Archer

what what They're real? Oo this just got interesting. My initial reaction was you'd fallen into the claim trap, but I think you're claiming to avoid the exe, not to e!engage with a bad strat, which explains why you would go for it, despite being against mass roleclaims usually. I'll call it NAI. So it comes down to do I believe you're a Thug, and do I believe that's a village role. Yes and maybe. That posts reads true to me. But it implies the existence of a e!sniper or e!vote manip or e!Thug or something to balance with the unreliable kill. We'll unpack that later! I'm almost tempted to leave the vote on Elandera because I wouldn't mind another kick at the can. The NK isn't certain so the elims need mixes, so hitting a Thug isn't a terrible outcome. Thoughts, @The Unknown Order? But for now, I think I'll move my votes fully onto Steel. Elandera Steeldancer

Peggy was on her ship comms, placing a call to STAR radio. She listened impatiently to the automated voicemail response, then left a brief message. "Heyy, big fan of the show. I'm a young pilot with skyhigh dreams. Could you guys play 'Crushing On U' by Go To Krell and dedicate it to the cute DDF pilot with the curly brown hair for me? Thanks a million. Byee!" * It's looking like this game has more possibilities than I first thought. My previous analysis was fairly faulty. I think in practice, the odds of a successful kill are going to be higher than they are based on random choice, because certain candidates will be preferable to others, so I'm not convinced they'll have a Sniper, but I think it's a possibility. Same with Thug, to combat a Sniper. I doubt they're e-e, but it's not worth claimings just to get two non-e-e people. Speaking of claiming though, I'll go ahead and say I am your fearless flight leader. In addition to my current vote, I have placed one on Steeldancer. They're in the middle of my null reads and village reads. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who is being read as what, but I'm going to avoid reads lists this game because I think they could be used to signal kill suggestions. Best to focus on the evil folk

Okay now I'm confused. Looking at the rules, I think you're right, Devo, that submitting the kill doesn't take an action. Which makes me wonder, what happens if someone uses a block or scan on someone submitting the kill while also doing another action? Would they see/stop both? Edit: thanks Mat, can I get a ruling on this part too? @Matrim's Dice And I'd assumed that the overlap in votes thing wasn't necessary to cause a kill. I thought if the elims submit all different names, then the kill would be RNGed from that set of elims with one vote on them. There's an auto kill function if no kills are submitted, so I imagine we're never going to not have a kill. Right, Mat? @Matrim's Dice And win at parity means in a straight game, we might go 6:2, 4:2, 2:2 (lose), but say if the elims have vote manipand we miss with a sniper shot, we might go 6:2, 3:2 (lose). Could also go 6:2, 4:2, 2:2 (continue) if we have more vote manip though, so that's nice.

My fan theory is that Callsign Imposter is the result of an alien Google Translate glitch. I'm sure in the original Krell it's a much more nuanced, clever joke that they thought the hoomans would never pick up on. I assume there's two elims, per usual with eight players. With the coinshot role, this game could be over after two rounds. So, I propose we all roleclaim. -The Sniper (Coinshot) and Light Lance Expert (Thug) are certainly village. There are distribution scenarios that could accommodate an elim with those roles, but they rely on unusual role distribution among villagers that we'll be able to pick up on if everyone claims. When claiming on of these, please just say you're one of the two roles, not which one specifically. Because there's a 50% chance you're a Thug, this will make night killing you unappealing, so you'll probably be fine. I'm not sure if these roles will even be included with the low player count, but there's certainly only one of each if they are, so fake claimers will be obvious. -The Flightleader (Rioter) is likely village if there's no Thug and Coinshot, but could go either way otherwise. There could be multiple, in which case, I think it'd be a good elim role. Mat puts some heavy limitations on the elim team, and because he can't give them an extra person to compensate in an eight person game, he'll have buffed them some other way. Being able to secretly add a vote is pretty solid, and it's even balanced by the elims' inability to coordinate how they'll use it (no doc = a more difficult time messing with the exe, especially around hammer time). If the people with this role claim, I'd ask that they declare who they'll be targeting. We can check the votes the next day to see if they did it, or if they actually submitted the elim kill. -IMP Superstar (I dunno what the mistborn equivalent is) is also a decent elim role because it's unexpected. An elim one could say block the Rioter and frame them, which would mess all of this up. It is provable, but at the expense of it blocks someone, so personal preference is that this person blocks people without provable roles in hopes of stopping an elim kill. There could be multiple of this role, in which case again, probably one of them is evil. -Scouts (Tineye or somethin) are only useful for the village in a game this short. Again, Mat could give the elims one to be trolly, but I feel like he'd then also throw in a village one so the role would actually see some use. They should scan and hope to catch the kill. They have some limited potential around verifying roles, but it's up to them to set that up right. -Vanillas (skaa) are a role. I suspect three or so of us are roleless. Probably an elim in that group. Elims could also fakeclaim the role, but Scouts discourage that. Mass claiming tells us if it's role madness or not. Anyway, since most of the roles are either hard to fake claim or provable, if we coordinate this right, we can narrow down who could submit the elim kill today, and look at that group tomorrow as prime suspects. Claiming also clues us in to any unexpected distribution choices that were made. So who wants to go for it? -I have thoughts on how to read the elim kill, but I would prefer to save that discussion for tomorrow so the elims can't signal their thoughts to each other when deciding who to shoot today. -I too like Dr Who references! Bad Wolf

Count me in! I'm going to try playing this the way it is designed to be played. RP character will be Eron. To confirm, if you change locations randomly, it's possible that you'll end up in the same place that you started in? Can Elders self target?

Signing up as Peggy 'Pegleg' Flamingo, who has a bad habit of falling head over heels... in love.

Good game, all! I like this mechanic, but think that given the current meta against voluntarily converting, it actually ended up hurting the elim team more because they wasted actions handing out gems. *sighs in missed opportunities* It’s an interesting occurrence though, because in both of the last two anon games, using pure analysis, the village has gotten a bead on an elim C1. What’d you want me to do with it? Make an Evil gem? No seriously, if I wanted anything else, I could have grabbed it. Also, what were the odds of an elim grabbing a contested gem? What was in the elim gem hoard? it wasn’t just me! Shoutout to @Araris Valerian for being a good IM. Mat. We need to talk about your suspiciously good reads. >.> Yeah, I got Swan and Flamingo confused. I keep telling people, run the game with secret, varying rollover times. Should cut down on last minute vote swaps. Aw. I kinda wanted to see that You get a cookie So that’s why they did that. Also, Flamingo, you asked at some point why we were voting you over say Mouse and like. I don’t even know. At a certain point everything got hazy and I was committed to some key assumptions and didn’t do any analysis. Normally I'd backread or something but it was really convenient having Kas do all that for me. Thanks for making the final NK. Downside of being an elim in these kinds of games is once half the evil team has flipped, if the NK is an action, the village can afford to just action-track and shoot. I will point out though that it’s pretty much exclusively a problem for the Final Solo Elim, whose odds of winning are low anyway. Up until then, there was very little appetite for it. Believe me, I tried * For the record, I actually switched my final gem grab request to Nimbleform so Weasel, the Stormform is yours. This game had everything, huh. Thanks, GM, you did really well.

Oi! You did pretty well, GM. Just gotta work on being more cryptic with your public posts. Although knowing the tie rules probably would have led to some different decisions. I was fairly sure Kas would have played his self protect C3 anyway, so maybe not. Good game, all. Drake and Ashbringer particularly had some card plays that hit like a semi truck. And Kas, good on ya for keeping your vote stable in the final round. Apologies to Striker and Elandera for sussing you in bad faith. No apologies to Mat, a C1 NK is what you get for being right with your first two votes. Looking at the dead doc: -me saying 'village problem' wasn't a perspective slip, it was me trying to go a single post without lying. Turns out I lie a lot as an elim because I took a adopted a broad interpretation of what lying is. As a player, it was a fairly difficult thing to work with just because you had to be hyper conscious of everything you said. I'm glad it was never abused by the other players though; even if you had guessed my tell, I got the sense no one really wanted to force the Honests to role-claim to confirm their alignments, out of politeness. -y'all really thought Drake was a very dedicated Honest? XD -getting so many cards and having to submit the NK instead sucked -I think I understood cardblocking correctly. V!me would have used it on Ashbringer (most likely to submit the kill) exactly the way I did, because an NK block tells you who is village instead of potentially telling you who is evil, which is way more valuable. Then saying I did it on Drake was just me needing to claim something that had no tangible effect. I almost claimed Ash's Shardblade kill, but I thought Drake cardblocked me and I needed the Xino kill to go through to have a chance Anyway, thanks GMs, IM. Maybe someday I'll be evil with Araris not in the elim doc But seriously, I had fun Can't wait for that sub-plot to come to the forefront of the SE season finale. You're foreshadowing it really well Edit: people really wanted to see Kas' hand C1, huh

Every time Kas mentions their condition, I mentally revise how old I think they are up by five years. -I can't really remember why I thought Striker was sus. Considering all three of us voted for him, I'm sure there was a good reason -Why'd I roleblock Drake? I was hedging my bets. I also think Xino's fairly mild reaction and lack of vote made me nervous something was up. Also, I felt kinda lazy for how little I'd contributed that cycle -I specifically did NOT expect Ashbringer to be able to tell if they were roleblocked. Far as a knew, the GMs wouldn't say if a roleblock was successful to anyone. So if Ashbringer submitted the kill, he'd never know what I did, while if he played a card like a card scan, he would know, and could have been cleared of having submitted the kill. Them not knowing was the whole point. -I can see Araris' tell being something like must make the post under 100 words. The GMs came up with them on the fly. I would argue that strikethrough text was a difficult one to get if it's not in your playstyle, so I can see them being difficult/obscure. -On the subject of tells, I'm curious what you think my tell is, because I haven't been RPing recently and you're still voting for me. -Anyway, I plan to double vote Drake. I imagine he'll do the same. I'd ask, Kas, that you self protect so you can't be NKed and cause us all to die today. Hey GMs, say the final total was Drake (2), Archer (2), Kas (0) and Kas is NKed. Who wins? @Lotus

My info comes from Illwei, so maybe I've just been talking to the wrong GM. Final note while I'm thinking about it: C3, e!me and e!Araris would have been happy to let v!Drake die in a tie. So why didn't either of us vote manip? Okay, now you can sleep. I think I've exhausted my list of reasons to think Drake is evol anyway

Drake Analysis Cycle One It’s interesting that TUO’s first poke was to +1 Kas’ vote on Drake, which I’d argue is more out of character for them than the later retraction was. Drake then chose to vote Kas over TUO in retaliation, ignoring the high likelihood of Kas being village because of their role in the 11 person game. TUO would later retract the vote abruptly when asked about it. Meanwhile, Drake +1ed Mat’s vote on me, which I’m reading as a pressure vote, but it’s worth noting he never started his own wagons. Drake then quoted me explaining why I think kas is role-cleared, and voted for Kas in disagreement. It’s notable that the vote came when Araris was in trouble. (Wow, we should have stuck to our initial reads, huh.) Drake then made a one sentence post: “I do not have any orders submited right now to use a sword on you.” That feels like him feeling trolly as an elim. Late game, when Mat voted TUO, Drake was the first to respond with a verbal shrug at Mat’s reasoning. They then nudged the non-voters to vote, which would have been helpful for both Araris (tied for lead) and TUO (picking up suspicion). At this point, I explicitly defended TUO. I think he had four votes, most of them poorly explained, which was a red flag for me. I’ll reiterate my defence though: Drake’s vote on Kas looks more like an elim than my theoretical strategy, which was to start a new wagon and expect people to join it and not stay and vote manip. Cycle Two Mat was NKed. I suspect it was because he voted for TUO and they planned to kill off people who’d be cleared by his flip/kill off people who might vote for him later. Since he was the middle vote on Elandera, it also directed blame towards me and Kas, who Drake was already sussing, potentially setting up a mix. Mat also voted on me, so while technically they’d be the perfect NK target if I were evil, I’d have avoided killing him because of it if I were an elim. Drake justified their vote by saying they like ties, then voted for Kas again for pushing back on his strategy of supporting ties for their own sake. Drake’s response to Kas’ vote was doubling down, but not really elaborating on any reasons to suspect him: “But it sounds like you think that I'm actualy suspicious of you. I'm not. I'm trying to throw my vote away, like I said.” Drake continued to claim Shardblade, which is NAI. Drake then made a post explaining why they think TUO is village. Near the end of the cycle, bam, two people voted on Drake. Drake responded by voting for Striker, his top village read. Note that TUO was light sus in his reads, despite the post he’d made saying they were probably village, and Araris was a village read. Cycle Three Interestingly, Drake started with a vote on Araris (former green village read, but whatever, the hour of rollover changes peoples minds ) I +1ed it (Briefly. To be fair though, I think I went from one elim to another, so half points for me?) In response having one vote on them, Drake then infodumped and was pretty responsive to Kas’ vote on them that made the 2-2 tie. TUO claimed to have card scanned Drake the previous cycle, which would be an easy e-e thing to fake. Araris then voted on me, then was hit by a bunch of votes. Here’s where it gets weird, because Drake could have helped Araris stay alive. But if you assume my vote was stable on Drake, and Kas and Ashbringer were Araris’ inclined, and TUO wasn’t around to help… the best they could have done was either switched the kill to Drake or ensured a tie between them. It seems like as good a time to bus as any. Cycle Four Drake claimed IRL distractions (same bro), but I’ll note that they didn’t do anything to dissuade us from the mix or to do much heavy backreading. Normally I’d say NAI, but I’m trying to be comprehensive here. Cycle Five The only guess I have is that Drake thought Kas had an NK protect card and preferred his chances in a cycle with this setup with a mix on me and more guaranteed NK on Kas than last time.

I expected no one to claim submitting the kill, but I expected somebody to claim having blocked it. Did they just not want to get caught submitting the kill? I've previously asked and Illwei implied that people aren't told if they're roleblocked. @Lotus can we get confirmation of that?

I figured you'd be happy to have somewhere to play after- wait, I'm not allowed to talk about that. I'm pretty sure if Kas is evil, we are unable to win. And I know I'm a villager, so that leaves Drake as the remaining elim. For the record, I cardblocked whatever Drake did. I'll make a proper post on why he's evil sometime today. I imagine we'll all be vote maniping this round so it comes down to who can convince Kas best. Woot

[Because I'm keeping my suspicions fluid The main thing that cleared Drake was the vote. When I played evil with Araris, he was pretty cool with being bussed. If TUO dipped suddenly, I can see them saying Araris is probably going to die here, and planning accordingly. As for the role, based on Lotus' reaction, I think Xino isn't lying about being Honest. (heh.) I think because of that confusion you had about the Cheated card, Drake is really a Cheat. (Could be Lucky and a good liar, but let's assume not.) The main benefit is getting to stockpile vote manip and I think increasing your odds of getting a Shardblade(?). But I haven't been hurting for cards this game, so I'm not sure that given the restrictions on vote manip this game, that it'd be so unbalanced. Drake's been off enough this game that I'm keeping the option open. C1 had a bad vote (we're exing Xino for the same vote). When they were under pressure, I disagreed with pretty much everything they said in that one post. I'm gonna post now because I think this game will be over in ten minutes, and this will probably age like milk]

[I got the Two of Pens card at the start of last cycle.] [ No seriously, I'm aware that e!Xino can't vote manip their way past a 3 vote train. So that doesn't worry me too much. e!Drake though could move their vote and force a double kill of myself and Xino, which is probably the best outcome they could hope for. I'm considering cardblocking Drake, just to keep things honest. I don't think I'll commit to any option.] Edit: I don't intend to post/order past the top of the hour, whether or not the cycle is officially 'closed'. We can just honor system it

[I leave for one day and y'all decide to solve the game without me? I don't have long, but I'll info drop so I can help out that way. Don't expect anything much from me besides agreement that Drake looks okay off of this. I am Honest. I'll spoiler my tell in case you want to guess... C1 blocked Ashbringer. C2 NK protected Kas. C3 I NK protected Kas again, because he a cool bro and I had the cards. Tonight I do have vote manip. I'm down to tie it between Xino and I and just let the Captain be our designated survivor. But not knowing what vote manip Xino has, I worry that could lead to a Drake-Xino coinflip round. Anyone got any card blocks? For now I'll refrain from doubling just to make your lives easier. Fabien/Xino]

Two things: -Striker was Clever. He could only play a card every other turn. -I'm sticking to my guns on Drake, despite his excellent snowman making skills

[ this is fabulous Of my four-person elim suspect pool, one person is village. Therefore no interactions between members of the pool are v-v. So if you take Drake and Ashbringer's votes as face value, both of them wanting to kill Araris can't be doing so in good faith. At least one of them is evil, and more likely, both of them are evil and want to kill the only villager they viably can with the exe. The one complication is hammering, but since I have a self-imposed mid-cycle deadline to come to a decision, I'm hoping the elims are first trying to force a mix. It makes sense because a Shardblade kill extending the game is a good hammer deterrent. Also, if they're working around an inactive elim, they probably don't have the numbers to do it anyway. Speaking of Fab, I don't support killing them. I think they're evil, but I'd rather focus on the most catchable elim, and that's someone who is here and talking. I get nervous about exing people who aren't here to respond. An Araris-Drake-Ashbringer team is still possible, so I'd prefer a pick with a larger sample size of posts to get a bead on. I feel like Ashbringer was intentionally cagey about their C1 card play. I didn't expect them to admit to having not played any card, which would fit with an elim submitting the NK. I think Mat is enough of a perennial threat that the elims could have decided early to kill him, then Ashbringer did it and dipped. His absence is NAI to me, since from the looks of it, he really did have limited screen time and IRL does have priority, regardless of alignment. Drake also has some interesting card play, if Kas is to be believed. I'm going to let Kas follow that lead because as excited as I am to see the card mechanic come into play, I'm struggling to follow waht happened there. You can build an elim team around any role, so falling back on Cheaters are villagey is a weak defence. And suggesting we split the vote isn't a great look either. Also, I feel like the elims would feel better about killing Mat because of how short this game is. Kas, I believe the comment was more of a 'this is a problem for the village to solve because the elims are happy with the status quo' than a 'the village is in trouble, MWA hahah >:)'. Also, I didn't cardblock Striker. I keep seeing new post notifications so I'm gonna post this then respond to whatever you've all been saying. Edit: Oi! Not a fan of that vote. And either way the implications are bad. E!Araris and v!Fab means we're in trouble. V!Araris is workable, but those reads open up the possibility of a split village vote. I suppose it could be e!Araris and v!Ashbringer, in which case we're in a better spot, but I need to do a revaluation ]

To be fair, after my last elim game, Mat would definitely be high on my kill list. I like it! But my first reaction was why is Steel still posting? I asked about the card thing because I card blocked you C1. I wanted to see if you noticed. An elim submitting the kill wouldn't have, because they didn't have a card to be noticeably blocked. It's imperfect because for example if you submitted a block or protect of your own, it probably wouldn't register, but it's interesting that your response fits within my realm of possible eliminess. Also, I made an emoji snowman out of your post, you're welcome. Araris I'm not super comfortable with Drake and Ash being my fellow voters on Araris. I think Kas being evil is unlikely enough that I'm just going to ignore that possibility. 9v;2e could work with a lot of village Clevers to limit card play, but I think it's best to assume three elims. And I'm sticking to my TUO is village read. So. I think on paper a Drake, Ashbringer, Fab team works. Two experienced players plus the socially untouchable rookie. It would explain the elim apathy C1 when none of them were in danger. And why Fab and Drake voted together on Kas C1. And why Drake was so suspicious of Kas and TUO. I'm also pretty sure Araris sussed me for moving off Ashbringer at one point, so I've got them down as not e-e. The good thing about that team is we actually have a shot at village consolidation (v!Fab is a problem). I'm keeping that in mind. But for now, here's that pressure on you, Drake, that Ashbringer asked for. Drake

I’m gonna game this out. Let’s assume everyone will vote. 1. Let’s assume it’s 4v;3e with the NK taking out the Guard Captain. -We can have a v/e tie with successful NK: makes it 2v;2e, at which point the elims can force another tie and submit the NK for the win. There’s a fun endgame scenario where it’s down to a villager with a vote manip versus an elim who submits the NK, and because the OOA doesn’t include the exe, I’m not sure who wins. -A mix and a blocked NK results in a similar scenario, where it comes down to the exe coinflip and card use to see who ends up winning. -We can have an elim exe and an NK, which results in a 3v;2e round, which is functionally similar to this round. -And we can have a mix and NK, which ends the game the other way. I’m ignoring Shardblade shenanigans because those can throw a wrench into any scenario and turn a loss into a continuation of the game and vice versa. Speaking of which, did anyone Shardblade Steeldancer? 2. Let’s assume it’s 5v;2e with Kas being evil. -We can have a mix and a successful NK and end up at 2v;2e. It will be apparent that Kas is evil, but for the village to win, he’s gotta be Shardbladed. -An elim exe and an NK would make it 3v;1e. With a Kas-exe and another NK, it then makes it 2v;1e. Kas can only submit the NK or vote manip, not both, so he loses there. -We can exe Kas today and if they NK, it’ll be 3v;2e. In that scenario, we’re committed to hunting down Kas, so it’d probably go to 2v;1e, which is similar to where we are now. So the takeaways here are if you’re village, using your Shardblade to kill an elim today is a good idea. If you don’t have that, using your vote manip to ensure the exe hits an elim is also a good plan. I think an elim flip is more guiding than a blocked NK, so cardblocking should be your third option. I don’t think card blocks work on the NK, so unless you stop an elim vote manip, you aren’t accomplishing much. Scanning cards is pretty useless at this point. * Ashbringer, my fellow camper, did you play a good card C1?

I'm going camping from Friday at 5pm EST to Sunday night. I don't know how good the reception will be and even if I can get on, I don't expect I will very often during that period. I enjoy playing, but I also enjoy vacationing "What in the name of star-spangled banners is going on here?" Travis shouted, exasperatedly. "I know we all look like idiots, but you didn't have ta underscore it by having all the Clever people leave the table." [Striker being village is interesting. The upshot of all this though is it makes the game easier to solve now. I trust TUO and Kas, so three of Araris, Fab, Drake, and Ashbringer are likely evil. I'll +1 that Araris vote. Araris] He glared at God and her assistant. "Anyway, I'm being wondering if Steel was pushed out because they were unlikely to recieve protection from their fellow players." "I'm also hoping that y'all saved your best playing for last. I don't want to lose because somebody didn't show up." He leaned back, flipping through his cards. "Also, I reckon it's do or die time. So if any of y'all have a pointy ace up your sleeve, it's now or never." Edit: a likely story, who even does that

Friendly reminder that vote manipulating and Shardblade kills are a thing. So I'm sticking with the Striker vote because aaaaaaaaaa ties?

You counted your own vote twice. You're no longer my favorite vote bot (I'm sorry Illwei, I never should have doubted you!) Travis' eyes spun like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind, taking in all the possibilities. "Yeehaw, man. This is one strange game of Uno." [At this point I'm guessing either Fab or Ashbringer could be an evil third on theorized teams and we can't afford to spend a cycle finding out so I'm just ignoring them for now. Anyway, both Striker and Drake have been pretty consistent in their main suspicions being exes I dislike since pretty much the start of the game. Which makes it weird that Striker's second choice is Drake, because I had them pegged as possible e-e. If they're not, I find Striker sussing Drake for being confusing to be a red flag. It's suspicion cast because of appearance, not substance. Striker Araris Also, Ashbringer, if you get on, what card did you play and what'd you learn from it?]

I need a better ship name for an elim Araris-Kas team. Kasaris feels basic. I liked the Elandera wagon. She'd said a lot of nothing and seemed to pull the TUO vote out of nowhere. I know TUO backed off easily in the face of criticism, but I didn't read it as unusual for them. And Elandera basically said that felt weird, here's my vote, but didn't make much of an effort to follow-up on it. If TUO is evil, sure, I look bad for voting on Elandera instead of them, but then why'd I start a new wagon instead of adding to the existing one on Kas? Okay, the whole Thug thing could have messed with that, but I could have stayed on Ashbringer with Araris and had TUO self pres there and avoided having to rely on two villagers to change their minds. (Thank you for the correction, by the way, apparently I'm bad at reading timestamps.) I'm curious what would make you change your vote, or if you're just going to stick to this reason until they're either exed or the game ends.