Archer

Are you opposed to a Mint exe, Danex? (That sentence felt like I was offering you some breath mints XD.) And Illwei, just to confirm something you implied earlier, are you claiming alignment scanner? And what's your theorized elim team right now? Fun story, I woke up today and skipped breakfast because I knew the building my exam was being held in had a Pizza Pizza. But I forgot that it was the weekend and they're closed then, so I wrote a whole exam thinking about pizza. Assume I'm exed. Who do you plan on scanning today if you survive and why?

I need someone to check my math here. We’re probably at 4v;2e. Szeth has claimed healer, so the NK isn’t guaranteed, but it’s better to assume it’ll go through. If we forgo the exe, we end up at 3v;2e and get more time. But if an elim moves their vote at the last second, we fall to 2v;2e and lose, so it’s unviable. Exing a villager also brings us to parity. Exing an elim gets us to 3v;1e, which is nice. And if the coinshot also kills an elim, we win outright. But what I’m more interested in is the spread your bets strategy of two villager deaths and an elim death. Specifically, exing one suspect, and coinshotting another suspect who probably isn’t their partner. Either we super lose, or we have a chance. A success brings us to 2v;1e, which should result in the village winning with one person left at the end. I’m right about that, right? Mint’s statement is either true, making Illwei village, or false, making Illwei their likely teammate, but not guaranteed. Alignment scanner is the easiest role for the elims to fake. So the value play is killing them over Illwei. But if it’s true, that leaves a pool of Dannex/Shard/Szeth. Dannex did vote for Szeth early in the round, so I’m inclined to believe they aren’t e-e. I also don’t see the value in not immediately bussing if your teammate has been scanned. Shard I’d buy being evil, based on a very limited sample of mildly sus comments. Again, as the common denominator, they’re probably the value kill, but I really hate putting the game on the line based on that. There’s a chance Mint is a teammate with someone besides Illwei, for example. So I’d probably revert to Dannex, who voted out Mat. But they’ve actually been game solving so. So Mint (Reading) gets my vote right now

So. I have an exam in about an hour and I'm struggling to read between lines. What exactly are you claiming, Illwei and Szeth? And why do I suddenly feel very behind on exlo in a way that doesn't sit right with me? Were you even on to do that, Minty? Hi, by the way. Welcome to the game.

*squints* For a guy who's supposed to be Szeth's teammate, you sure do be voting for them a lot. I will accept your argument. But imagine I have a ghost vote still hovering over you. Now you stay on Szeth while I accuse Szeth Shard of Reading of being in kahoots with them. Because they're one of like two remaining suspects. And I actually reread your posts, Shard, and you said 1. You don't want to make enemies and 2. You think the scanners should stay quiet for multiple rounds. How ya feeling about scanners now? And Szeths?

Better to vote Szeth after they've been outed than to not vote Szeth at all. If MintSilverTea is the coinshot, your plan backfires. My money is on Danex-Szeth being e-e. I'd be willing to debate whether Illwei might be lying. That would make sense to me. Although balance of probability says they're telling the truth because it's such a bold play on C2. But believing them yet not voting for the elim seems foolhardy to me. That said, if only four people vote today, a hammer might well work unfortunately.

Wait what. Their wincon is parity? Wow that came up fast. v!Illwei and e!Szeth makes sense to me so Danex Szeth This would work great except for the elims have the bodyguard power now... They'll probably be double tapped so it'll go through.

I have an announcement! Listen up, everybody! ILLWEI and DANNEX….. are not e-e! And that’s everything that can pulled from the voting patterns besides oof do we need more voters. Focusing on the most catchable elim for now, I’ll assume at least one of them voted, making Illwei and Dannex my two top suspects. Also I just noticed that Szeth's gender pronouns are in their signature. Illwei will know why that makes me feel dumb. Annnnnyway, Illwei went from voting someone who voted who wasn't them to voting Ed's top suspect who isn't them, and I fully follow that logic, so take some village points. Even though you were his top sus. :P. Ed wasn't who I expected to die, so I'm guessing it was either because of their poke vote, their reads were threatening, or my favorite option, they wanted to avoid killing someone who would get protection. Don't have to worry about that anymore though. It do be unfortunate that that was probably all of our bodyguards who just died.

I think generally, I'd rather have the exe. But I don't want to be pressured into a bad one, or let the elims have a free shot at choosing which one goes through under the excuse that they're breaking a tie. My assumption was that in time, a pair of leading candidates would emerge and us killing someone today wouldn't be in much doubt. So I'm specifically concerned that you're an elim worried you might only get one village death today instead of two, so you're more closely watching that votes than a villager would be.

*names a pair of suspects* *disparages the tie* .... *makes it a bigger tie on someone unrelated* What was the reason for the Illwei-Reading team? I had Reading down as a null. But by all means, feel free to vote for one of those two. :P. This doesn't sit right with me. I'd expect the elims to want a free kill C1 if they can get one. If e!Mat has a partner in the 5 way tie/wants to self pres, this could be laying the groundwork to bail them out later if they attract a second vote. Killing for its own sake is usually an evil tell, but especially in this game because of the alignment scanner. If this is the state of the votes near rollover, the elims can basically control the exe. So ideally we change that with some legitimate candidates, but barring that, I'd rather take the scan over the low probability that that scenario would result in an elim being killed. Mat (Illwei)

So here's what I'm picturing. Two elims, Dave and David. At the end of C1, they kill a scanner. So during D2 they can both take the scan action. Except they won't because one of them needs to submit the kill, which takes up their only action. Anyway, at the end of C2, they kill a healer. Now they have the heal ability instead to use at the end of the cycle. If that's wrong, kindly let me know. Okay so we will know what ability the elims have based on their victim's flip. We can work with that. My character, Body the Elf, is the arch nemesis of Illwei's Nobody. If TUA changes the name on me, I will protest :P. If you're a scanner, it'd be advantageous for you to scan the same person again if you see them doing something. If I understand the rules correctly, the elims probably won't be able to do the same action/an action twice in a row. You'll also be watching for elims with healing protecting each other. Anyway, the built in anti-claim mechanic is if the elims collect a full set, abilities have a 50% chance of failure. Since we probably only have one alignment scanner and one shooter, it's unlikely that they'll achieve that, but it should be considered. Also, claiming narrows the field of power roles, which should be a bigger deterrent. On that note, I doubt we have multiple kill roles, so if someone does scan an elim, it'll either be an elim who our coinshot will gladly shoot, or it will be the shooter themselves, who knows that they are village. So feel free to help your coinshot out, it's unlikely to lead to friendly fire. I too am confused by this! Which is convenient because since it's Illwei, I don't have to move my vote to sus this... claim that they're voting for the people they trust? :P.

For RP purposes, I will be pretending I didn't see that. Body the elf (played by Will Ferrell) was in the midst of an existential crisis. “I can’t live in a world with no body,” he reasoned. “So that’s who I must kill! Yay, syrup and stuff.” Illwei *reports bot* I disagree. There's a bodyguard role to protect you, and even the threat of that should be enough to keep you safe. There's been games where the scanner has failed to reveal a village scan, and that hurt us. Knowing who not to waste the exe on is almost as good as knowing who to exe. But obviously don't roleclaim until tomorrow. :P. * @The Unknown Aon GM, I’d like some clarification on how the Dakhor abilities work. Do they replicate the ability of the player they kill? The way I’m picturing it is Frank and Felix are evil. Frank submits the elim kill on an Elantrian of Watchfulness. After the kill goes through, you inform them of the ability their victim had and ask Frank if he’d like to take on that ability. He does, and can now action track until he changes out the ability. His teammate getting an ability has no effect on whether he still has his. Is the role players villagers have revealed in the writeup when they die? And is the ability elims were mimicking revealed, or does it just show up as monk? Can the Elantrian of Death kill twice in the same round? If we start the game with less than every type of Elantrian, will we be informed? And finally, just to confirm, even if there’s no post stating that a round is over, the round ends at the listed time and all votes cast after then will not be counted, ya?

Seems like you need more bodies. I'm in as Body, the arch-nemesis of Illwei's character.

XD. This game is funny sometimes. If I had a nickel for every game where an elim was a viable candidate D1 and I refused to believe we'd get that lucky... I'd have at least 20 cents. -Sart voted Szeth, so they're village. -Illwei and Araris voted Sart, so they're village. -Sart didn't have an extra life, so the elim team is probably three people. Edit: or no elims have extra lives and there's four -I don't look great off of this flip because Kas and I made up the CW, and I (a Thug) inserted myself into exe contention D1 when he was in danger. In my defense, I'd argue that Sart could have kept his vote on D1 for distancing reasons, but I understand if it makes strategic sense to the get the question mark I represent out of the way now so you can focus on the actual elims. -My kill order right now from first to last is Mage, Kas, Tani, Danex. Peeling back some extra lives will help make the exe more threatening, so if you've got a gun, I say you take your shot. I haven't done a reread yet though, so take that with a grain of salt. That's an if I live to tommorow problem.

You are, mate. I shot you very aggressively. Starting to regret that though. Danex was shot by me, not Szeth. Szeth has claimed an unknown other ability. Could it be that every villager has a kill and the elims all have something else? Yes, and I like the train of thought. But it was me, not them, so you might want to reconsider. Speaking of claims, we're going to have trouble separating the coinshots from the NK tommorow, perhaps by design. I encourage everyone to be forthcoming with what they do. I'm getting mild village reads on Danex, Szeth AND Illwei, which is everyone who voted for me, so that points to Sart, who hoped off. Unless it really was just all villagers. On that note, I'm reminded of Mage's analysis where they suggested the leading train was all village. It was a weird assumption. I wonder if that was an elim slip. Coupled with them not suspecting me-Araris and instead coming up with me-Illwei, I'm leaning back towards an Araris/Mage team, and would support a wagon on one of them today.

I'm not sure that's where I'm at right now, but I was certainly curious if Szeth had landed there. I have a bad habit of not wanting to kill people who ask not to be killed, so realistically I've stopped baring down on Danex. 1. The elims have to vote somewhere. Voting off a villager is good for them. Why wouldn't they support mixes? At least until they're sure to go through, then they might hop off, like Sart did. Better to pressure villagers than risk being under fire yourself. The line you bolded doesn't make sense to me. 2. Hi! Thanks for the post! 3. Illwei's vote mattered. It was the third on me. Afterwards one was added and one was lost, so the wagon ended up with three votes. There was a number of one vote trains out there. If she had instead added to one of those, it'd have been 2 to 2. With my vote, added in self preservation, it'd have been 2 to 3 in my favor and I'd have avoided the exe. Similarly, I could have +1ed a wagon on someone other than Illwei, such as Kas' on Danex. Instead of making both the first and second wagons problematic for my e!team, either of us could have voted differently and sought a better result. It makes no sense that we'd be teammates. Also, Illwei was shot by the elims, so we'd have to have bussed twice in a row in C1 for that to work out. How'd you come out of that thinking the team is Illwei-me and not me-Araris? I'm blatantly defending him, kind of. 4. hahahahahahahahahahahhaha no :(. The Shard is optimized to be a book discussion forum, not a mafia forum, unfortunately. Mage

Brawnze realized the jog was up. Assassins were after him, so it was time to show the world why his people had elected him to be their representative. He fished a bowtie out of his pocket and checked out his reflection in the window of a nearby shop. “Me name is Brawnze. James Brawnze.” He suavely dashed down the lane to investigate where the arrow had come from. Alas, his assailant was long gone. All the was left was a bow, but on its shaft was a signet mark he recognized in a heartbeat. “This symbol be bad. Me being hunted… by the bad man Bronzefinger.” * First of all, last time I was evil with Danex, they were willing to use inactivity to avoid suspicion. Otherwise, yeah, I normally read stuff like Tani and Danex’s leaning of RL explanations for inactivity to be villager, while something like Mage’s post was more what I’d expect of an elim looking to get caught up on the doc before they make a post they might have to backtrack on. This post is a mess. Everything below this paragraph I wrote before Araris made his most recent post, and was sitting on until he made his move. Given that he voted Sart and made a reads list that I like the looks of, including the mild suspicion of Kas which I think v!Araris would have for the same reasons I was sus of Araris, I’m struggling to justify exing him. And as you’ll see, I tried. But since Szeth voted him (I am so close to just voting Szeth honestly), I think it’s worth scrutinizing Araris. Again, my current read on them is village-leaning, even though I wrote the rest of this hoping they were evil: Araris was pinging my elimdar because I am always suspicious of anyone that defends me too much. :P. I think e!they would think that v!they would take my side and argue Szeth’s points were flawed and so they would. I feel like if you spend that much time arguing an exe is being done for bad reasons, you’d be willing to CC rather than let it go through. That he didn’t suggests Mage as a possible teammate. That he stuck to his guns suggests e!they were okay with me dying because that’s a free mix and they get village cred from it based on their positioning. As for the Illwei kill, I think e!they would pounce on the opportunity to get rid of Illwei because she hadn’t said much D1 beyond suggesting I be exed. That avoids implicating him, and directs the next exe towards me, and gets a good player out of the picture. It also suggests a low-activity teammate, although that’s confused by their regular calls to coinshot those players, which brings me to the major problem with this theory. Sure, Araris has been sticking to arguments that are in their wheelhouse regardless of alignment, and is the most active person I don’t have a confident village read of, but I can’t for the life of me figure out who their teammate is. Best guess would be Sart, who conveniently also avoided being implicated in the D1 mix by hoping off, but even that requires us to guess that he was bluffing about be willing to move the exe back onto them D1. This is really piecemeal, so my confidence in this read isn’t great. But whenever all our top suspects are low posters, that’s usually a sign that an active elim has slipped through undetected. * Why Araris Might be Evil: -D1: “I doubt there are any kill roles this game, but if there are, I'll echo my call from the last game to target any players that aren't voting/participating in discussion.” Directs kills away from him (but implies active teammate. BUT -D1 felt I’d signalled them out for what was a basic stab for them. -D1: “I do realize my vote is currently kinda useless, so let’s see if I can fix that.” Trying to avoid appearance of a pure vanity vote while also directing traffic late to make sure their teammates weren’t hit? -Spent the final hour before rollover arguing with Szeth why their vote was a bad one. Elims like being around near rollover to switch their vote if needbe. -D2: “we can only vote for Illwei, Archer, and Danex” possibly hoped to direct conversation towards that set, of which at least two are village. Also ended that post with an ‘I need to think’, which could be stalling. People e!Araris Probably Isn’t Teammates With: People I Trust: -Kas: didn’t know the elims for sure have an NK -Illwei: targeted by the elim kill -Szeth: commitment to their tunnel People he’s distanced himself from: -Tani: Included in D1 list of inactives he suggested coinshotting. And N2 list. Called them hypocritical, which a teammate likely wouldn’t do. -Danex: Included in D1 list of inactives he suggested coinshotting. And N2 list. BUT technically was defending Danex when calling Tani’s vote bad. AND: People he’s pinged: Mage/Danex/Tani, Szeth/Danex/Archer. Could have been trying to summon Danex. -Mage: Included in D1 list of inactives he suggested coinshotting BUT advised against CC D1 saying “I’d prefer to vote out someone that has been talking”. Also was active near D1 rollover which might indicate they were worried about the Mage wagon. BUUUT N2 said “I'll repeat my request for a Coinshot or the like to go after one of Danex/Mage/Tani”. They’d have to be relying on better chance of someone else being hit/Thug extra life. -Sart: D1 Said they’d vote Sart over Archer. BUT put them 4th on his list of suspects N1, which is a non-starter realistically. EDIT: Kas, why must I always be ninja'd by you. Two things. One, "Something about Araris's comment on the game being over in three or four cycles did strike me as a bit odd though, since I thought at that time that it seemed to suggest Araris thought there were no other operative kills or Thugs, which would be a strange inference for a Thug with a secondary ability." This is a valid point, but if v!Thug Araris didn't know everyone was a Thug because we didn't know that D1, then they'd have had no reason to suspect they weren't special. I assumed Mat just liked me and didn't question it. :P. Two, I too have a sinking feeling. Not sure how much of it is inactivity driven versus going after the wrong target. Plus the elims have extra lives possibly so they can play cooler.

You know what it is, you just don't know it as a Wounded Gazelle Gambit. :P. Elims shooting their teammates for village cred when they have protection eg. an extra life. It's fairly rare though. I wouldn't pull it on Illwei this early unless I was REALLY sure they'd be exed and shot if we didn't do anything. XD. Lemmie complete that thought. If they all are Thugs under a different name, they might say, okay two thugs, two [Feruchemical name for Thug]... maybe there's doubles of each role. The power of a name change can throw people off. Do you have any appetite for a Sart kill?

Picking off extra lives with the exe is a valid strategy to me. Don't have to limit ourselves to us weak folk. :). +1 that Tani is pulling a hit and run. I didn't want to both target the same person. When I said that, I had the kill targeting Illwei and suspected that might be who you would target too, if you had a kill ability. Part of the reason I switched to Danex was actually because I thought Illwei might be killed by someone else. I didn't realize Thug with a kill was such a popular role and was only speaking to you. Would anyone like to counter claim my assertion that I killed Danex? I thought you'd guessed I had a kill from my weird conversation with Szeth and also guessed that I had plans to use it on you, and was hinting that you had an ability like a scan that if you were allowed to live, the result of could be revealed to help the village. Danex. I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. You've implied you're a Thug, so you had a three Thug pattern to base that guess on. If the elims don't have a second life, or if they don't

Seems plausible. I also got that vibe, which confused me because I figure e!Illwei could have just tanked the kill and NKed or exed me. Edit: and therefore I wouldn't be able to claim the attack and they could say they were hit by the NK instead or something. Free WGG opportunity. I propose that a v!Illwei flip points to e!me because then it's a village led wagon and it looks like I'm killing off critics? That said, why would I advertise my kill ability if I was going to also hit Danex. That's a little too bold for an elim. For my own sanity, I'm just not going to respond to this. I believe you believe I'm evil, and I think you're village, so we can both focus on convincing everyone else instead of each other this round since that ain't happening. That said, if you don't ever come up with a secondary kill option, I will eventually have to rethink my read on you because you could just be committing to a tunnel to avoid having to engage dangerously with anyone else.

I suspect that everyone has an extra life, and some of us have a little more. I for example, had a one shot kill I used on Danex. I reasoned someone voting for me was probably evil, and since Szeth seemed to be a tunneling villager, and Illwei straight up asked not to be killed, Danex was the next best option. Speaking of which, what did you have to say today Illwei? And to the group, was e!Illwei under sufficient pressure to warrant a WGG, or did the elims want v!them dead? My gut says the latter is more likely, leading me to want to finish the job on Danex .

*whispers* what the heck Mat, I thought I was special Edit: how about you hang on to that for now since you're almost guaranteed to have another opportunity to use it

That is technically an assumption. All I said was that I burned pewter. :P. I'm surprised no one has suspected me of being a Lurcher, as the writeup implied, but I'm also glad, because that is not the case. Speaking Thug to Thug, do you have an unexpected secondary ability? Blink once for yes, twice for no, three for let's discuss this further in front of everyone and confuse them marvelously. Without Illwei or Danex's vote on me, I wouldn't have been the sole exe candidate. I guess you could argue bussing with the benefit of I survive it? But I've always treated D1 as a free mix when I'm evil. Even if the elim team hammered D1, and I was exed over the next two Days, that allows us four NKs for the price of one teammate. Bringing to potentially a 2v:1e scenario, which is quite winnable, assuming a two person team. We wouldn't have expected a high amount of extra lives. I was certainly expecting one of each type of role, as per usual in these games. Now, Danex was the fourth vote, so you could argue they bussed then went offline and we misplayed the round by accident. But again, wouldn't I suggest they second another vote instead and leave me with an out to make a three vote CW in a pinch?

Surprise. :D. I figured I could at least wrangle up a tie, which created the possibility that I wouldn't be exed, and I could keep my pewter a secret. (But Archer, you ask, why were you worried if you had an extra life? I would point you to the last anon game where I was very adverse to being exed even though I would have survived. I like to have a chance of killing someone evil every time. Being injured isn't productive.) Kas, I didn't mention my role because I think that would have encouraged votes, not dissuaded them. It also lessons the stakes, which I felt had been raised to an informative level. I stand by my assessment that Szeth got way too involved in a bad argument to be evil. I'm sure their teammates would have suggested they back off at some point, although I think e!Szeth plays a bit lone wolf? I was evil with them in a game where we basically half sussed each other the whole time and didn't question each other's approaches too much. Szeth, to answer your previous question, it's been like the last four or so games? Hard to remember. Do you have an item? If you do, that confuses my assumptions about the game. So here's my outstanding questions. -Why so many vanity votes? I appreciate Araris' attempt to persuade the thread to join him, but I expected him to give up in the face of Szeth's refusal to move and change his vote to somewhere more meaningful, like on Mage. I also may have misjudged whether v!Kas would jump at the chance to make a tie for its own sake, but I also figured that he'd like the Illwei/Me coinflip. Or he'd vote manip proof the wagon on me. Just voting Danex was fairly pointless since Danex rarely comes on for early rollovers. (Araris-Mage, Kas-Illwei possible e-es.) A possible reason is the elims' hesitance to all be an a bad wagon. -Who's my theoretical teammate? It's gotta be someone who didn't avoid helping me and that I didn't try to make a wagon on, which knocks out most of the group. By the way, if you're another villager with an extra life, you might want to consider what the elims have to balance that. Is it a three person team or are they packing some firepower? There was no vote manip, so I think a lot of power roles are on the table. -Who is evil? Araris and Szeth are trusts. Sart's vote was hard to read. Mage and Tani are nulls. I don't like Kas' vote. Danex and Illwei's were worse. If we're gunning for the elim who is hiding in the peripherals, I would be willing to vote Illwei tommorow.

*Kas pointedly refrains from taking my tie bait* I see how it is. :P.

Doing a speed read, but I'm getting village vibes from both Araris and Szeth from their conversation. Elims don't usually slug it out if they don't have to. Illwei, Mage