Archer

Archer is doing the responsible thing of explaining why a vote on him will disappear. I'd rather suffer through that discussion for 3 hours now than have to spend a whole cycle talking about it. My preference is a nice tie between Ash and Devo. It settles my qualms about killing Ash while still putting them in danger. no :3. I'm leaning towards V!Mat at the moment. I'd be willing to kill Aman, if anyone's interested. That was a quick about face considering how many points they made about me (andtheywerentthatinvestedinthisgamesoimokaykillingthemC1).

Actively checking thread without posting much, extremely stagnant vote. Take your pick :P. Just don't @ me for what are clearly 2/3 pre-writes of RP. With regards to my voting, normally I'd hop around more, but I was really feeling the Ash train until I lost my nerve to murder a returning player. Again, Ash was reactive and tried to reframe the narrative in a way he can defend against (responding to someone asking what has Ash done with not much lol.) So I went for Devo. Reluctant role claim: I am a Windrunner. Granting me adhesion because our GM has a sense of humor. So my stance on close votes has evolved a bit over the course of the round, because I benefit from being able to mess with them. It was the discussion topic I'd planned for the round, but I had to backpedal a bit based on my personal incentives. I basically just put the onus on y'all to decide and benefited either way :P. Aoeryi, I don't believe that I am likely to influence the Dustbringer's choice one way or another, so you shouldn't read my suggestions of who is in the hot seat as really being for the shooter. It's more about the people I suggest may be killed - getting reactions like Devo's which defended them.

That feeling when there was too many posts to respond to on mobile so you wait until the morning and there's more posts you need to quote I do feel that a concerted effort to use the 2nd place function will make EOD less valuable. But where I think the thought process goes is: gut yes > think it through and decide no. And a villager probably ends up going through the whole thought process while an elim sticks with the simple gut reaction. (Or someone who isn't jaded by SE village failures goes with the easy answer). You specifically saying you're going with your instinctive reaction made me think you were doing what you thought a villager would do. I've mostly been stalling to vote for you though because I was waiting to see if the classic Mat Tell panned out. We had the setup with the announcement of busyness, but I was waiting for you to repeat it to be confident that was the Tell. e!You usually says it a few times, but you didn't. -Self aware about why I might have voted him -Reactive to my vote (has tried to reframe it, has mentioned it, has been more active than I thought he'd be in a way that makes me wonder if he's trying to undermine an inactivity-based vote) My hot take on this is I suspect the two roles that get Ideals by messing with the exe are probably village. It's too easy for an elim to be rewarded for something they would want to do anyway vs it tees up a villager conundrum: help your team at your own expense or be greedy and hurt your team? I do suspect e!Elsecaller to give them a bit of vote manip and an easy WGG opportunity, but that's only a vote manip threat once every three cycles. In other words, we probably don't need to hold vote manipulators accountable because it'll mostly be friendly fire because that's the funniest distro option for the GM to pick. [insert witty retort centered around the idea that there should be a little pressure on them, even if its theoretical] At least one elim is probably low activity, so you're likely defending some evil by proxy right now! Traitor! Ashbringer Devo Agreed, Mat, but they stick to that trend even after being called out on it, which is fairly unreactive of them. I'm leaning towards thinking people are just asking them bad questions You could argue this is them being heavily engaged relative to their capacity right now, but I'd like to avoid having that discussion. That's what the Dustbringer is for This looks significant. Mat reconsidering his stance is either e!him knowing enough to back out of a losing argument or v!him being engaged enough to care what he's saying Definitely one of the two :D. I trust you're doing something useful with that info in PMs pfft I was never voting for him, my suspicions don't count. He's totally village (gut still says hrm, but the evidence is pointing towards villager) Aeoryi reminds me of myself when I got into SE. I think she could pull of a high-intensity act and get easy village cred for it. Her posting the pre-written roles comparison that didn't have anything actionable connected to it actually made me pause because I'm wondering if it's just extreme grinding for cred. But they seemed to genuinely feel bad about accusing certain people for shoddy reasons, and I think that's a villager mindset. If we were to choose a 2nd place person, I'd support her candidacy. I trust her enough for that. I also don't think she'll hit the RP threshold, so it elevates someone to the same level as everyone else, rather than stacking our eggs in one basket. I know we have a lot of protection in play, but I'd rather avoid setting up obvious NK targets. tbf I put my efforts into figuring out role collaboration opportunities, but didn't share them publicly. I do like the honesty about the Experience vote Reads list before Kas pings me for one: There's a Few Very Specific Reasons I Trust You But My Gut Supports It: Aeoryi, Kas, Archer What Were Your Reads Again?: Stink, Psiti?tēebe?t, Raven Conflicted: Mat, Araris, JNV Am I Metagaming that the GM Would Put RPers on the Elim Team Too Hard? (Nah.): Ashbringer, Devo Dustbringer Target Practice: Experience, TJ

Okay I figured it out. JNV said "Im just going to put a vote on Experience cause one that post is hm". I read that as them saying their vote is suspicious, when what JNV meant was that their vote is literally "hm". I've now read the status update aaaaaand. Don't know what to do about that. Thank you for pointing it out. By shoot I mean vote for. If I did have a kill, I wouldn't tell you publicly. I haven't heard from anyone in PMs yet, besides the person I reached out to. EDIT: Experience Ashbringer (I accidentally copied JNV's vote with the formatting. I did not mean to vote XP)

Sorry if this has been covered before. When I look at my name, it appears to be uncentered relative to my Member Title and profile photo. It's as if it's left aligned slightly. In the attached picture, I've marked where the actual center line is in red and where my name should be centered in blue to illustrate my point. To properly center it, the middle should be between the C and H, not starting midway into the H. Photo (or just look at my profile pic and name on this post) Full report Platform: Desktop Windows Browser: Chrome Affected Page(s): Wherever I post Expected Behavior: Centered username Actual Behavior: Uncentered username

Three weeks ago. Phil Swift squeezed his hand. “Stupid message. Their schedules are inane. Science takes time, time!” The boy whose throat he was holding rasped. “I’m… sorry?” Phil let them go. They fell to the dirt, gasping for air. “Why is my funding being cut?” He paced around the crumpled figure, kicking dust into his eyes. “I don’t know! They need money for the war, I think.” “What war? Why would that matter?” “The Fused have everyone scared. Please don’t hurt me.” “What did you say?” “Don’t hurt me? Please?” Phil stopped, staring off into the distance. The sandy dessert in front of him stretched for miles. Beyond that, possibilities awaited. “Tell my funders I will meet with them. I will help them fight these ‘Fused’.” He turned away to make an aside. “And I will learn what makes them fuse. At long last, I have the ingredient I need to make the most powerful glue known to man.” “Was I supposed to hear that?” The gears in Phil’s head were turning too loudly for him to hear. He was already planning what to pack. He was halfway down the tunnel to his cave before he remembered the messenger had asked to stay the night before he left. “Hmph. He’ll be fine. I’m sure he knows about the Chasmfiends.” Good correction I count four people who have said you can expect an underwhelming presence from them this cycle, which is going to have a major impact on the thread, so you can be forgiven for feeling like your expectations aren't being met. Within reason, anyway eg. not asking for playstyle changes. My goal is this cycle is to read the half of the player-base who is available to be read, then if I don't feel comfortable voting one of them, I'll shoot a non/semi-active at random. For the record, I totally understand why you feel the way you do about ties and the 2nd place effect. From your perspective, I think your stance makes sense, although your ask to consolidate on JNV early in the round felt too soon. Now Mat. Mat should know better. My read is he's taking advantage of the situation to get certainty. I'd also like to ask why people think XP is elimmy for saying 'huh'. Stalling for time while they talk in the elim doc kind of look?

One month ago. The cave is filled with smoke. The dull-red of embers offers meager light. They hiss as broth from a bubbling cauldron overflows. Smelling food, a small, furry mammal emerges from a crack in the stone wall. It tenses, torn between the pursuit of sustenance and the avoidance of risk. A minute passes, then two. Finally, it bolts towards the fire, but is snatched by metal tongs. “Right on schedule,” hums the alchemist. He thrusts his catch into the pot, smashing a lid on to cover it. “More heats, more heats.” On the shelf behind his hunched frame, bottles glint as they reflect the growing fire. They hold saps and tars, acids and poisons. The alchemist runs his fingers along them deftly, having no need for sight after months of subterranean living. He settles on an elixir. Swirls, uncorks, and pours into the brew. The bubbles stop as the liquid rapidly cools, almost freezing in a matter of seconds. “STICK!” He plunges a metal rod into the concoction, scrapes the bottom of the pot, and pulls it out with a wad of white gunk sticking to its end. “STICK!” His tongs prod the substance. His figure fades into the smoke as the onlooker’s view pulls out, through darkened tunnels, back towards the surface. Almost far enough away not to hear his screams as he finds fault in his work. Almost, but not quite. “…won’t stick…” I like the boldness of the vote move request, but I'd rather spread the votes than consolidate at this stage. Ashbringer showed enough paranoid self-awareness that I'd like to see more from them before changing my vote. I agree with your assumption that the elims will have vote manip and that they'll prioritize ensuring the exe leads to deaths over allowing ties to go through. But I think the likeliest outcome of rigging the votes to aim for a very specific outcome is we can either whip the votes to control who dies or who gets second place, but not both. The elims have enough leverage to get their preferred outcome from one of those. If they choose not engage, then we get no reads from them in the way that we normally would from a close EoD. And I don't think ties are as bad as you present them as. If we put three people into a tie, the elims can vote manip their player out of it and harm two villagers. But then they'll have to explain the vote manipulation and we'll have avoided a villager death. If the elim chooses to ride it out in the tie, they lose power at the expense of only two villagers losing theirs. One elim is worth 3 villagers in the distro, so its kind of a good trade. My working assumption was that the elims would seize on the path of more certainty, but I'm trying to reconcile that with lack of SE meta familiarity. I think the fresh eyed approach might be to prefer your proposal, so I'm side-eyeing Mat more than I am you for this. Stick principle? I worry about the same thing. Why not vote me then :P. Kas-JNV unlikely to be e-e because e!Kas would have mentioned it was a PM convo to defend against the suggestion it was an elim doc one I put the under/over on Kas PMs at 3.5. I'd take the under, but only because the thread has been quiet so far. By the way, I believe PMs can have multiple people in them, which is probably the way to go if you're using them to feel people out

Apparently text pasted from my notes app ends up being larger. I'll have to remember to paste without source formatting. The fact that you know vote manipulation is only subtractive is noted. Why are you against ties? I had pre writes but then my character was placed in the writeup and I had to adjust, smh. Expect slightly confusing backstory posts in the coming days. More the latter, and I'm parking my vote there for the same reason. :P. Risky as in it might lead to them being exed instead of the preferred target because of vote manip? Or risky as in our target might be evil? Because someone has to get 2nd place, there's no getting around that

Phil Swift sheathed his sword carefully. His muscles were twitching like they never had before. His body was reacting weirdly. Something about being in this city was making him change. Or maybe, whispered his subconscious, revert? Whatever was happening, he was glad to have avoided scrutiny so far. Callar had accepted his paperwork when he presented as a transferring soldier. Of course, there had been a conspicuous smudge of waxy residue over his first name on the page. But Phil had made sure to emphasize his affinity for sticky concoctions in order to pass it off as a normal accident. Luckily, no one seemed to have met his brother before. It might have been awkward having to explain why Phil was here and Gil was not. "I'm on to you!" Phil jumped, almost running for the door. An annoyed looking soldier got in his face, breath smelling of garlic. "I reckon you're hurting other people on purpose, traitor." "I think you're confused, sir." He tried in vain to back up for some personal space. "I literally just got here. There was already traitors in your, our, midst, so they must be among the group that got here before me." That confused the other man long enough that Phil was able to slip free. "I heard that Bailis was acting suspiciously, you should talk to him instead! See you outside, goodbye!" With that, he ran out towards the courtyard, hoping to avoid further discussion. * Ashbringer So the problem with this setup is our second biggest suspect gets rewarded with an Ideal swearing. If we rig the votes to avalanche the top suspect and put a trusted person in second, we lose the last minute vote movements that have historically been telling of connections between evil teammates. I'm leaning towards not worrying about it at all because there's enough Ideal triggers that it's a drop in the bucket, but I'm curious how y'all want to approach that.

In as Phil Swift, glue salesman.

GG elims. I really like the evil doc format, I'm going to steal that for future games. This game had issues. After I was dead long enough to be emotionally detatched from the game, I started liking the concept more, but I still feel the execution made for a frustrating village player experience. -Breaking the meta of GM PMs being truthful sources of info discouraged analysis by making it pointless to ask questions. -Breaking the meta of moderation tools not being for in-game use was a dangerous precedent. -The GM wrongly assumed that players would bet on the game being balanced and question aspects that don't make sense, rather than assuming it has flaws. -Making the exe useless led to village frustration. Style notes: -The role of items was hard to figure out. They're all weapons but they have defensive roles. Them having different degrees of usefulness is a set up to make someone mad that the item they expected to protect them didn't. -Including votes on the GM in the writeup made it seem like they were killable. Making complaining against the GM burn your complaint did the same. -I'm leaning towards thinking the elims had too much of an information advantage. A more engaged team could have done a lot more damage with what they knew we couldn't figure out wasn't true. Thanks for helping, Elandera. Thanks for the attempt, Szeth. How about we never do that again. :P. PS If you highlight text, the site now prompts you to do a selective quote instead of grabbing the whole post, which is amazing.

TKN Szeth Lowkey using 'willing to burn their complaint card on a longshot' to be a sign of villageness, so good vibes from Mark. I'm not sure why we haven't seen a coordinated kill from the elims using complaints yet, but I expect them to save their complaints for it. Interestingly, that Szeth post didn't have emojis. Again, I'm fine if it comes down to Szeth 1st, me 2nd and me probably getting the chop if the exe skips the GM. I just want to see what happens. Maybe it let's us enter the real life portion of the game, who knows

Not doing favors doesn't necessarily mean bad :3 I used the question of if my PM with XP is open as a proxy question for whether they are alive or we could speak to ghosts. A lot of your reads seem based on you not liking kill the GM talk. Let it be known that I wasted a Complaint on it, so at least I'm committed to the bit. It's unlikely I'm lying about that too because I have zero trust the GM would accurately tell me the theoretical outcome of that action Tbf I did vote for them later which is a good sign that the read was a weak one. Not a lot to go on with TKN, I challenge you to come up with a confident read that's more detailed. Being disconnected is either a sign of being evil or a sign of being village, flip a coin to decide I have an irrational suspicion of Mark because he's acting game solvey. I know that's stupid.

Mark TKN

Yeah that's a joke claim that references a past game where StrikerEZ was a Striker and soccer was a secret theme. Really? What makes Stink stand out to you positively? Were you confident Devo was village before they died?

Stink's good morning Americans comment its looking pretty discriminatory now Say good morning to canada too, coward. >:( You misunderstand. My argument was that Devo supported you and would likely support you again in future. e!DeTess wouldn't kill a pocketed ally. My case was built on you standing out. Getting down to business is an elim trait IMO. But I was probably wrong, so never mind that.

I'm surprised that rule made it into the game. It establishes you didn't submit the NK. I'll keep that on the back burner for later You're implying Devo trusted you enough to give you magic. Which makes keeping them alive part of your best interests. No way you tried bluffing them with a short term lie in a game that might be multi layered. Detess You seem to be the person coming up with with the most exe options, or at least that's how I remember C1. While others were non committal or committed to kill the GM, you were trying to establish options. Predictable outcomes are an elim's best friend, so it looks evil. Regarding FUD, that's twice Aeoryi has exemplified the uncertainty mongering element of it, so they're on my radar. Sure, playstyles change, but patterns are useful, especially when they reveal what is likely NAI. Remind me, did you file a complaint against Szeth? I'm of the opinion that if you have a free action, you should gather loot. Just in case. You were the one with the invested items theory, could be something like that is possible Why ya voting me? Mark

I agree that Devo is a strange NK pick, largely because they had a framable vote. You could pursue the thread of them killing a villager with a late vote to get a mix off on them. My only thought is they weren't under much suspicion yet. Worth checking if anyone shaded them recently. I doubt an elim would do that. Village Reads TKN - Too bored to be evil Mat - seemed interested in solving the Aeoryi-Exp situation Araris - open with info early JNV - open with info early Aeoryi - suggested a gambit The Rest of Them DeTess - as Kas would say, lots of fear, uncertainty, doubt being spewed Mark -? Stink -? Frustration -! Definitely Evil Szeth - no explanation needed Detess

I answered the question! I wouldn't have changed a thing. If you want to know who I'd vote besides Szeth, probably would have stabbed Araris. No reason to trust them and I don't feel bad doing it because their vote was pretty underexplained iirc. That said, revealing your item theme that early in the game isn't very e!Ararisy. Pretty sure he's slow to claim when evil. Exp told me they and Aoeryi both were interested in doing a shenanigan, but Aeoryi came up with the plan. +1 on JNV being free with info and me getting good vibes from it, although it could be because they're info fishing with little to lose. There's too many people PMing me for them all to be village and I'm trying to spot the mole. Mat, was your DeTess vote influenced by the fact that by adding to Mark's, it had weight, or would you have done it independently?

I had a theory that Araris received a similar PM to mine and used it as the basis of their vote. I was too lazy to make a PM to ask Araris it directly / was looking for ways to drag Araris into the spotlight more anyway. My hazy perception of the game state was that it was 1. Szeth 2. Me and there was a solid chance the Szeth votes would be ignored. I was okay with this. Combination of low bandwidth, frustration with the game format, and confidence being exed wasn't permadeath had me not really caring. If I'd suspected anyone, I might have made a push, but I didn't. Experience was a dropped ball that I regret allowing, so I'm going to try to do some poking in the near future. Just haven't gotten to that groove yet. One thing that bothers me right now is how many one on one PMs I've received. They're unrestricted, aren't they? Y'all should be more efficient

For the benefit of newer players, Devo has a reputation for late round voting, so I'm not jumping to any conclusions relating to the timing of the vote. I don't love the choice, but I realize that I had the benefit of a PM interaction with them that seemed villagey. Fun fact! I lost my ability to complain next turn after submitting one on Szeth. Either it went through and was added to his tally or it was burnt doing nothing. Bonus fact: my PM with Experience is closed, implying they're super dead

Oop. I never saw that post, I think I was writing a post when you posted it and then immediately left to go eat turkey I've got a soft theory that the elims wouldn't want to assume that exing Szeth would work, so they'd make sure the second wagon was acceptable. But unless Devo was reacting to the pressure on DeTess, I don't think anyone cared, based on the late round lack of vote movement. SMH the GM is a liar, we've established this Araris, did you receive a PM from Mark?

Oh wow, I was way off with where I thought the VC was. I'd like to point out that Szeth being included in the count is a good sign that they're exable. It's unclear whether my complaint against them was accepted. Did anyone succeed in complaining and get a confirmation message about it? Experience doesn't look very alive, which is a little disappointing Experience said Aeoryi came up with the idea to try to gambit Mat, which doesn't fit an elim profile. Them being willing to kill their gambit partner doesn't look villagey though, so I'm a little torn. Elims are stressed, not bored. This man is village

I was told you can't place a complaint on szeth but I'm doing it anyway. I have no reason to trust them when they say I can't attack the GM What'd you ask about and what was their approximate answer? I'm curious what your question was. I don't think emoticon equals lying exactly, but it does mean RP GM Aeoryi is willing because they asked to be complaint killed CC is contribution crusade. Exe is public execution. Mis exe / mix is exing a villager by mistake And by all means, play the game properly and exe elims. I'm just far more interested in the meta part now You and XP are gambiting in PMs together Note the emoticon. And the reaction. I'm like 25% sure they're scared of us doing it. More likely the next highest vote getter will die instead but that's me so /shrug

Theory: you can tell when Szeth is in "RP GM" mode by whether they use emoticons. Eg. :/, :). Etc. Can anyone disprove this based on their experiences? Szeth tried to dissuade Devo from pursuing the heavy complaints strategy, and we know they're a bastard GM, so my instinct is that we should pay more attention to that. But as Devo points out, if exing and complaints have an identical effect, the game will be very short. My guess is everyone has two lives (real person and character - character work being a special request from the GM, likely to emphasize the difference) and we need to end both lives. We should be able to test this by checking whether the exe victim today stays in thread. But we shouldn't test this on willing villagers in case that chips away at how many lives we have. In the early game, I'd like to test out voting and complaining about Szeth in case that's a secret wincon. And because I trust the gambit twins Aeoryi and Experience (more so Experience because I've seen first hand them act game solvey), and Mat, who seems willing to get rid of mix candidates by being trusting. Bad elim strat, that is. DeTess seems normal too. And Devo did analysis publicly they could have done privately. Really don't feel like murdering anyone, honestly Edit: this is what I get for saying nice things about XP :O.