Quintessential

Hmmm one does see a certain resemblance in the first three letters of our names...

Ah, got it. Hmmm wow my name has been around in SE since the very beginning lol

...does this town crier have any relation to me

I started to write out a thing informing you why that doesn't make any sense for stone eaters and then remembered that you haven't read book 2 yet : P Honestly, now that I think about it, the only balanced goal that I can think of for the stone eater that would also be thematically accurate would be to give them a one-shot vig kill that only works on orogenes and have them win and leave if they successfully kill an orogene.

Well the draft of the game that I'm writing out now doesn't have any special abilities for orogenes, apart from the elim kill, because I can't figure out how to do that (especially without spoiling post book 1 stuff, so you probably wouldn't want to play anyway). All of my roles focus around the different use-castes. Hmmm although maybe I could make a neutral Stone Eater, whose win-con is to protect the specific orogene that they've chosen... but idk how that would work because everyone's use-caste is announced... maybe the stone eater would be in human form, like Hoa? hmmmm

Sort of. Not an interesting mechanic, I guess, so much as the flavor just works really well. Comm at the beginning of the Season survives unscathed where the surrounding area is devastated by shakes. The leaders take it upon themselves to root out the orogenes that they know must live within their walls. The orogenes' only hope of survival is to take over the comm, but they are not well-trained enough to do so when they're so thoroughly outnumbered. So they sneak out and ice someone each Night. etc. The thing that I was thinking of doing a bit differently is that each player has a use-caste, which is listed publicly since, of course, in a comm everyone would know which use-caste everyone else belongs to. There are specific roles that belong to each use-caste, with some overlap between castes (for example, roles for Strongbacks might include a vig, a protection ability, and a passive extra life, while Resistant might have a passive extra life and a couple of specific skills, and Innovator would have some of those specific skills, maybe research, and a vig? not sure yet). So for a given person, you know from the start what category of roles they might have (though there would be vanillas).

Hmmm as a general question (and I suspect the answer is no) are there enough people on this forum who've read the Broken Earth trilogy that I could run a game based on it at some point and get other reactions than just faint confusion? this is, of course, assuming I could get my hands on a game pass.

I feel bad for the people on the west coast I'm in! Playing as Tesse Mourn, the resident metallurgist (someone @ me if that's already taken and I'll choose something else lol)

Huh. Now I'm trying to figure out what it is about requiring everyone to vote that would make elims more likely to vote each other than otherwise--apart from just the fact that everyone's voting? But if that's the case then would a game where everyone votes every cycle just because they all happen to like playing that way have just as many e/e votes? Also makes sense. Idk why I'm trying to figure out a way to fix this problem, seeing as I've never GMd and have basically zero idea how that works. : P

Right, that makes sense : P I mean, if it required you to have a final vote at the end of the cycle, I doubt the elims would vote for each other as much. But yeah, there are still problems with it. What about the second part, though? If the GM could decide not to count posts that do nothing more than announce existence towards the inactivity filter? I can still see potential flaws with that, I suppose... like, would someone saying "I exist" and placing a random vote count, or not? would someone saying "I exist but don't have time to catch up until next cycle" count? idk

In the aftermath of MR48, someone suggested having a vote-based inactivity filter? Which could obviously result in people just hopping on to randomly vote, but also elims probably aren't going to vote for their teammates unless they can be around to remove that vote later, so that does give us information. It's the idea that I've personally liked most of the ones suggested so far. It would need some tweaking, though, because some very active players don't like to vote in the first couple of cycles--so I guess the way it would work would be: either you must post at least x number of times (and the GM may choose to announce that they will not count posts that do nothing more than demonstrate existence) or you must have a vote in the final count. If you don't meet either of those criteria for two consecutive cycles then you're replaced. Or something like that?

I... I mean, but then you would have to have said you were claiming to claim elim instead... it's too late at night for this XD

Which technically means that "I'm claiming elim" is also a lie... but I got the idea during the game lol

Yeah, I can't imagine it ever hasn't been a problem tbh. Because, like, it's sort of hard to fight. The more you say, whether you're vil or elim, the more likely you're gonna say something that someone else will think is sus (or the more likely you as a villager will say something that will draw the elims' attention). It's not like you can just prevent people from voting off those who seem suspicious because they happen to be active and so may not be suspicious because they're elim so much as because they're there.

Amazing? Hah, that was literally not credible. When Illwei flipped, my thought was that I was lucky I'd guessed any elims. I'm not used to being good at things apparently Doubt and paranoia can also be terrible things, depending on where you're standing...

Wow, okay, so that was the first village game that I've ever survived, most of which I owe to the elim team for continuously putting off killing me so thank you for that. That was also the first village game where I've ever caught an elim? I don't count MR46 because Gears was practically handed to me on a silver platter at the start of C2 and I still trusted him until midway through C5 : P (also now Illwei and I can both brag about god-tier reads XD... Illwei, I figured if you could peg most of the elim team after dying C1 of a game, then I could do it alive in C3. Guess I was right, I just didn't... actually... stick with my guesses) I'm starting to figure out the kind of analysis that works for me, I think. Not reads, not usually, because I'm wrong (Bard) as often as I'm right (Illwei in C3). I'm apparently much better at figuring things out from facts--who votes whom, who reads whom elim--than thinking "ok, this person seems sus or not normal to me". Looking at votes seems to help, since there are fewer opportunities to create tinfoil (I can still do it, but it's easier not to) and fewer IKYKs. Elims can say whatever they want about people with whatever intention they want, but who they vote for, and who they don't vote for, is far more dependent upon who the other elims are. @Illwei I can try to walk you through the thought-process that I had for figuring out the elim team in C3 I guess. There were some things that you said that seemed off. You overemphasized my (literally nonexistent) fear of dying in C1--which I realize now was not just a you thing but A. I figure you can read me better than that? and B. even if you can't, it's kind of a small thing and you sort of... catastrophized it. (or at least that's how it seemed to me). You also said we should consider an elim team of 5 and then a few posts later said you didn't think there were 5 elims at all, without ever addressing that you were the first one to mention there could be. I managed to figure out that of you/Mat/Liranil, only one of you was (likely) elim. Of the three, Mat and Liranil seemed most vil to me at the time. You did some things that I do as elim--and while, yes, I know that my elim playstyle isn't like yours at all, in this case I was right. Rather than voting on the main trains C1, you voted on someone else, a villager (I did this on Gears in QF50, you chose Matrim, the point still stands) and kept your vote there for the rest of the cycle. Which... didn't seem super like you? Again. This is what it seemed like to me. Maybe vil!you does that, idk. Once I suspected you, I kind of began to consider who could be elims with you. The first thing that stood out to me was that list of people you were willing to exe that you'd posted just before. Of those people, I knew I was village and I knew that if you were elim then Mat had to be village. So with elim!you, that left Ash or Gears as elim--because I couldn't imagine you wouldn't use that as a distancing opportunity, after having seen you criticizes my team in QF50 for linking ourselves too close. Of those two, since I was looking at votes, Ash stood out and Gears did not, because Gears hadn't voted and Ash was on the Brighteyes train with me, Mat, and Liranil (all three of whom would be villagers in the elim!you world). I know it's not always true, but I defaulted to the assumption that each train large enough to exe or almost exe a villager would have at least one elim on it somewhere down the line (which turned out to be correct in this case). That left Ash as an elim for two reasons, so he was added onto the list. Bard stood out to me because they were on TUO C1 and me C2. The other non-confirmed person on TUO C1 was Liranil, who I was already assuming to be vil in an elim!you world. So that left Bard. The other people on me (apart from you) were TJ, Britghteyes, and Bard. TJ and Brighteyes had both just died so I knew they were vil. Elim!you alone would account for the theoretical elim on me, but I could also easily see elim!Bard following you onto me in the chaos of that cycle. From there, I just added on my previously existing suspicion of Kings--on whom I was voting at the time. As you can see, it was very haphazard. It's a wonder I ever convinced myself to vote you, because there were so many reasons I could be wrong. On the one hand, I'm annoyed that I didn't stick with my original guess but on the other, you can see why I didn't, right? My team guess was basically an elaborate tinfoil. It just happened to be right. One thing I am genuinely kicking myself for, though, is not paying more attention to Bard's voting patterns last cycle. That is, by C5 we knew that every person that Bard had poke-voted was village, knew that Bard had been on a major village exe train each cycle, and knew that the only cycle they hadn't had a final vote in was the one where we exed Illwei. Any one of those things could be dismissed as tinfoil fodder but with all of that together it became a process of tinfoiling to ignore it, and of course I did ignore it over a read I got off of a single analysis post. I will say--I originally had a plan to figure out which of Gears/Kings was elim, which would have worked (knowing now that one, and only one, of them was) but A. I decided it felt too much like mayoring and B. I started watching the finale of Dark and lost track of time, otherwise I would have correctly seen Bard's vote on Gears as sus and voted Kings to keep the tie. Other miscellaneous thoughts: Gears, I was so sure you were the Doctor... Ash, I can't believe I didn't realize you were the Doctor, I should have recognized your Solemnheart voice. Connie, I quite enjoyed seeing your elim/RNG persona . Matrim, you no longer get to say that you can read me fairly well I'd say something about inactivity and how frustrating it is but... okay, actually I will. I'm not going to talk about how we should fix inactivity, or how specifically it affected this game, or whatever the discussion in the dead doc was because I really only skimmed it tbh. This is kind of... basically, this is a modified version of the speech/rant I had prepared in my head to put in the dead doc if I lost that tie C2. Because when all the votes shifted to me that cycle, I didn't care, but at some point after rollover and before I learned the result it occurred to me that this would have been my second village game in a row where I died C2, and that I usually die early, and I realized I was frustrated by that. Like, really frustrated. I know why I die early a lot. Why me and Illwei and Mat, and to a lesser extent Ash and Gears and Connie, die early a lot. It's easy for the village to find something sus about people who talk a lot, and it's easy for the elims to find something threatening about people who talk a lot. Most of us, myself included, feel bad killing off inactives because it's possible they're inactive due to something irl, and it doesn't feel fair if they're not there to defend themselves or if they haven't really gotten to participate much--or at least, haven't really participated much, having had the opportunity or otherwise. But the problem with that is it then kind of... punishes the players who are actually playing? And obviously it's not black and white, active and inactive. There's a scale. But the further up you are on the scale, the more often you die early (at least in my experience, as someone who's very far up on the scale). That's especially true for games where active players role village, because they basically have two options: they can appear so obviously village that everyone realizes they're village, in which case they're NKd in the first couple of cycles, or they can avoid appearing blatantly village, at which point the general population will begin to ask themselves why such an active player doesn't look super village yet. They've said plenty, right? There must be something there to indicate their alignment, right? So then they look, and usually they find something, and usually it's negative. So that kind of... it sometimes ruins the enjoyment of the game, for me? And I would guess for others as well. The people who are willing and able to dedicate the time to the game are also the ones that get kicked out of it earliest. And we all have in common that we really enjoy playing the game, and would like to play for longer and get to endgame more often, but it seems like the most reliable way to do that is to transition to, and then keep, a much less active playstyle. Which I'm not planning to do because that would also ruin my enjoyment of the game, all the time instead of just some of the time. I'm not sure exactly what the solution to this is, or whether there is one, but I figure this is my contribution to the debate about inactivity in this game. We as a community like to complain about how inactive things get late in every game, and so far I have yet to see anyone explicitly point out that there's a reason for that: the game as it's now structured not only permits, but actively incentivizes inactivity.

Wakjds;kjfas;lidrwoeaiujf MY ORIGINAL ELIM TEAM GUESS WAS RIGHT?!?!?! WHAT I'm so mad at myself for dropping those guesses later on XD Currently reading the docs, will post more thoughts later

I feel that. So. So. Much. I. Uh. What? Okay now I'm incredibly confused XD I was hoping the three-way tie would give us some info on one of the three people tied based on how they voted but this is... not what I was expecting. : P unfortunately I can't even decide if I think Dannex is vil because of this. Because if he's elim that could be the point... I hate IKYKs lol EDIT: Okay wait wait wait so. Dannex votes himself. If he's vil and fed up with the game that makes sense. If he's elim, though, it doesn't. See, right now, without his vote on himself, we've got a three-way tie between Kings, Gears, and Dannex. So elim!Dannex could as easily put his vote on whichever of Kings or Gears is village--or either one of them, if they both are. Elim!Dannex voting himself would prolong the game, not end it--and elim!Dannex would have literally no motivation that I can think of to do that, except if both Gears and Kings are elim too. So if Dannex is village, then obviously I should switch my vote. And if Dannex is elim, it means that Kings and Gears are both elim as well, so it won't matter if I switch my vote. Dannex @Dannex @Young Bard @Condensation @Kings_way @Gears @Shard of Reading @Flyingbooks @Straw I'm not sure which of Gears and Kings I should vote for yet. For all I know they're both vil, in which case we've been doomed from the start anyway, but I suspect at least one of them is elim. Hmmm it might be interesting to see how a tie plays out...

Poor phrasing : P I should really reread my posts more carefully before I put them up... what I meant is that one of you has consistently been trying to get the other exed. In C1 it was you trying to get Bard exed, and then sometime in the next couple of cycles Bard became suspicious of you and now you're their top suspect. That's really what it is, I guess--I'll be less certain if Bard doesn't switch their vote to you, but assuming they do you flipping elim would more or less clear them (there's no reason for the elims to bus because they can win with a misX this cycle). That's what I meant by you and Bard being not e/e.

If you want to self-pres, Dannex is probably the better option--if Bard sees that the Dannex exe has picked up, they'll probably switch off of you, and you'd only have one vote. Edit: sorry, 2 votes. I'd forgotten Connie voted for you : P

That, yes, but actually now that I'm thinking about it, it's not the analysis itself that sounds off so much as the whole introduction to that post--I'm-so-happy-to-be-back-but-now-there's-paranoia etc.--so that... idk, that kinda stood out to me. Regardless, it's not exactly the only reason I suspect you : P I mean, if you weren't around when Illwei decided who to kill, or if you weren't actually planning ahead for an Archer/Bard mis-exe and it just kinda ended up looking like you were, then this could have happened easily. You keep trying to exe each other. You've been trying since C1 and you haven't stopped trying. Gears is always kind of like this, and in fact on the surface it appears he's playing the same as his village self, but as a villager he tends to offer quite a bit more opinion with his summary-restatement-posts. He also usually votes at least sometimes, and knowing Gears I can't imagine he'd deliberately not vote until XLo without also announcing his intention to do so. He likes to point out deliberate playstyle changes when he's village so that if he does them in the future, they can't be used to elim-read him because he's done them before. So I guess it could just be that he's busy with the LG but it doesn't... seem that way to me. idk. I... great, so in spite of the arguing I just did in favor of Gears, I'm still doubting myself, and I don't even... know why? I keep thinking "okay well we'll exe <this person> this cycle and then if they're vil we'll look at--" and then I realize that it's XLo so we can't do that... Know what? I'm totally gonna regret this but Dannex. His response to my read of him didn't even address two of the reasons for it, and I'm feeling a little off about Gears after that vote by Books, for some reason. Care to join me, Bard? If he's elim it'll theoretically give us a ton of info, and if he's vil... well, I can't imagine we'll win anyway at this point. Even if we exe an elim this cycle, we'll still be at XLo next cycle... and even if we exe an elim next cycle, we'll be at XLo the cycle after that... yeah.

Books/Gears not e/e Also this feels so so off to me and I don't even know why and now I'm doubting myselfffff

So... ugh I'm having a lot of trouble finding the motivation to actually put much effort into this... I keep trying to go back and read through earlier cycles and get reads, but most of the stuff that's been said is either hard to parse or was said by people who are already dead. The truth is that most people still alive in this game haven't said much, so I don't have much to say about them. Part of the problem is that I have reasons to suspect way more people than could possibly be elims at this point. We know there aren't more than three--probably there are exactly three--otherwise we'd have lost by now. But here are the things that stand out to me: Bard always has a vote on the exe with the most votes, or one of the tied exes, except for the cycle where we exed Illwei, when they didn't vote at all. That's why I'm voting them. Ash/Books I find kinda sus because they're the only non-confirmed-villager on the Brighteyes train. I instinctively find Ash sus for being less active/helpful than usual but I know that's due to the LG and irl stuff so I shouldn't... besides that, I can't get a read on Books because they've said precisely nothing of substance and haven't voted. Other points against Ash, though: he was listed on Illwei's "people I would kill if I were elim list" but hasn't died yet (and I'm like 90% sure that list was genuine and more or less copy-pasted out of the elim doc, edited to add in current elims). He was also listed in her "people I'd be down to exe today" list the cycle we exed her (but like, before there was serious pressure on her). That felt like distancing... I'd be surprised if at least one of the people on that list wasn't elim--which means one of [Ash/Books, Gears] is elim, assuming I'm right about that : P Dannex seems really odd to me because of the interactions between him and Illwei. The problem is, I can't tell whether they're e/e or not. The post where he makes those crazy guesses for roles, for example, sounds... idk, in retrospect it sounds fake to me, but then the subsequent interactions between him and Illwei around it sound genuine so I don't even know at this point. Kings I find odd because of some of the things they've said... idk, they're a chronic inactive so I really have no idea. At all. What to think of them. Connie I was reading slight village because I don't see her totally not caring about others' perception of her as elim, whereas she pretty much doesn't here. But now I think she's somewhat off for the guess of less than three elims left? pretty sure we kind of had a consensus that there would be 4 elims in total, so not sure where that came from... it seems way too obvious to overtly attempt to convince us we're not at XLo when we almost certainly are. But then maybe that's just part of the elim-claim persona? I really can't tell. Gears, there are a few things off to me. He hasn't had a final vote on anyone this whole game, for one thing, despite being on the more active side--or, well, maybe not active but definitely paying attention. Was also on Illwei's list of people-I-would-NK and on her list of people-I'd-be-down-to-exe, like Ash. Reading I have nothing against directly, but Illwei poke-voted them twice... which seemed to me like her trying to get one of her teammates to show up while also distancing? idk. maybe I'm being paranoid with that. I mean at this point I'm sussing literally everyone so I'm definitely being paranoid about some people. So yeah. Those are my thoughts, and the problem is really that I can see anyone left in the game being elim. There just isn't enough for me to go off of at this point. I don't have the energy to wade through Illwei's posts the way Liranil sort of started to do... idk. But... hmmm, actually, one thing I would be willing to look at specifically is vote history. Maybe I can figure something out from that? C1 (you can ignore these spoilers and skip to the analysis, they're just for my reference) C2 C3 C4 C5 (thus far) Analysis To Summarize Dannex/Bard not e/e Dannex/Connie not e/e Gears/Kings not e/e My opinions of everyone (updated): Ash/Books: village. Actually probably my strongest village read at this point. Ash's vote in C3 felt genuine, and that vote was between myself and another villager. He seemed to actually care about the outcome, as an elim would not have in that case, so I'm reading that as vil. He also did an in-depth analysis post even despite being really busy. Books hasn't said much, but they're in the LG and it's not like they're a super active player anyway, so I consider that NAI for them. Quinn: village, obviously. Gears: elim. Has only voted once, this cycle. That was on borrowed reasoning from a confirmed villager. This is also the first cycle that he's provided any reads--all of his previous posts look helpful but they're really just him summarizing what's happened, with barely any opinions give except things that are obvious, like me and Liranil being more or less cleared after Illwei flipped. Also there are some connections to Illwei but those same connections exist for Ash, whom I'm reading village, so I figure they're not really relevant to my argument. Orlok/Connie: village. Orlok didn't do anything, so no reads from before Connie joined. I might be able to see elim!Connie doing the whole claiming-elim-and-RNGing thing, but I think it's far more like something vil!Connie would do. Also, Connie is almost certainly not elims with Dannex and I think Dannex is elim, so there's that too. Dannex: elim. Weird interactions with Illwei, fake-sounding roles post, continued insistence on Connie being sus or more sus than Illwei (in one instance), I could go on but you get the point. Kings: the fact that there's been... not really that much resistance? on Kings and that the reasoning against them is so slight makes me think that they're just a scapegoat for the elims. @Condensation would you consider re-RNGing your vote? I don't really think Kings is a good exe at all. Reading: elim. hasn't said very much, did one long post that looks like analysis until you realize it's exactly what Gears has been doing--writing out summaries but not providing much of an opinion on anything. Bard: village. The order of Straw's VCs is misleading and Bard's votes on TUO and me occurred before we were actually major exes. Ohh but now I'm doubting myself because I'm realizing that's exactly when I try to vote for people as elim because it's the point in the train that people look at last. And I wouldn't be too concerned about this--I can get some stuff wrong, right?--except that I can't imagine a universe in which Bard and Dannex are both elim and I was planning to vote for Dannex... and we have to exe an elim this cycle... So, in short, I'm voting for Gears. Is this the right decision? I have no idea. But I'm doing it anyway because he's the only person I don't have any counterarguments for. I can think of reasons anyone else that I'm elim-reading could be vil, but not Gears. My current elim-team guess is Gears, [Bard, Dannex], Reading.

Right, precisely. I fully intend to give them--though most of them haven't changed because almost no one has said anything but I was playing Among Us with my family and I have to eat dinner now and I'm kind of exhausted so... idk, expect them in like 14ish hours probably, unless I can find the energy to write something up tonight.

@Straw that's the cycle 3 Hospital doc again. Crew's Mess has been sabotaged. Not exactly sure why, but then I guess the elims would have more of an idea of the scope of PMs than we do. This is XLo. I can't imagine there were 3 imps. Vote Counts: C1: The Unknown Order (4): Liranil, Quintessential, TJ Shade, Young Bard Liranil (2): Matrim's Dice, The Unknown Order Matrim's Dice (1): Illwei Orlok Tsubodai (1): Archer Young Bard (1): Dannex C2: BrightEyes2 (4): Ashbringer, Liranil, Matrim's Dice, Quintessential Quintessential (4): BrightEyes2, Illwei, TJ Shade, Young Bard C3: Illwei (3): Liranil, Matrim's Dice, Quintessential Random Bystander (2): Illwei, Condensation Kings_way (1): Random Bystander Condensation (1): Dannex C4: Random Bystander (2): Quintessential, Young Bard Gears (1): Liranil Young Bard Edit: Sorry, I'll say more later but I'm playing Among Us with my family.