Archer

The tags imply Lotus double checked the VC, so I guess Thaid misjudged the amount of pressure on them or forgot to vote in their PM. Devo is an odd NK choice. I would have shot Aman, Kas, Bort, and maybe myself first. There was enough asterisks on the village reads of them that it doesn't make sense to kill off a potential mix candidate like that. My best guess is they're unnecessarily sensitive to the situation of returning players, which implies a team with a not new/returning player on it. And maybe Illwei. They're ruthless enough they'd take the shot. :P. Which complicates things because the timing of Illwei's vote is exactly what I'd expect from an elim. My read of the situation last round was that e!Ash figured they were toast and entered low info mode. The elims then waited to see where the discussion would go and whether it was a trap before committing. When Ash had an out, they gave him support. Remember, the elims need clarity about the exe to ensure secret votes don't surprisingly stack onto them. So both Ashbringer alignments point to elims being on the Thaid train, although if he was village they might not have needed to do much work. My vote remains on Ashbringer. I think y'all are misreading the lack of defense of them as them being village, but it's more that the elims were resigned to them dying. Other options are Illwei and Orlok. JNV's vote would be telling off a e!Ash flip, so I'm holding off on them. Edit: I'm committed to a village core of Aman, Bort, Kas, and myself. How seriously do I need to go back and explain why Striker-me didn't make sense as e-e interactions?

*waves* I can't give you cookies rn, so here, have a recipe for chocolate bark. Step 1. Find a Labrador dog. Not a golden one. The other kind. That's very important. Step 2. Make the chocolate lab bark. Step 3. Enjoy! Nice to see you again, Ink

I've heard some sites don't allow talking during the Night and I'm wondering if having built in nap times would help some of y'all. :P. I don't want to touch the extra accounts thing since Thaid's response is going to be difficult to read for reasons other than evilness. Plus, I don't view them as the most catchable elim when there's people with more clear signs of having bussed or been working on a ML. It comes down to Ash was sensitive about being tied to Striker yesterday and they seemed to be building towards a mix of me, who if you assume they're both evil, was the only realistic option. I think the elims struggled to get anything going on any other villager, which makes me most sus of late voters. So if enough people want to go for Orlok, they're my next pick. But I'd really like to stick to the more traditional picks. As Kas mentioned, I've used Thaid as an easy mix opportunity before, so I'm aware they're a good distraction candidate. Also, I'd missed that the wincon is outnumber, so I think the 4 man team is a prudent assumption we can afford to make.

I agree with Bort being strong village. Bold vote. :P. His interactions with Striker last cycle were too aggressively negative to be a teammate. He applied very intense pressure to Striker, of the kind I'd only believe was e-e if you convinced me Striker entered the elim doc and said bus me, I've got IRL stuff to do and don't have time to be evil. Which I'll only entertain if Aman isn't NKed by like C5. Illwei pointing out that I waffled a lot on Striker was valid. As I said in my last post of the round, logically I knew Striker was the best option. But my heart said it was too easy. Plus I was generally opposed to a runaway train because I had theories to test that relied on even pressure being applied. Getting an elim C1 really messed me up

Did some backreading. I'm guessing that the post Striker made where he pinged everyone marks when he knew he would die. Pinging everyone gives bussers an excuse to shift their votes. Ee means possible elim-elim interaction. Nee means not e-e with the person mentioned in the observation. E and v should be obvious. In approximate order of most villagery to least: Aman: -Criticized Striker’s reads list (lock village, probably wasn’t NKed because the elims are nice, but don’t expect them to survive much longer) Archer: -Striker voted me (lock village) Bort: -Striker suggested focussing on the active players about (ee) -First line was Striker sus (v) Kas: -Moved from me to JNV when Striker was working on a mix of me (nee) -Disagreed with Striker’s read of Mat (which I think is why Mat got killed, Striker and them had very e/v interactions) (nee) Illwei: -Striker defended them against Aman’s accusations, said looks more like a genuine villager working things out (ee) -“Doesn't that imply that you generally look bad, not just related to how Archer flips?” to Ashbringer (nee) -Mat trusted Illwei so he’d be a bad NK choice Maillwi: -Striker suggested focussing on the active players about (ee) -Doesn’t really engage in the suspicion throwing part of the game, even when it would have been helpful to the elims (v) Devo: -Answered Thaid’s salamander question (nee) “The slight good read I have of Devo comes from her being helpful with looking at the past game and trying to call out Archer’s change in stance since then. Granted, that is not necessarily alignment indicative, but it feels like a lot of work for an elim to go through.” – Striker (nee because this is a bad reason. Or ee) -Not ee with JNV because posted a vote on Striker shortly after JNV’s vote on me. Late enough in round it could be bussing but I’m leaning towards not TUA: -Striker defended them against Aman’s accusations (ee) -“Might vote for Illwei, don’t have many reads rn” (nee with Striker or Illwei) Thaidakar: -null Experience: -Asked if they were okay, but it’s NAI because they were ready to die then. -“Literally got nothing, including time. I... think I'll drop a vote on Ash this turn.” (similar to Ash’s post – ee) Orlok: -Striker suggested focussing on the active players about (ee) -“Gut dislike of XP” (nee) -“Haven’t properly reassessed Ashbringer… [will vote for Archer/Striker]” (this post felt the most like a bus) JNV: -Striker didn’t criticize their vote post even though I felt it was flawed (ee) -Vote on me helped Striker’s position (ee) Ashbringer: -Poke voted Devo, but it was early round and had an easy out (ee?) -Striker backtracked on this, but initially presented e!Archer/v!Ash arguments. (Both are ee) -Striker waffled on them in their reads list (ee) -Wanted to vote for me, who I’m assuming was the designated ML -“I may just not vote and see what happens. I'm too confused.” (e)

*flips table* why can't you all just accept that we'll never catch an elim C1 and we shouldn't... even.... welp. Good work. XD. Disregard everything I posted near rollover because the possibility of bussing messes everything up. Except for maybe giving village cred to active non voters. *checks* Am I the only one who didn't vote?? By the way, I clocked Devo and Mailliw checked the thread close to rollover but didn't post. Elims might have avoided doing so because they needed to vote in their PM and the Shard has a 30 second antispam filter. So, mild sus on them. No no, that was my question for you. Why didn't I vote? I think the best approach here is to look at early interactions with Striker, before they came under much pressure. Then assume the elims pulled the bus trigger at some point, probably around the time Striker moved to Ashbringer. Psst orlok help us out here XD. Sorry bro, I don't think you'll get any help like that.

I need to play a lesbian character through LG/BT/Q(f) games now, thanks for the side quest. List of who's hanging around right now: Experience, Illwei, Aman, Kas, Ash, Mat, Striker, Orolok and two spectators(?) which always makes me nervous (hi TJ and Stick!) I should be out of NK consideration, but especially in an e!Striker world, I’m an exe possibility, so I’m gonna dump this here now. In a low information C1 with even pressure, I theorize that: -every active elim will vote… on a villager and not on the person being NKed. This maximizes their chances of casting votes that will protect themselves from side trains that unexpectedly become the winning trains. Distancing votes are too dangerous to be viable. -the elims are likely to piggyback on villagers with known voting intentions, but will only vote together if necessary because they’d like to save that option for later rounds, or if a strong wagon emerges they’d like to throw their weight behind. -the elims will attempt to steer the exe in a predictable direction with their discussion and seek certainty. By the way, I don’t plan on voting today. :P. I’ll welcome speculation about why to kick off the next round. Village read on Aman for pretending to diversify the wagons. Sticking with the e!JNV read because elims lean into arguments like that all the time. Not a fan of there being serious leading wagons because it messes up my strategy but I think elims are more likely to announce their vote in thread than not so I'm hoping some of it is elim voting, not villagers doing the work for them, if that makes any sense. Striker being evil makes absolute sense, us catching Striker does not, and that's why I'm not super optimistic right now. But I think he's a valid choice. So would TUA. Mat and Kas are not. I really hope no one "RNG" votes for them but village cred if you do lol

Not going to quote a chart because the Shard will laugh at me. 1. This is true, so don't do that :P. 2. how dare you suggest that I don't think things through 3. and have a high risk appetite smh evil me would never /s Little surprised at the village read after that analysis of it. As I alluded to earlier, your votes have been pretty direct. Your playstyle tends to be to provide an avalanche of reasons with your vote instead of being choosey, which I don't mind. But I'm hesitant to give you any credit for acting like you have previously because as much as you claim to be ignorant of your own meta, if people acted really differently when they were evil, this game would be way easier to solve. I'm genuinely confused why you're bringing it up.

To clarify, this was Aman's big bold point that Striker responded to with: Going by the theory that elims are more inclined towards conflict de-escalation, this feels like an overreaction from one to protect their standing. My response in their shoes would have been to claim having already put the vote in in secret, did you even read my post? :P. Smh do I have to spell everything out for y'all... Etc Another theory I'm working off of is that elims are less likely to continually change their PM votes and may in fact merely claim to be doing that but they'll save themselves the trouble and just submit something at the end of the round. This felt a bit like someone who got caught out doing that. I'm struggling to believe e!Ash would be so obvious about trying to kill me off so my flip makes him look good because that's... really obviously scummy behaviour. Eh. Realistically, they've replaced TUA in my pool so my d6 will decide.

This is... remarkably thorough. Thanks! But also, sus? I wanna say this gives off similar vibes to JNV's post voting for me, just better put together. The analysis is fine, I'm just triggered by how direct it is. Two implications: 1. Elims can secretly hammer 2. Village can spread pressure. That's what we're playing with, although the benefit to the GM at rollover is nice too. :P. grr that's a villagery thing to admit. *When. :P. The formality of red text was unnecessary, which is interesting. This is an interesting take because I had different assumptions about how people would react. I figured elims would hedge more than villagers. TUA's either overreacting to pressure or poke for poking, and I need more from them to figure out which is which. Village points for drawing attention to yourself, I guess. Spoken like a man who lives for vote analysis :P. The BT totally counts! I haven't really read it, but I'm sure you slipped out many obvious tells that I can identify later. Next Cycle should be more direct. I think you can have multiple valid suspects, so how you rank them is a minor enough detail that missing explanations for that specifically won't kill us. I lost the quote where you ask about my change in views. My earlier comment was mostly a reaction to this being one of the first posts I saw on my skim: :P. Then I went and looked at the post Devo is talking about and wouldn'tyaknowit The second part is actually very consistent which is funny because I thought it was an original idea. I'm going to guess that the difference is this time I have a better understanding of SE meta and some theories to test. I'm split between yes, elims do that because they feel the need to be thorough and it helps hide the specific points they wanted to make against Striker's getting a lot of heat because he's the first person to put out a lot of reads. I usually spend signup week thinking about the fun I could have with the brief. So I often go into games with something in mind that e!me can easily share if I'd like to. As the elim doc of the last MR will show, I'm aware it's good for getting village cred and I'd like to avoid the impression that my creative juices are being occupied by evil strategizing. So don't give me too much cred. :P. I dare you to flirt with Albert e!Ash was insulted, I see. :P. I'm pretty sure it's NAI, because who does old game reading, regardless of alignment. I felt like they did the work and wanted something to show for it so they brought up my post. * Putting in a vote on one of TUA (I've seen them overreact to pressure as an elim before), Striker (the reads list was too supportive of JNV), JNV (argued why my plan was bad, not why I was suspicious to justify their vote).

Yes. But the point is you're voting among three suspicions. Or two, I'm fine with that. Let me sketch out the rationale better. Step 1. Everyone puts a placeholder vote on a truly random individual. Odds are this won't matter because the active votes will outweigh the passive ones which are wasted on people there's no momentum built to kill. But this changes the default situation from if I stay quiet, I'll probably survive to if I stay quiet, there's a chance there's going to be a vote on me anyway. Maybe more. The certainty of a large train is required to safeguard yourself. Step 2. People cast broad nets of suspicion. Striker's post is a decent example of this actually. We're all smart enough to see village tells, and if you can't, you might be clouded by the elim mindset and will be interrogated about it tomorrow. So we focus on our suspects so that no one feels fully certain they'll survive the Day. Step 3. We vote for one of our top suspects. Step 4. ...somewhat randomly. It's an allegedly random choice from our pool. Which again reduces the certainty that you can argue your way out of a vote. Unless you can fully persuade someone, the coin might make them fall back on you. The process of creating a suspect list should reduce the amount of votes that land on villagers, but even if they do, it's not an unexpected outcome for C1. It's worth it for the pressure this creates. The whole idea is that everyone is under an equal amount of legitimate pressure and the only effective way of saving yourself is by voting in self-preservation. Villagers don't care about that, but the elims will. Glad I'm not the only one who does that sometimes :D. but... but... the affordances... I'm fine playing it more straight tomorrow, with the understanding that exlo is gonna suck because the hammer can be done in secret. that reminds me, I was going to vote Experience today this game should finish before the LG begins, fortunately. When your fun little Bachelor story takes a hard turn into Warbreaker (1) Being wrong in an unexpected way is better than being wrong in a predictable way. This is a game of chicken, we win by making the elims flinch. My strategy expands our ability to poke. (2) I've always seen C1 as a freebie mix, although that sometimes doesn't work out in practice. Anyway, your win probably drops off fairly significantly if an unplanned C1 elim teammate death happens. It's much worse to go from 2 to 1, but the first death bumps exlo back from Cycle Five (C1 3:12, C2 3:10, C3 3:8, C4 3:6, C5 3:4) to Cycle Six (C1 3:12, C2 2:11, C3 2:9, C4 2:7, C5 2:5, C6 2:3). Okay, now that I've worked it out, that's not actually that bad, but you have to remember you've got less thread control and inactivity clears (players who couldn't have submitted the NK being removed from the suspect list) are a pain for the elims. In practice, I think two elims are likely to run into trouble over that long a stretch. And most elim teams act accordingly. (3) Lying about your vote is inherently suspicious. While it's possible that a low activity elim might use my intial suggestion that people RNG their placeholder votes as an excuse, most people won't be able to because they're visibly engaged. So my proposal asks them to discuss several suspicions and advertise that they'll choose from them. (5) If someone's obviously shoehorning one into their list, feel free to call it out. But at least they'll have to do that and go on the record as considering them as an option. True RNG would be a problem, but this modified version has less opportunities for votes with no groundwork. (6) People will have to say what they're thinking to justify their suspect pool. There's multiple correct answers to who is an elim, so limiting yourself to a single vote is actually less effective. :P. (4) I'm trying to decide if this is just a difference opinion thing or not. Saying "so Im voting Archer but if you explain your strategy better maybe I could see merit possibly' doesn't feel natural. I'm surprised by this take. claim your role right now or else

Devo got it. Thank you for posting so I can reply to all the ninjas don't listen to old Archer, that guy was inexperienced. And his reasoning that game needed work, even though he caught onto an elim eventually. I honestly think I'll confuse myself if I try to figure out why my thinking has shifted, so I'll just say that this round, this is how I'd like to play. Interesting question, very in your elim meta, which we all know now. >:) It boils down to C1 is a shot in the dark while the other cycles aren't. I'm not expecting an elim flip today. Rude, that's my line :P.

No, Borlock is one person now. :P. What's your distro guess? I was assuming 3:12 because hidden votes benefit the elims more than the village, but I could be convinced of 4:11 Netflix making recommendations of adult cartoons to watch be like ^

You know what’s infuriating when you’re an elim? Randomness. Or at least, having a poor idea of how much danger you’re actually in. I suggest that everyone explicitly keep their suspicions broad and their trust lists private today so the elims can’t rely on a village-led mix to get them through to the next round. For accountability’s sake, I expect everyone to have some reason to share tomorrow to back up their vote, but if you’re split between two or three equally suspicious options, why not list them all and tell the thread you’ll flip a coin to decide where you land? If everyone applies legitimate pressure to a number of suspects, the overlap should catch the elims somewhere and force action on their part. Thoughts? Also, everyone should go cast a placeholder vote now on a truly random person, in case you forget to vote later. I’ll be placing mine on either Kas, Mat, or TUA. * Nid arrived at the Bachelor address, dressed in a dress and depressed. “I’m here, your guest, I guess.” They twirled their tassels half heartedly. “I’m Nid. I have a personality, but I’m saving it for after the ogling episodes. Anyone want to flirt to make Addy jealous?” They caught sight of Albert and let out a low whistle. “Well well, aren’t you a tall glass of water.” Are you a lizard keeper, because you've got Salana manners TFW the game doesn't require red text so playing on mobile is way easier :D.

Weeeeee first LG elim game in the books! Aaaaaaah it is way harder than the shorter games! Way to pull through, gang! I was a little nervous that hammering!Araris would point to e!TJ because people would know the elims knew about the Bort scan earlier than it was revealed in thread, but TJ not hammering with y'all really really helped things. I think if he'd helped out, he couldn't have played PM spider and that probably would have cost us the game, so I approve of everything and good job. Good game, everyone else as well. A lot of you had solid analysis and JNV.... sigh. Alignment scanners are the worst. :P. Anyway, I had fun. Thanks for running this, Striker, Experience, Devo. Edit: that's a really pretty spreadsheet, good job, whoever made it

Wish I could have played, this looked like fun. Maybe even worth doing as a regular non-experimenting game format, if you can get a good level of participation. I'd just like to remind everyone of the implied asterisk that comes with all comments about Kas' non-elim streak: since this game ended before the LG, we're all definitely assuming that this is the game that would technically end the streak, and no one is providing any OOG insight about their alignment in the LG. And a note on the vote tracking process. Is it possible to change your vote on a Shard poll once you've cast it? Using those might be an option. well its your fault you sneezed and knocked her down the stairs, innit :P.

the secret is she's also gay

In as Nid. She's hot, rich, and has a secret.

I have an announcement to make. This is going to come as a horrible surprise to most of you, so you'd better sit down. I am evil. I have been conspiring to murder most of you this entire game. It's nothing personal, I just *checks RP premise* really don't want this spaceship to get to... another planet? The Physical Realm? Financial viability as a business? Either way, before I pass on, I wanted to get that off my chest. It will save me a lot of explaining once I reach the dead doc. I doubt any of them figured out my true alignment, so I'm saying this now so I'll have some shocked reactions to relish when I arrive in a few hours. Since I'm open wolfing, anyone who hasn't voted for me yet should probably take the opportunity to do so. @Szeth_Pancakes @Sequence@Illwei Kas Archer

you're really going to vote alongside the elims to oust me? :(. Clear elim slip smh

You make a good point. Should have skipped the stabbing and just done a scan :3 I have decided that instead of rereading, I should write bad NFL playoffs-inspired poetry in hopes of encouraging people to vote for the guy who openly admits to not being village. Arrowheaded for Disaster He's out here on an Andy Reid trip, Big presence in games, not lurking. With his luck, always wins coinflips, And makes magic overtime working. Defense is soft, needs better Safety, Though might get interceptions as a Thief. Hear, the crowd cheers go ma homie, But he'll be out, the Kas-as Sec'ity Chief.

I appreciate that you fully embraced your alignment transition and feel no remorse about the village loss :P. Don't worry about it, just having you join us out of the blue was fun. Speaking of which, people have hinted at thoughts about alignment concealment/changing/being known by the neutral, but my team benefited the most from those, so I don't really think I'm a good place to comment on them. General play note, friendly reminder that it's important to identify the point where conversations cease being productive. The game is designed to build to points where you test your theories, and after a certain amount of discussion, it's okay to agree to disagree and wait until rollover (or that hour before rollover when people actually commit to votes), trusting that the best points you're going to make have already been made, and the risk of inflaming emotions or smothering casual contributors has gotten too high. I always feel sorry for neutrals because they're essentially at the mercy of the village once they've been outed. The powerset Cal received seemed to balance their vulnerability. I can't remember ever seeing one win solo, so great job, Devo! In addition to being busy IRL, I tried to play as lowkey a game as possible and I still drew too much attention to myself. I think it comes from only having ever been elim in short games, so I need to work on that. Thanks for working with me, Stick and Stink. It was epic. :P. Shootout to TJ for their excellent distro method XD. And thank you for running the game, you and Elandera.

I don't suppose Investigator Gadget bothered to scan me yesterday? I was stabbed, so I'm hoping someone realized I can't use Gold now. Not that I had any. I'm confused because I thought the chance of the stabber dying was predicated on the victim dying first, but if not, that's very unfortunate. I haven't done any rereading yet and I don't think I will unless my runway suddenly extends. I'm aware of how this looks and don't blame anyone for making the call they are. I messed up, so I'm counting on the Hal Mary play to sort this out.

wonder who that could be :thonk: You've got to be kidding me. Bort If it's a lie, Araris has next round to tell us I guess. And that looks like open wolfing. Kas, Drake evidently explained things to you but not me, so thanks for sharing. Drake has been dodging the question in our PM. But you can be forgiven for being suspicious of me, if this is true I basically need the investigator to scan me please

Not with that attitude they won't :P. I'll concede it's a bad idea to out yourself as a multi-use scanner to someone you pegged as an elim. But there's ways around it that still let you claim a red scan was made. And then you freeze the elim team, or get the target to try and talk about redirects, which is as good as a straight confession. Drake's meme seems to say he thought people would be noticeably more cheerful about being scanned village? Was there a strong difference he noticed? Or is he just assuming that people who didn't buy it must have been tipped off by the elim doc. As someone who has [redacted due to ongoing nature of other game] I find the timing, execution, and conclusions suspicious. I know we haven't had much in the way of leads so far, but following the two low confrontation setups doesn't seem right. Looking at stuff like who voted, who grabbed items, who said suspicious things makes more sense to me. Put another way, it's a mix y'all.