it had cleaned up the monsters. If Neil didn’t better, he could have sworn the creature chattered something about hurrying up. He quickly dismissed the creature from his thoughts as the chalklings around him continued moving towards the circle. He ran to catch up, then marched with them. No other chalklings came at them at the moment, so Neil picked a special piece of chalk from one of his pockets. This one was far broader than normal pieces, making it unsuitable for drawing normal defenses or chalklings, but it was perfect for establishing strong lines of forbiddance, or repairing the great Circle. He just hoped he’d have the time to do the job properly. @Sart, I'm leaving the outcome here open on purpose. Depending on what happens in-game (if I get killed, or if there are too little lines of warding for some reason) the outcome changes. You're of course welcome to use Neil in the write-up, and otherwise I'll write it once I know the results of this cycle.

I don't think you absolutely have to vote on someone (in C1). However, if you state that you are very suspicious of someone, but don't follow it up with a vote, it stands out.

Neil wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d started drawing. It felt like ages, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. During that time, some of his old certainty had returned, and he had managed to not panic and freeze up when one of the tethers of his defensive chalklings disappeared when it got destroyed. Now, the tether of his one remaining chalking had started to move slowly back and forth again, as the drawing resumed its patrol. He looked up, preparing to force his gaze away again at any sign of movement, but ahead of him only the remains of a large amount of chalkings could be seen. He saw some movement ahead of him, where he thought he saw another group of the monsters race to another part of the camp, but they were gone again in the blink of an eye. Neil looked around, taking stock of his position. There where two other Rithmatists close by. One was the man who had saved him from the initial rush of chalklings. The other had entrenched himself in the Jordan defense and had a large group of friendly chalklings moving around nearby. He saw a couple of liens of vigor crawl over a nearby building, but they missed the defensive circles of him and his colleagues. They indicated that others were still fighting though. His first instinct was to bunker down and hope for the best. His second thought was to try and help out the others that where still fighting elsewhere. However, the presence of the wild chalklings meant that the circle had been breached somehow, and if they wanted to have any chance at surviving through the day, they would have to seal that breach again. Most of the wild chalklings seemed to be occupied elsewhere in the camp, but Neil didn’t want to risk rushing out there on his own. If there were more of the monsters, he would get into serious trouble. He turned to the other two Rithmatists again. “The breach in the Circle needs to be sealed. I can do that, but I’m going to need someone to watch my back. Are you two with me?” @Ornstein, @Elenion, you guys up for a mad dash to close the circle? All right, fair enough. You didn't try the 'I forgot to color my vote' approach, which is what I'd expect an elim to try here, so bonus village points for that. I'm going to stick with the vote on you for now, but I'll re-evaluate once I've seen stick's defense. Also, I hadn't included you in the RP above, HH, as I don't think a sloth would be most suited for a sprint to the circle. You are, of course, welcome to come and prove me wrong.

Doing only one flip means that at any one moment, half the players that should be defending is instead switching, which severely weakens the defense. Flipping two coins reduces that to only a quarter. The reason I'd brought this up was that we needed some way to tell when one defense was being weakened too much, and this was the most secure way I could come up with. Elenion's modified coin-flipping plan makes this unnecessary, however, as both defenses would naturally remain in equilibrium. I hadn't participated yet because most votes uptill that point had been poke votes, and I wanted to give everyone 24 hours to pop in and say hello. Anyway, regarding the current lynch candidates: Straw and silverblade5 both seem to be acting similarly to previous games I've played with them. That's not a particularly large sample size, but I see nor reason to lynch any of them right now. The vote on Seonid seems to have been just a poke-vote, so moving on. Everyone seems to treat Joe's style of going over posts as his usual thing. I've only seen it once before, and he was an elim in that game, but since no one is calling him out on that I'm going to assume that's not suspicious. So, Stick. I can see why Elim!Stick would make the comment she did about planning, as it encourages undue paranoia, while her comment that she hadn't seen any sign of that yet should have stopped any of the planners from looking into stick's actions. When asked about how she could tell when an elim was 'contributing' to planning, she backpedaled and said that she was just generally paranoid of people suggesting plans. This still doesn't explain why she thought there had been no elim plan-contributions yet. However, despite what I just pointed out about Stick, I'm going to vote on Hemalurgic_Headshot. He stresses the importance of the lynch, then quotes Elenion to explain why stick is his greatest suspicion, but he doesn't actually vote. This to me looks like an elim trying to help the lynch of a villager along without actually exposing himself by voting or putting forward his own arguments. Vote tally: (3) Straw: SilverBlade5, Amanuensis, BrightnessRadiant, TheMightyLopen, (0) A Joe in the Bush: Paranoid King, (0) Seonid: TheMightyLopen, (3) _Stick_: OrlokTsubodai, Paranoid King, Elenion, (2) Silverblade5: Amanuensis, Straw, (1) Hemalurgic_Headshot: Randuir

I approve of Elenion's adjusted plan. It should also fix the issue that losses on one shift can cause, as the smaller group would have less people shifting assignment than the larger group. This means that we don't need another system to keep track of that. I would like to suggest that someone posts a link to the coin-flipper at the start of every cycle with a reminder of how the plan works though, as it's starting to get just a tad bit complicated.

Okay, I've looked over the rules again, and there are a couple of comments about the various lined I'd like to make. Note that these are all my opinions, adn should tehrefore nto be treated as fact, or as orders to the village to take certain actions. We've already discussed the line of warding somewhat, so lets start with the next line, the line of Forbiddance. It is my opinion that people who aren't currently up for drawing a line of warding should seriously consider drawing this one instead. It protects someone from a single attack, so by spreading this one around, we can get a decent chance of stopping attacks by the elims. As Orlok has pointed out, we are under a significant time-pressure, but this line can help alleviate that somewhat. Next up is the line of vigor. This line breaks lines of warding (which are extremely important) and lines of forbiddance (which are somewhat important). I don't really see any good reason why non-sepcialist villagers should be using these. The specialists, however, can use these as a kind of soft-seek, however. If they role-block someone they suspect, and subsequently no kill occurs, then they know they probably have a good suspect. I would recommend not shooting these around at will, even if you are a specialist, as hitting a villager could compromise the camp's defenses. The line of making can be used to check on other people's lines. this can be very useful, especially for specialists, as catching someone draw a line of Vigor should at the very least warrant some suspicion. If a specialist catches someone drawing a line of vigor who doesn't have the duelist specialization then that's doubly suspicious. The line of revocation is another line that I believe the non-specialists should be using very little. It temporarily removes someone's specialization, which is almost always a bad thing if it hits a villager. The only exception is when you're pretty sure you've found an elim with a dangerous specialization, such as assassin. Regarding assassins, I recommend you practice good fire-discipline. Don't just kill someone every two turns because you can. Shooting suspicions is fine, of course, just don't role a dice to see who dies whenever you can draw this line. I don't really have much to say about the line of silencing, apart from the recommendation, once again, to use it wisely, as it can end up hurting the village if you hit the wrong person. Edit: Ninja'd by Amanuensis's short and terse post.

Emphasis mine. If I didn't misread the rules, acid-specialists are also rithmatists. They just don't get a specialization. Taking that into account, I expect there to be 15-17 rithmatists+forgotten. Regarding coin-flipping, it might be a good idea if everyone informs 2 other persons what group (odd or even) they are in. That way we can track how many losses one group takes, and redistribute if necessary, without having it as public knowledge who is in what group. Doing it this way would mean the elims would know the group of at least some people unless we get really lucky, but I think the added security against breaches is worth it. If we've got multiple acid-specialists it won't be necessary, as we can reshuffle after the first breach, but reshuffling will almost guarantee a breach, so if there's only one, we need to keep track of defenses and make sure we pre-empt a breach. RP: The tide of chalklings kept coming closer and closer, and still Neil couldn't force himself to look away and focus on drawing his lines of Vigor. His hand had started shaking, losing the firmness it had had when he drew his defense. It didn't matter to him. He knew it was over, that soon these monsters would eat the skin from his body and. A sharp pain blossomed from the back of his head. Neil reflexively looked behind him, to see where the attack had come from. Apparently one of the people still inside the cabin had thrown a piece of chalk at him. Before he could figure out who had throw it his attention was drawn back to the front of his defense. He forced his gaze down before he could get distracted by the oncoming horde again. Looking at them hadn't yet done him any good. Instead, he looked at the tethers of the two defensive chalklings he'd positioned there, using them to judge where the oncoming chalklings where. Then he started drawing, firing line of vigor after line of vigor blindly into the rough direction of the enemy. As he drew, his hand steadied again, and his lines regained their familiar near-perfection. He made an effort to keep in mind where his fellow Rithmatists where, so that he wouldn't accidentally blast their circles of warding, but he didn't look up to make sure he was right. As long as he kept his eyes down, and focused on his drawing, instead of what he was drawing at, he would be fine. Yes, as long as he kept drawing, everything would be just fine.

Okay. Is it correct that linguistics gives general action periods, as it doesn't specify that the extra action periods you gain are for linguistics, unlike the extra action periods mentioned for all other fields?

Maybe I've just read over it, but what exactly are the action periods described in the 'Arcanum fields' section?

This game sounds absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, I try to avoid playing two games at once, so unless I get eliminated from MR21 early, I won't be able to... Wait, who...? rfgltuyfbuahyewabehiouwyhbouy Yeah, sorry about that. I needed to knock out Randuir's common sense for a bit. <- The part of Randuir that really enjoys complex games like this. Anyway, I'm signing up as Telar Pike. Make sure I don't weasel out of this once my common sense wakes up again .

I think Elenion's suggestion for dividing the defense makes sense. I had actually drawn up an alternative defense-plan, but it really only works for more than 2 cycles if there are only 3 elims (or less), and I won't assume that now that there are 18 players. If anyone disagrees with the coin-flip idea, now would be the time to present alternatives, as we'll need everyone to commit to that one for it to work (if only half the players do this, and the rest just go with 'what feels right', or another plan, we'll likely just end up with a pretty half-baked defense). I'll have RP up in a bit. For those who want it, here's a link to all illustrations in The Rithmatist, in case people need a refresher on the defenses. Edit: RP: Neil stood alone, a massive horde of white bearing down on him. He knew there was something he needed to do, but he couldn’t set himself to do it. His entire attention was consumed by the mass of white chalklings bearing down on him. He could feel the raw hunger, washing like a wave-front ahead of the horde. People had told him he imagined things, that the wild chacklings didn’t feel anything at all, but Neil knew better. He’d seen the horde’s hunger first-hand, and now it would consume him. There was nothing he could do. His chalk slipped from his hand, and the horde washed over him. Thunder struck. The earth shook. Neil woke up. He let out a relieved sigh. It had just been another nightmare. “Everyone, to your battle positions. We can’t let them get through!” Similar shouts started going throughout the entire camp and the other Rithmatists started rushing out of the cabin in a hurry. Neil rushed outside with them, but froze a couple of steps from the door. There where wild chalklings everywhere. They came rushing in from the direction of the circle like an unstoppable tide. The monsters spread out as they approached the camp, with groups splitting up to go after different Rithmatists. Someone nearby yelled something about shields, but it barely got through to Neil. His attention was consumed by a triplet of chalklings that for some reason stood out from the horde. They came crawling over one of the camps buildings, headed straight for him. “So, this is how I die.” Neil had grabbed a piece of chalk, but didn’t start drawing. It would be pointless. Nothing he or anyone else could do would stop the horde. They’d consume everyone in the camp, then spread out to… Three lines of Vigor snaked in from his left, neatly decapitating the chalklings that had been rushing towards him. The death of the creatures broke the hold on Neil, and he slapped his chalk down to the ground, drawing a neat circle. He quickly glanced to his left, where another Rithmatist was shooting off lines of vigor from the confines of... Neil really hoped that was supposed to be an ellipse. The man had the right idea though. With the camp under attack, and most of the Rithmatists scattered around, Lines of Vigor would be the way to go. Neil quickly started adding the ellipses of a Shoaff defence, as unlike the other Rithmatist, Neil wasn’t willing to trust a bare circle of warding for protection. He added a couple of simple defensive cracklings for additional protection as he went, his hand steadying as he quickly completed the familiar defence. He’d just started drawing the final ellipse when a wild chalkling came scuttling down the cabin he’d just been staying in. He pulled back his hand in fright, skewing the bottom half of the elipse and connecting it in the wrong place to the circles as he did so. Luckily, one of his defensive chalklings, an armored knight, attacked the creature in the side before it could make use of the newly created weakness in his defence. Neil headed back to the side of his defence facing the breach and put his chalk down to start putting out lines of Vigor. He finally looked up from his own defences to pick out a target. Neil froze again. The amount of chalklings scuttling around seemed to have increased rather than decreased. They seemed to be everywhere, crawling, running, biting. Hungry. “Why did I think I could fight this?” So, if anyone could come by and knock Neil over the head, so he can try and focus on shooting chalklings, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

I remember that someone in the book was theorizing that their Shardblades where the reason Gavilar wanted to be on friendly terms with them. This implies they had the Blades pre-war.

My own guess is that the ghostbloods are, at least at the top, a worldhopper organization. I think that their overall goal will be somewhat benign, but that they will be ruthless in trying to achieve it. I hope they'll prove to be a foil to the 17th shard, who seem to be trying to enforce a kind of non-interference pact. I don't have much to back this up, though.

Good thing I was rereading the rules and signup details. Neil Kores had had an examplary service record untill one incident in which he froze during a critical defense of the circle. If it hadn't been for the quick action of several fellow rithmatists his position would have been overrun. Neil was declared unfit for active duty after psychological evaluation and was discharged shortly afterwards.

Yep, definitely a cool story.

Like Elenion, I've just finished catching up on the Rithmatist. Let's get this game started!

It seems you've already chosen, but there's always the classic "There's always another secret". Also, welcome to the Shard, it's great to have you here. Have a cookie.

Overall, your game idea looks really interesting, @Darkness Ascendant. There's a couple of things I was wondering about however. First, if I'm not mistaken, only Bandits get the ability to create PM's, and they can only be between themselves and another player. Since the bandits also get an elim doc, there is very little reason for them to create additional PM's, as it immediately identifies them as a bandit. There might be some edge cases in which it is useful, but overall it looks to be of quite limited use. Next, there is the lack of lynch. The lynch is an important tool of the village, and an important discussion driver. Giving the village a kill-tool will probably help solve this somewhat, but if the bandits manage to steal it they become a lot more dangerous, while the village loses an important power. I also don't really see why you differentiate between cycles and turns. almost everything seems to be on a turn-by-turn basis apart from the inactivity filter. Lastly, moving and the distance to the inn. As the numbers currently stand, it would take at least 11 turns to reach the inn. Factoring in pissed of shades and people taking other actions, and it'll be more like 15 turns or more. Unless this game ends up rather big, there is only a small chance of the game lasting long enough to reach the inn. That makes it seem it would be beneficial to get lost asap, as it reduces the chance of getting hit by a random shade. I don't think that's intended. Anyway, that's my thoughts right now. It looks like an interesting, non-standard game, and I'm looking forward to playing it one of these days.