Droughtbringer

I completely forgot about this game. But I've remembered now! I'll be active! @Matrim's Dice I know you're dead now, but did you have to start the game with a vote on me?

Don't have tons of time at the moment, but want to get a post out, so speed reading Cycle 1.

A bit of stuff about both contribution and PM safety, both of which are great!

Steel forgot he signed up for this which... well... I can relate to. Probably not a useful thing to waste my speedreading on, but here we are with the longest point that I've made thus far so... deal with it.

I do like the idea of playing with a tie. It gives us info, and I imagine would have been more useful in round 1, but still isn't a bad place to look. 

Oooh. But Matrim makes a good point about naturally forming ties. But I think that we still get info, even if it gives us initially bad reads, it gives us a place to start, it gives us stakes, and it gives us information.

Also, feel free to lynch me. Like, please don't, but I won't be offended even though I'm a vaguely returning player. 

There was a lot more going on, and if anyone would like my thoughts on it then feel free to quote it at me and I'll respond, but time. 

I don't yet have time to think much about this cycle, life came calling faster than I hoped it would, but I find it interesting that Mat died. From the speed-read it seemed like there was at least a bit of suspicion on them so killing them isn't how I'd play an elim. But I also very briefly skimmed the back half of the cycle so I could have missed a lot.

I'll get this posted and... hopefully have time in the morning to do some Cycle Two stuff.

I'll sign up as Master Namer Smedry - A Smedry with a talent for not being around when needed.

18 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

What I’m hearing is Danex is the safest vote option at the moment?

Why do we think Danex is safe? The piling on them concerns me a bit. 

Are PMs open this cycle? I want to be more active in PMs than I was last round but I also didn't ever participate in PMs last time so...

55 minutes ago, Danex said:

@Droughtbringer who did you nominate?

I was just inactive and ended with a self-vote. :/ 

11 hours ago, Alvron said:

Indeed.  I am the Sage and Drought is the Keymaster.  Please don't vote on him.

I am and completely forgot that not voting would vote on myself...  so that's just my bad here. I'll be sure to vote this time, though 

14 hours ago, Illwei said:

I hardclaim keymaster

What's a hard claim? 

Ooh. Sounds fun, sign me up 

AZ

TUO

I really don't want to die...

I don't have a vote count and don't have the time to figure one out... so I'd imagine that TUO is still my best bet to stay alive. Sorry! 

Mat

TUO

9 hours ago, Squirrelwatcher said:

Can someone give me a rundown about drought's playstyle? Posts feel off to me but I've never played with them before

Honestly, at this point, I don't don't know my own playstyle. With a two year break and a game where I wasn't super active to base off of, not even I know where I'll end up. 

Also, sorry, I've had some real life work stuff come up that's taking a bit of time. I should have a decent bit of time tomorrow, though. 

On 9/24/2021 at 2:02 PM, Kasimir said:

My read from the cycle discussion is that it is more likely TJ was the Elim kill, in which case, Illwei was likely the Chermoarish kill. Unclear if the vote swing was enemy action or Villager fog-of-war

I'd agree here, I don't see the elims having gone for Illwei after how much suspicion was on them last cycle. They'd prove useful as a distraction from the real elims at least. 

10 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Having reread Drought's large post C2, I'm honestly unconvinced of village intent. A significant motivation behind doing a thread reread should be finding someone to vote on, IMO. But Drought is just sort of positive/neutral on everyone he talks about. Drought defends Kas, which could be Sja aiming for village cred if Kas flips. I do like the vote on Mat later on, given what I've read so far.

Part of this is that it wasn't a thread re-read, it was just a thread read. That was a "live reaction" from me as I read through the thread. 

And... I think that I'm bad at finding people suspicious. I don't want anyone to be an elim and trusting people is my default stance these days. Which... isn't good but it was definetly the reads I was getting. I think I'd have to do re-read specifically searching for suspicious things to pull up any real suspect list. 

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

There's a possibility that Araris lied and that he's not BAM, but this would require the real BAM to have been converted C1. I can't see BAM remaining quiet about it otherwise, though maybe real BAM is one of our less active players. But that's one hell of a risky play since Unmade roles are unique so I wouldn't put high credence on those options.

It's also possible that there is no BAM in the game and Araris is just lying... but I think that's too much of a gamble for me to have attempted it. 

@Matrim's Dice I still haven't seen anything from you that gives us any more read into your thoughts or anything so my vote will be thrown onto you. 

Mat

Well, I'm going to have to read through the end of last cycle at least 3 more times to understand half of what happened. 

And.. that's a lot of village deaths. Sja possibly has a 3 person team at this point meaning we have a 3:8 ratio in the worst parity situation. 

11 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

The QF I ran was definitely not QF29  I think Kas is referencing an old game.

Oof. I can count. 

Which was QF29? 

Huh. I only vaguely remember that game. 

49 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

but my read of Drought’s profile is unfortunately based off QF29.

Hey! I didn't even realized that QF29 had started by the time it had ended! The weird start delay and then start completely through me off and I was busy with work and figuring out school at the time. 

Since I know this games started I'll be quite a bit more active then... nothing. 

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Wait what's the vc

Illwei (2): Elandera, Elkanah

Tani (2): Matrim's Dice, Araris 

Matrim's Dice (2): Droughtbringer, Kas

Araris Valerian (2): Illwei, Tani

I believe. Could be wrong there, it's a bit hard to find this from mobile 

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

See rejoinder to Illwei: it is, but it also makes it easier for you to be picked up on and presents connections. Conversions do not set the Village very far back when there are no reads and trusts. It sets the Village further back when these have solidified.

At this point, I still don't understand why you are trying to dispute this.

My intent with the prior post here had been missed, I think I lost it along the way of writing it. 

I had been just intending to try and explain why I had been focused on a Sja that was converting, but somewhere along the line I got lost in arguing with you. My apologies for that. 

The only line that I posted, and that I should have expanded upon, was "could be playing a serial killer, fair" or something similar and then just left it at that. 

Essentially what I was wanting to say and then forgot about was "hey, I'm blind sometimes and tunneled in on just converting, here are my reasons. Sja playing as an SK is a fair argument and something we should also be keeping in mind."

So... sorry that I wasn't make clear, and I will endeavor to be more so in the future. 

Just now, Illwei said:

Personally i think matrim should be given a pass for this day :P. 

Why?

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Thanks, then  But I do want to come up with something, I probably owe that after my random takes and whatever I’ve done so far lol

I'll be waiting for it! 

9 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I don’t think you should give me that much slack honestly  I have more time than that made it sound.

I mean, having time and having time that you are able to spend on SE are two different things. Like SE is fun, but it's not relaxing for me the way other things are. So having the time to type up analyze, type up a coherent post, make sure you aren't painting yourself as an Elim (whether or not you are an elim) and everything else... it just a lot of work. So... yeah  

44 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Fair but what do you want me to do?

Uhh... Drop everything that you're doing that's keeping you busy and just spend the rest of the week focused on this game and nothing else? That's fair, honestly. There's not tons of time left in the cycle, and with a rough schedule... yeah. If you wanted to post your village reads and why that would be much appreciated. I couldn't say if that would have me remove my vote on you, but it would at least give us more information. 

2 hours ago, Illwei said:

Its called pocketing look it up

Well, thank you for having me then.

Is there a reason that he would need to mention that he had been in a recent LG with you? 

As for his vote on you... a hypothetical scenario

If I was Sja then I would probably have started this cycle trying to push the Kas lynch. It keeps the lynch away from me, I have justified reasons for voting on them because no one knows what Kas is, and it feels like it has potential. So I'd say that there is a decent chance that Sja is one of the people wanting to lynch Kas. I wouldn't say a super large chance, but my guess would be ~25% chance that Sja is one of you three.
That being said, villagers also have a pretty decent chance of wanting to vote on Kas, because, again, we have no idea what Kas is. 

All that's to say that I feel like his vote on you is fair. 

1 hour ago, Tani said:

Hey me too. Kasimir.

5 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Is it weird I kinda want to kill Kas again 

2 hours ago, Illwei said:

Kasimir

I wish you and the other two would give a bit more info on why you're voting on/wanting to kill Kas (again) just so that we can discuss it. I have some reasons in my head that someone might vote for Kas, but this thread has talked about the posibility of him being Sja, but haven't given any other reasons. Are there others?

17 minutes ago, Illwei said:

What do you think of kas' approach to me?

Care to clarify what you're asking? Sorry, don't quite know what you mean by his approach.

18 minutes ago, Illwei said:

This is our thread now

Ha! The rules say no PMs, but they said nothing about turning the thread into our own PM

51 minutes ago, Illwei said:

My point being though that kas claiming suprise + him offering himself up + a converter d1 just. Fits. It doesnt risk failure. It what, takes away two charges? Thats honestly a lot but it leaves three which is good for 1, 2, or 3 converts iirc. And frankly with just one convert you alreasy have enough to be getting functionally two kills a cycle. 

Regardless of if he was sja or not, kas would almost always be my first pick convertee. 

EDIT: 

Also, Drought,  you say you have village reads? Shoot them at me and ill shoot them down

It would just be 2 converts max, possibly just one if they got the unmade. One of the clarifications was that Sja can't self kill with a convert.

Village Reads:
Kas - I just don't feel like someone would pull that off of Sja, it seems like a stupid, risky play. I also don't think that Sja would have converted him as he was being lynched, and sure he likely was telling the truth, but if he was lying because he wanted to not play a conversion game, or just thought it would be fun, or if someone else targeted him then you lose an action which could put Sja even further behind.

Illwei - Your posts have all read village thus far, you have put in a decent bit of time and effort and generated useful discussion for the village. I don't know your play style that well, but I have disagreed with a few points that you have made in ways that makes me think you're a village. I don't know if that makes sense, but I tend to find Elims to be a bit less confrontational in thread at this point in the game.

|TJ| - Their posts just read as authentic to me? Not certain why, but it's a gut read at least. 

Realized I switched to 2nd person for your read, so apparently this entire post is just directed towards you and everyone else is just here to coincidentally read it all. 

Okay, gonna read through everything and post specific reactions here:

Rules:
No lynch minimum means that we could have just not voted at all to see if the RNG would help us win, but considering the turn has passed and it's not super likely to come up again...
Re-Shephir seems like it could be a scary ability. I imagine that could combo with the conversion action to convert multiple people. If so would that take multiple charges, or not?  (Changed upon reading Cycle 2 writeup) Either way, though, I'd point this ability out as something to be careful with because it could duplicate actions we do not want duplicated.
Death Rattles seem like a really fun, cool mechanic, and I'll probably spend either very little time or too much time on mine.
Saj-Anat has 5 charges, which is a solid number. Could make a significant elim team with that, or just have some really hard to take down.
Order of Actions (Roleblocks-->Re-Shephir-->Protects/Vote Manips/PM Abilities-->NKs-->Conversions-->Scans) this means that any scans will always give us the right information... so long as we survive. 

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Okay first things is to avoid paranoia about Sja converting our top trusts. So in order to avoid this, we do not give trust reads at all. Or at least we just say who we think is village without assigning any importance to how trusted they are. This is to avoid the case where we might end up trusting a player and then have to worry about Sja Anat converting that player and then us being paranoid of a trusted player in case they aren't actually converted.

@|TJ| - I don't know if this is a great idea. Posting reads is a fundamental part of getting reads on other people, as finding fake/suspicious reads is just very useful information. I definitely think we should be guarded with our reads but I think we should say more than just the binary 'village' 'elim' options.

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The best way I can see to identify who the villains are is to see how player's opinions and actions change over time. Spotting the inconsistencies will likely be critical to identifying who has been taken by the Taker of Secrets. To that end, I suggest that we state our opinions as we normally would, and try as best we can not to let paranoia consume us.

@xinoehp512 This is a great point, furthering what I was saying earlier, the more information that we can get to the village the better.

This is just a general thought back to the Random lynch if no one votes, I think this does a fantastic job of encouraging day 1 voting, as you just kinda.. have to vote if you don't want some random bloke to die.

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And yes, shifting reads is the name of the game, but... okay well I see your point. You're saying give top trusts reads and then notice changes if any to find suspicion. But normally, people (I don't include you smh, you paranoid read everyone till the end of the game :P) don't do that, they give top trust reads and barely change it during the game (at least after a trust tier is set). 

|TJ| - Your entire sets of ideas here comes off to me like a villager with an idea that... we (as in the rest of the players) just didn't agree with. I do think you bring up a good point here, that we should really be redoing our trust reads once a cycle. Well, at least our village trust reads, based only off of things that have happened since the last conversion takes place.

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Heads-up boys and girls I'm a stormspren so I won't die the first time, but I encourage you to vote on me anyway. Even if Sja eventually goes for me, it denies her a full-strength Thug, it brings me one step closer to death and blessed release, and if you actually think Illwei is right and I'm Sja-anat, I'll lose two charges that way. I'd also rather we burn a compulsory lynch on a Village Thug than on an actual Villager mislynch unless you're dead certain you can do better than random and net us Sja today.

@Kasimir - This is so convenient to post right as some suspicion starts to come on you, but it also reads like a village. I feel like Sja would have waited to claim stormspren instead of doing it this early. There could be a big brain play of claiming that for a future notice, but it reads fairly real to me.  I think this also soft clears you for this cycle (to conversion, at least) because it is highly unlikely that Sja would take a risk converting someone who might die (OOA would have not had the convert go through because kills are first, but getting a few more players on the board is probably a priority for Sja)

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Anyway, my point stands. Unless everyone else other than Illwei has a stronger candidate (and I do - lynch Illwei), I propose myself as the lynch candidate. It's a win/win for everyone - we don't mislynch a Villager (unless we're fairly certain we have Sja), if you think I'm Sja, I'll have lost two charges, which is still a good thing for the Village, since that's less conversion charges. If you think I'm not Sja, my point and Mat's about the odds still stands considering everyone except Sja starts Village.

Kasimir - Oooh. Those are some really good points. Like maybe a crazy Sja play, but I'd be quite surprised.

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i am operation on two hours of sleep any arguments against me are automatically invalid

@Illwei - I honestly just confused by this post. I read it one way, typed up a response, read it another way, typed up a different response, read it a third way and already went through the work of getting a quote one here so it's staying. 

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 I can't remember Drought that much though

@The Unknown Order Don't know if we've ever met, or played a game together. Nice to meet you!

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Yello!

I'm not saying stuff cuz there's not much for me to say.

Kas, you should come help us kill Araris to keep Arenta off your porch. Also, Araris isn't helping you die.

Here, how about this: If you help us kill Araris this cycle, I'll help you kill you next cycle. Unless you don't want me to.

@Tani - There's always tons to say! I would like to hear more from you, as this post doesn't have much on your reads just on... killing people.

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I'm going to venture the claim that a low activity player is the best one to off D1, so as to cut down on the prospect of a convert hiding in the weeds of inactivity. And self-voting seems to be trending this cycle. So, xinoehp512.

Xino - I'm uncertain why you voted on yourself here, Kas has a pretty great, thought out argument but this just seems to be a self vote. Doesn't read village, I'm just confused by it  

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Hi, I'm here. On the Kasimir kill, I wish I had put more time into accusing people to get their responses. At this point in the cycle, I'm afraid four hours means we should be firming up our lynch options rather than bringing more into the fray so I'll get on the Kasimir is a stormspren wagon. My tinfoil hat is yelling at me saying this is Sja Anat trying to gain village credit, but I don't think that would be Kasimirs way to play this.
Reasons for voting Kasimir
1 He asked us to
2 Prevent a powerful conversion (both in role and player) that would only take one charge.
3 Everyone continues to play a fun conversion game.

Tinfoil thoughts
1 Kasimir wants to gain our trust as Sja Anat, will survive the first kill and pretend that makes him a bad choice for Sja, but still gets two conversions for a three elim team in a relatively small game.
2 Kasimir regrets signing up and is telling us he is a storm spren so we attack and kill him and he can relax in the spec doc.

As long as we don't trust him based on his surviving, lynching Kas this cycle may not be the worst way to go. 

@Elkanah (I just changed the formatting on this post to be a bit smaller height wise) - All great points and I'm just going to use this moment to talk about more about my read on the Kas situation here. Sja would gain a decent bit of trust from this play, but have high risks. Kas is now going to be on our radar as a possible Sja until we find the other one, or kill him (or lose the game, but...), and would have lost 2 points out of five. That is a significant hit with relatively little gain. Do we still keep an eye on Kas? From now until forever, but I would be quite surprised if he was Sja.

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And I mean, it's telling too, isn't it? Players who are too off from how Sja is behaving - that's a datapoint. Players who are too on the money - that's a datapoint. We force Sja to blend in and talk casually about that. Just trying to eke more out of this C1, really.

Kas - This is a really good point. The more we post, as the village. No, strike that, the more information and reads ands guesses and thoughts that we give out as a village the more information we have to win the game. This is prevalent in all games of SE, but especially so in Conversion games. So, I'll say it again, everyone please say stuff!

And onto Cycle 2!

3 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I’m still bothered by Tani, but not going to vote there, since it didn’t go anywhere last cycle. I’m currently thinking some sort of CC might be a good way to start things off, since Sja has plenty to gain by staying quiet and not much to lose. I’ll vote on Drought for now. 

I just honestly haven't had/made the time till now, but fair.

3 hours ago, Illwei said:

Which is why a kill N1 is much worse for sja than a kill N2. 

I agree with this, if I was Sja I would want to convert night 1; giving more information, more actions, more chances to make the plays that will win you the game. Depending on who was converted Sja might go for another one this cycle. I imagine if they got an unmade for two charges and are now down to 3 then they'll hold off on converting to try and get some more info on roles to try and keep at least some form of an extra life for the future, but if they got a 1 charge convert then I could see them going for another conversion with this cycle.
A Kill on N1 would reduce the village by the same amount, but lack the information and power that can be gathered by a conversion.

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Furious scribbling for future game

Please let me know when this game is up, that sounds delightful.

1 hour ago, Illwei said:

Kas talking about how they wont be wanting out of the spotlight brings up a good point though. The Elims want to waste and/or misdirect the lynch as often as they can. 

Kas not dying/offering himself up yesterday was objectively anti-town. Do i think he's sja anat right now though? 

I strongly disagree with this. I've talked about it a bit earlier in this massive post (sorry everyone about that), but taking center stage as Sja just seems like a bad idea to me. I do not believe that Kas offering himself up was an elim play, that is such a massive risk in a game where you're the only elim and failure means near instant loss of the game. That being said, I don't read this post as an elim post either. I see this as another villager disagreeing with Kas' plan, but not an elim trying to get Kas lynched.

Final Thoughts: That was a lot to read through... and now you all have even more. I have a few people I'm reading village, but no one that I'm reading strongly elim at this point. I won't be voting for now, but I will by the end of the cycle

Haven't yet had the chance to read through the thread, and have to head back to work in about... a minute and a half so short post to say I'm alive and ill be back before the end of the cycle to talk a bit more.

Thoughts on the game: Seems like it'll be a fun game.