Wonko the Sane

Excellent. Now, the nice thing about this list is that, until very recently, I don't think any of us assumed you could deliver it. The rules and clarifications up to this point did not indicate that the Postman learned the senders and recipients of all messages. So, barring the possibility that you're an elim and either warned your teammates or fudged the above list, we can assume that no messages were sent between e/e pairs, because it would be a meaningless waste of Rupees. That's pretty useful. Now that's... weird. I only got one message from Archer, the one containing the word scramble. Are you sure I should have received two? (Which, @Archer, I actually interpreted a third way you didn't intend: "YOU OWE DIN", as in the goddess. I could not figure out what you meant by that. XD) Fine. I'll tentatively trust. I got the Bunny Hood. I didn't get anything off it for C1, though, because it apparently only counts Rupees earned AFTER you buy it; and obviously I didn't maximize posting C3. Yeah... I'm worried about that too. He's sat on the chopping block for half the day and absolutely no one has tried to defend him. It makes me worried that I'm misreading something. Wonko has BEEN more passive since D1. I apologize, I haven't been as active on reading as I should be, which has left me far less certain of the lay of the land. I'm trying to commit to keeping up better going forward. In particular, I don't like the way that across D3A, he reiterated a several different times that he was confident that either Wahr, Ash, or both was an elim. It read to me like someone who wanted to make sure in case the Loop results turned up as a Village win, that our attention was diverted from the D3A exe victim. To be honest, I'm just glad to see SOMEONE making the exe into an actual conversation. I am super concerned by how little interest there's been in anyone voting besides following me on Mist. Ah, tragic. Sorry to ruin your numbers. Well, as Doc said. "I never trust Burnt". Of all people who I've ever played this game with, you are easily the one who most screams "don't trust me" every time I see you (regardless of your alignment). Personally, I still flinch at the memory of LG18 like a dog that's been kicked. Due to the way the ratios worked, the elims needed to kill at least one villager; they needed 3 or more dead villagers to win the Loop. Given that, N2A was the optimal time to submit that kill, as it gave them flexibility to respond to the D3A exe, just in case. It was not hard to pull off, but it carried great risk. L1 is the ONLY time in this entire game that we had the chance to hard-clear players. Choosing to win that round does give them tempo, but puts them at a disadvantage for the rest of the round. If you've ever played Resistance, it's equivalent to putting in a fail card for the first mission in a 5-player game: it's an extremely risky move because it leaves the village with a huge amount of information. I agree on the bloody-mindedness, though. I interpret the decision to skip the NK as a pivot in response to my mech analysis D1A. Honestly, given how central these points were to the discussion? It speaks well in your favor that you need them explained, as they've undoubtedly been highlighted in the elim doc. You're either giving a pretty good performance, or you're a villager. Gah. I REALLY don't like how little competition there's been for the exe. The only plausible explanations to me are that Mistfallen really is innocent, or he's being deliberately bussed by his teammates as they don't see a way to save him. Either way: Mistfallen Stick I reserve the right to move my vote back if I see what looks like an elim response to this, though. A portion of Thistle's shadow shifted oddly, moving independently of the light that cast it. It reached over and tugged at Cindra's leg, pulling with almost imperceptible force over to a nearby darkened alcove. Zymni groaned, inaudible to everyone but Thistle. Why did this Realm have to have that accursed ball of Light in the sky? She had urgent questions, and the pair were exchanging pleasantries! She threw a rude gesture invisibly at the sky, then did her best to tug harder.

But you have got wiggle room. How exactly do you expect Doc to be caught as an elim? The Mask of Truth? That won't be relevant until Loop 4 at the earliest. I would very much like that full list, yes. I will float one more rogue element: The Bremen mask was in play, and that works as vote suppression. If the elims didn't have that mask, they couldn't be sure of the outcome of a tied vote. Thistle didn't seem to remember the loop. That was frustrating. Zymni didn't have time to explain everything; her friend would certainly not be prepared to take the news of bloodshed and devastation. Zymni needed to figure out who had played the Song of Time, before everything went to chaos again. She went about her chores in agitation, eager to begin her search. Finally, Thistle gave the store a final look -- did the look seem somehow forlorn? Zymni couldn't be sure -- and then offered to get Zymni some street food. "Yes!" Zymni feigned the excitement she'd felt the first time she went through this day. "That sounds amazing! And then maybe we could look for musicians? I heard someone playing some kind of woodwind earlier, and it was so pretty!"

Do we know for a fact all four red masks were taken? How many players went into N1A with 20 coins? Why? That's the one mask that gives us relatively little information now, but gives the elims a prime target to reduce the Rupees available to the Village. Why not offer your fine meal to the Bremen mask user?

Sorry, did you just claim there's no reason for an Elim to try and defend another Elim? Is that really the stance you're taking here? Absolutely not. Frankly the idea that you would float this at this stage is one of the most suspicious things you've said so far. And in particular, I really don't like how shy you are about it, backing off as soon as someone voices even the slightest concern. Frankly, I'd absolutely love if the elims would NK themselves this Loop. Sure, it potentially wins them the next loop, but after that it puts them in an INCREDIBLY bad postion. So it seems like we don't have a claim from the Bremen Mask. I'd like to encourage whoever had it to share their results. If we don't get a claim, I think we should assume it was in elim hands. Zymni flew faster than she'd ever moved. The closer she got, the more certain she was that something terrible was wrong. She could feel it like the light of the Sols. Something had happened that day at the Deku Palace, and the refugees were in danger. Thistle was in danger. Suddenly, something changed. A song, pure and clear, rang out through the air, and Zymni was wracked by overwhelming pain. She plummeted to the forest floor, unable to remain aloft. Red light burst from cracks around her body, and she screamed in anguish. A growling, sadistic laugh shook the trees around her, a laugh she'd heard once before -- HIS laugh. Her body contorted, stretched, snapped, grew. A final scream echoed forth as she finally lost consciousness. -- The Beast rises from the forest floor, tendrils writhing, stone face implacable. It crawls forward on all fours, tentative. Where is its master? What are its orders? It does not know. It begins lumbering toward -- A flash. A ringing. Colors swirl and the world disintegrates into motes of light. Time. Time is gone. -- Zymni came awake with a scream of terror. She whirled frantically around, teeth bared, ready to fight... Thistle's empty house? What in the Sols? Cautiously, she crept to the window. It was daytime, and... the Carnival was beginning? The Song of Time. Someone had played the Song of Time. It was REAL! Zymni's eyes shone. There was... there really *was* a way home. So, naturally the thing to do was to wake Thistle. She flew over and began pounding on the Florist's door.

Okay, so that's definitely exciting news. I'm still reviewing the backlog of material, and I need to get to sleep, but in the interest of starting discussion, I'll put a vote on Mistfallen, who's been consistently active, yet keeps pinging me as behaving oddly. And, of course, we now know that he was one of two players to vote on BOTH misexes.

Zymni stretched her arms wide with the fall of dusk, and emerged from her hollow to resume her journey southward. Just to be sure, she rose above the treetops, to confirm that the group hadn't moved on from the Deku Palace. Sure enough, there was no sign of the refugees having gone any further during the day. And yet... Something was wrong. Zymni couldn't tell what, but something rubbed against her senses, warning of danger. Steeling her resolve, she began flying towards the Palace. Hey! sorry, I again fell off of reading. I've not read a thing up to this point since I was last here, but I figured i could write an RP post without reading, so I've done so. I'll try and catch up over the next few hours.

I used to coordinate Movie Night, remember? I paid close attention to EVERYBODY's time zones. Okay... I'll accept that, tentatively. I did actually do a quick search through our past PMs, and you seemed distinctly more circumspect and less fisher-y in them. Though I'll grand that time has passed, so you may have subtly changed since then. I will admit that you did share more freely than most people, and ask questions more openly; It was just never quite so brazen as "Hi nice to meet you what's your role and who did you target?" When I said you praised PM safety advocacy, I was referring the fact that earlier in the game, you gave Hael a village read based on his early call forit. I'll accept that you don't personally advocate for it, though, you just see it as Village behavior. That said, my vote will stand and continue to create a dynamic and imbalanced vote state until a more interesting candidate arises. I'm perfectly happy with exeing you and I'd rather continue being a part of the pressure than sit on the sidelines. Ah, that makes sense. I was assuming you'd had a full daytime and evening since the Day started. Carry on, then. Are you on mobile? Because I find that quotes are WAY more friendly on desktop. Have you met me? Finding loopholes that let me auto-win without having to parse human behavior is kind of my thing. But in all seriousness, I think that there's far more to be gained from a mechanical approach here than everyone else seems to be saying. As an example, my mech analysis D1A is why we had a solid theory as to why the N1A kill was skipped. Behavior flows from incentives, and incentives are defined by the mechanics. You can get a lot out of solving mechanically, thinking about the implications of the mechanics for peoples' motivations. I'd rather you find a different outspoken player if possible. I don't particularly trust Mistfallen, but if they really do have the mask they're claiming, it's worth letting them have another night to use it to the fullest. Frankly I'm in agreement that an elim is probably already dead, on balance. Given that, the elims are likely to kill again tonight, and I'd like the best possible chances to figure things out about it. Heck, at this stage I'd say we're almost trying to vote for a Villager, because that'd give us either a confirmed village trust circle, or a narrower pool of suspect to find elim(s) among the dead.

Sorry, I didn't really have anything worth saying, and I didn't want to drop my rupees on purely social letters. It was nice hearing from you, though! I got two letters, one from Burnt full of cheerful pleasantries, and one from Doc openly fishing for absolutely any secret I might have access too, despite him having praised Hael for advocating PM safety. Which, you know, that's interesting. Based on Mistfallen and Archer's cryptic conversation, I'd assume they've received similar communications. @Doc12, I waited for you to post all Malaysian day, and you were in the thread several times, but didn't say anything. Care to defend this mismatch between publicly praising PM safety and privately asking people to PM you everything but their mothers' maiden names? That's plausible, I suppose. It still rings oddly to me. I much prefer Archer's hypothesis that it was about Ash having less to lose vis-a-vis masks and rupees. In which case, e!Ash would be evidence of a very active and involved elim team. That's useful to know. I had actually been pretty concerned about the 100-rupee masks, this gives us a decent tool to help keep that under control. Yeah? That's interesting, I don't feel tunneled. It's true that Archer remains my ideal pick for exe, but he's not actually more than moderately suspicious to me. I simply have a working model where he's an elim, and confidence that he's still a good target as a misexe. I do have other suspects, as indicated by my vote above.

Absolutely agreed. If the Village wins the Loop at the end of this cycle, then all dead players, both exes and NKs, come under immediate suspicion. I will say, though, that the exed players should still be under MORE suspicion, because it's an odd play for them to skip the N1A kill only to later turn around and kill one of their own without having first been caught by the exe. The best rationale for that course of action would be that the kill skip was a bluff to make us think they were going for the win, and thus throw suspicion on the exe victims after they later "abandon" the win. But that's an extremely risky play, because they couldn't be certain in advance that those victims wouldn't be elims. Plus there's the issue that Ash is a decidedly odd kill in that world: That's true, but assuming they decided on that play, can you think of an explanation for why e!Ash specifically would be the elim they decided to kill? To me, it seems that the majority of other players would (assuming they were elims) fill the role better. For example, in a world that's e/e with Archer and Ash, why would they kill Ash and not Archer? That seems extremely unlikely, as the coming NK was explicitly confirmed in the thread D1A. We'd have to be dealing with an extremely oblivious and inattentive elim team for them to miss that. What cred? I think you're forgetting that if we win the cycle, we'll have no idea which dead player(s) were elims. So a bus doesn't work like it does in normal SE; you don't get immediately proven right about your vote. So there's no cred earned; from the outside no one can tell whether your votes helped to win the Loop. Plus, in that scenario, you still need to come up with an explanation for why Ash specifically was the candidate they chose for the WGG. He's a distinctly suboptimal for soft-cleared elim. Why choose to use this gambit to garner trust for him and not a more influential elim? ...oh. Yeah, that's an angle I hadn't really considered. Okay, so that pulls some of the confidence out of my assessment of Ash, because if they're playing for role power rather than dynamical positioning, he actually is a pretty good choice for WGG. Drat, that was one of my more confident conclusions so far this game. I would argue yes, specifically BECAUSE e!Wahr now a serious liability going forward. They'd have a strong motive to pull him out of the fire some to keep him from getting repeatedly exed every Loop and losing them half of their objective for the rest of the game. That said, I don't actually consider this play to be a particularly compelling defense of Wahr, so I'm a little skeptical that that's the motivation. As I said, setting aside social dynamics, it's frankly just optimal play to kill a villager last night, regardless of Wahr's alignment.

Agreed. I did think last Night about the possibility of the NK hitting an elim -- largely because it would radically increase trust for that elim, and when the Loop came up as a Village victory, suspicion could be thrown on Wahr, claiming the NK must be a damage control response to us hitting an elim with the exe, trying to increase the suspect pool. But if they were going that route, it seems unlikely to me that they would choose e!Ashbringer as that sacrifice, given how poorly positioned he is to take control of Village sentiment. He also fits the profile of an ideal target for the elims: someone who has no significant mistrust against them that the kill would squander, but who is relatively inactive, so giving them more trust doesn't help too much. I will say that the public acknowledgement last Night that the elims need to kill at least one person to win the cycle means that this ISN'T necessarily a condemnation of Wahr, though. Now that we all know that, it's honestly just the most practical call to kill someone N2A, to leave them most flexible to respond to today's exe. If we hit a villager, then great; they've already hit their necessary ratios, so they can skip the N3A kill and win the Loop with the absolute minimum number of confirmed villagers. If we hit an elim, then they're well-positioned to kill again tonight, maximizing the suspect pool.

At last, as dawn began to fully get underway and Zymni began to feel the sensation of her essence eroding in the blooming Light, she dove down to the forest floor to find a place to hide out through the day. Frustrated, she found an abandoned badger's den that could accommodate her, and crawled inside. She'd made remarkable progress, but the group was still a quarter day's journey ahead of her. Once again, she'd be forced to sit out the day, waiting anxiously for the blasted sky-fire to go dark again so she could continue trying to catch up. Well, she reasoned, at least this time, they were unlikely to get farther away while she waited. For whatever reason, it seemed like the Deku Palace had been their destination. With any luck, they'd still be there when the sun set, and she could finally unite with Thistle and the others. She settled in for a long day's wait. Whew! five RP posts. I do not know how you people do this; some of you write more than my entire cycle's worth of RP in a single post, and call that low effort. Anyway, looking forward to seeing how the elims have decided to respond to Wahr's execution. See you all after turnover!

So, there was less analysis to catch up on than I expected, but here's the responses that came to mind while reading: Now that's interesting, because from my perspective the majority of discussion so far HAS been mech analysis, and we've drawn some pretty extensive conclusions; one of which is that this is potentially the MOST important Loop of the game. What's led you to the opposite conclusion? Hm. Well, to be honest, I hadn't factored it in, likely because I really only skimmed N2A and had forgotten it. But it seems like it was far too late to be anything other than symbolic, given the size of the train on Wahr, right? So I guess I'd say it's tentative evidence against my hypothesis, but not really a full refutation or anything; and if the evidence starts to lean towards e!Archer, it's an action that deserves careful analysis, because then we know it was performative. I mean, in fairness, maybe that's why I'm so bad at it. I almost never take notes or pay close attention to behavior, I just reason through things as I read and respond based on what comes to mind at the time. I could probably do with taking more notes; it would almost certainly make me a lot more effective. Ever so slowly, the sky began to lighten. Zymni cursed under her breath. She wasn't anywhere near to catching up. If only it weren't for this stupid way-too-bright sun that the Light Realm-dwellers were all so fond of. How could they even stand it? She pressed forward, racing the dawn. Every minute counted, and she didn't have the time to spare complaining about what she couldn't control.

Yeah. I decided that she got separated during the explosions and she's been trying to catch up to events ever since, as an explanation for why I have only a very fuzzy idea of what's been happening in the narrative. I figure that she'll probably catch up sometime in early N3A or late D3A, just in time for some kind of big dramatic action, hero-style. Zymni drew up short as she saw the wreckage of a battlefield ahead. What had happened here? She approached cautiously. Bodies littered the ground. Skulltulas, Peahats, Wolfos... it was like some kind of army had attacked the refugee group. What in the name of the Fused Shadow? Zymni decided not to look around too much more. She was very much afraid that if she did, she might find bodies that didn't belong to monsters. Instead, she turned ahead, and, worry heavy in her heart, continued the journey south. She'd finally realized that they were heading towards the Deku Palace. Why, though? A question for when she caught up, she supposed. For now, she couldn't be of any help from all the way back here. She stiffened her expression, and did her best to quicken her pace as she zipped forward between the trees.

Zymni flitted forwards through the dark, spooky forest, having the time of her life. Monsters lunged out of the darkness to snap at her, only to find her suddenly teleported behind them, her tongue out as she bopped them soundly on the heads. The more she thought about it, the more confident she was that these events were exactly the thing she'd come to Clocktown for. If there were answers about how to travel back to her time and Realm, they lay down this path. She grinned, turning a little twirl in the air as she continued pushing forward towards where she'd seen the group in the distance. Things might finally be looking up for her.

As night fell again, Zymni crept out of her hiding spot in the darkened log. She floated up above the trees. trying to figure out which way the group she was following had gone during the day. Finally, she spotted their campfires. Drat. They'd gotten so far ahead of her again. At this rate, she'd never catch up to them. If only she could travel during the day, like they could. Heh. Maybe Zant had a point. I mean, not about the whole overthrow-the-Twilight-Princess-and-transform-all-the-Twili-into-monsters thing, but covering the world in Twilight? Humans could live in twilight, after all, couldn't they? Ah, well. Enough moping. She descended back to the forest floor and began the journey south, hoping to potentially overtake the party in time for it to matter. Analysis will come. But Doc prompted, and I do need to get RP in now that Aman's changed the rules back.

Well, this is TERRIBLE news for me. I don't know why everyone else has always seemed to thing that RP constitutes low-effort posting, because it takes WAY more energy and concentration from me than analysis and discussion. Ah, well. I guess the means I need to figure out what actually happened to Zymni on the first night, and throw together some RP. Also would some kind soul give me a summary of the RP situation thus far? I've been kind of skimming RP posts in my read-throughs for a bit. THIS changes a lot for me. I had been operating under the assumption that as long as no elim was killed, the elims would automatically win. It means that the elims cannot win this round without purposefully giving us an additional confirmed villager. I need to reassess how that affects their motivations. My inclination is to say that they don't have to be as committed to their current plan as I thought; it's much more viable in this situation to pivot and kill one of their own. Hm. So, the thing is, volunteering for exe isn't necessarily Village behavior in this game. I made this point D1, but this game shares a lot of dynamics with the tabletop game The Resistance, and like that game, winning the first mission carries a huge amount of risk for the elims. In this case, if they win, we will get at minimum three villagers who are hard-confirmed. So it's actually in the elims' interest to have an elim die during this Loop. Now, this is partially mitigated by the skipped kill last night; if the elims are aiming to lose the Loop, they want as many dead players as possible. So the fact they skipped the kill seemed to indicate that they were aiming for the riskier option of an L1 win. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were planning that from the start. My suspicion on on Archer is based on the idea that there's a pretty reasonable world in which e!Archer volunteered for the exe, planning to lose the Loop. Note that he didn't plan on announcing any of this D1A. So, imagine he promotes himself as the D2A exe, saying that the N1A kill is soft-cleared, and throwing suspicion at the N2A and N3A kills -- all of which his team fully controlled. However, in this world, I threw a wrench in that plan by explaining the dynamics too early, forcing Archer to come out and attempt to salvage his plan. Then, the elims realize that public sentiment was pretty strongly against our arguments D1A, and most people seemed determined to play this like a standard SE game. So they're forced to pivot away from the plan to bus Archer, and decide instead to try and win L1. Based on that, they skip the night kill to reduce the number of confirmed villagers they'll create, and Archer -- notably -- completely drops all discussion of his desire to be exed, and instead begins a concerted effort to try and get other players exed. He jumps from target to target trying to find someone he can make his suspicions can stick to, eventually settling on Wahr. Now, all of this behavior has plenty of other possible explanations, so this isn't actually damning evidence. But it IS a plausible, uncomplicated explanation for every major action e!Archer has taken this game.

Almighty above, what the heck happened while I wasn't paying attention. XD So apparently i have 4 full pages of discussion to catch up on in order to figure out how I went in a single day from leading candidate to zero votes, and how a 5-vote train on Wahr seems to have materialized out of nowhere. Without having read up, though, I'd say I'm satisfied with that result, though I'm kind of baffled by how much support it seems to have generated out of nowhere; that says to me that Wahr's death had elim approval. So I think it'll be very interesting to see how the elims behave tonight.

Just as long as they're careful not to take it too far. Ciphers are against the General Rules: Maybe you misread? I said that Archer is my pick for good villager to exe, not you. That seems like a fair assessment, but my point wasn't being surprised that you were claiming -- it was wondering why you would claim in such a coy way. Why not simply say you have a mask? As I pointed out, it reads as though you wanted us to think you were hiding it. Why? Right... which is why we don't treat the thread like a trusted PM. I was pointing out to Archer that we can't simultaneously put an elim in there AND use it as a private communication tool. It's not the retaliation I find suspicious (though I happen to believe that meaningless votes like that degrade the pressure value of pokes and are a bad idea for the Village). The issue was that you put a vote on an existing train for an apparently spurious reason, elevating Archer to the second-place exe candidate. That's a pretty dramatic action to take for a small reason. That makes sense. The only reason it's super notable is that it ended up being what the elims actually did. So your explanation is plausible, but so is the explanation that it was on your mind because you'd already been discussing it as an option in the elim doc. It's not a huge black mark or anything, but it's worth noting. I WOULD agree, except for the fact that the elims seem to be trying to win Loop 1. If they succeed and take the Loop 1 boss mask, then every person who died Loop 1 will be fully and perfectly cleared. That's what we've been discussing. Yes, but it was possible for a player to end D1A with 10 extra rupees (I'm an example of this), and having so done, as long as they didn't get a 5 rupee mask, they could have bought a 20 rupee mask on N1A. See, that's interesting, because I read it the other way. I still feel the decision to skip the NK was made in response to discussion D1A, so it's entirely believable that the skip wasn't planned when they first discussed it in thread. But I do see what you mean, so it really depends on how premeditated the elim actions so far have been. Much as I hate to argue with one of the only people for whom I'm not top of the suspect list, I have to point out that I was inactive for nearly all of N1A. So even if I was an elim, I wasn't directly involved in the NK decision. But I also have to ask: what reasons, outside of IKYK shenanigans, do you see for me baiting an exe on myself and then choosing to skip the kill? Because I can't think of any that would apply. All right, if you're looking for a prompt: In your opinion, at what point in time did the elims make the choice to skip the NK?

Why doesn't this put suspicion on me? I explicitly made sure to get extra posts in at the end of D1A in order to maximize rupees, and I said aloud that I was doing so. I don't have the numbers on the rest, but you've miscounted my posts. I received the maximum 10 Rupees at the end of D1A, as I planned for and said I was going to. I would recount your data, given that. I can understand that; it may well have been a mistake. As Archer pointed out, I robbed the elims of the opportunity to blunder. I tend to neglect the possibility of enemy errors in these games; unconsciously assuming optimum play from the other team. But regardless, I'm still confused about why you think it's alignment indicative. What is the motive for e!Wonko to make that mistake (if such it be) that v!Wonko wouldn't have? I'm sympathetic to Araris's argument that I'm being a little too passive, just sharing observations rather than proactively planning. But you seem to be arguing that my explaining strategies for the elims is suspicious behavior. Surely if I were an elim, and I wanted to alert the elims to that strategy, I would do it in the doc? This is more or less the motive behind my Archer vote. I have suspicions about him, but they're not well-formed yet. However, he's also in my opinion the number one best Villager for us to kill right now. As for me, I was kind of hoping on farming rupees this loop, but I'm also open to being a sacrifice; I'm definitely vocal enough to be a good choice of villager to confirm (though I also think that I'm only mediocre at the game, which makes me slightly less ideal). As I mentioned before, my gut on this tells me that decision was a pivot in response to the discussion D1A. So they originally planned to lie low, but having so much attention called to that strategy motivated them to switch it up and go for the riskier play, to avoid predictability. I could very well see Archer making that call. In particular, there's a light in which his initial response to me can read as attempting to get out in front of me calling exactly what he had been planning up to that point. It's only a moderate suspicion, but combined with the fact he's a pretty good choice of exe even if he's a Villager is what motivates my vote. This... feels distinctly like a mask claim, no? Like, barely even an attempt was made to disguise that. I don't know you very well, so I can't really assess how this indicates your alignment, but it feels like you want us to think you have a mask, while making it seem like you're hiding it. If you genuinely are hiding it, that was... not very subtle. Are you asking to be exed? That's what Burnt was talking about there, and it's seemed up to this point like you were at best neutral on the possibility of you dying. What's changed? Do you have any actual justification for that vote? Because I'm very wary of a vote that supports an existing train, apparently cast entirely for playful reasons. The question isn't how you guessed that it was allowed. It's why the thought jumped to mind for you when no one else was yet considering it. What specifically brought it to your mind as something the elims might choose to do? Well, my suspicion with Archer would be that he initially DID plan on losing the round, but pivoted in response to the discussion. Given that, he'd still have to verbally commit to his prior claim that he'd be happy to be exed, while hoping that it doesn't actually happen. Notably, while his volunteering has been repeatedly brought up today, he hasn't directly commented on it whatsoever, and has instead been actively working on solving for a different person to kill today. Now, that can also be explained as him reacting to the lack of an NK with a more focused desire to exe an elim, but I do think it's worth paying attention to. Now hold on, neither Burnt nor I was saying that. We both said that we should be looking for an elim if possible, BUT that we should as a secondary consideration be thinking of what the list of dead players will look like if we DO lose the Loop. Archer absolutely IS one of my bigger suspicions, for reasons I outlined as I voted for him. He's just ALSO the person I'm happiest misexing if my suspicions are wrong. You also can't send Post more than 5 people in a cycle, if I'm understanding the rules correctly. I mean, or until they've used the mask twice, right? Once they no longer have the powers, I don't see any harm in revealing what they did with them. Did you seriously think that was a possibility after the discussion that day? What would their thought process have been, in your mind -- after reading our explanation of the dynamics at play -- that would lead them to still default to treating this like a normal game? I see your thinking, but I really don't see it as particularly indicative on Burnt. She does not fold easily under pressure, as I recall; her response is totally in character with what e!Burnt would have said. Does it read to you like it was a premeditated decision, unmotivated by the discussion that day? That seems notably less likely than the alternative, to me. Huh. Yes, that is you saying something that has already been said, like, a lot. It has been THE biggest discussion topic so far this game. Which, honestly, kind of raises your trust level for me? I feel like you would have been made aware of this in the doc. The issue with that is that if there's an elim in there, the dead doc is a terrible place for private communication, and they don't get to know whether it's safe until AFTER they're done communicating there. Not saying we shouldn't be going for elims -- we should -- but I'd caution very strongly against treating the dead doc like a PM if we do.

Nah, It was about Divergent saying this: Your point is totally valid. I got kind of caught up in explaining the gamestate as I saw it and didn't really take the time to propose actionable ideas. Mostly I was busy bemoaning that my clever idea of skipping every exe this Loop wasn't allowed in the rules. Anyway, with the elims apparently trying to win the cycle, I agree with Mistfallen Soldier that we want to exe one of them, if possible. So I'll throw my hat in the ring on Archer, whose request to be exed still reads a little worryingly to me. And in particular, the decision to skip the NK feels like a pivot to me that was motivated by the D1A discussion. I can imagine Archer, after that conversation, deciding to go for broke and try for the win, since the Village was already aware of the dynamics at play and they couldn't skate by as easily as they might have. And if Archer IS a Villager, he's the Villager I most want in the dead doc right now anyway, so it still works out.

Interesting. A skipped kill. Assuming I'm right about motivations, that means that the Elims are currently going for the win on L1. Also, sorry for my absence last Night. It was a bit of a crazy day for me IRL. I'm currently reading up on what was discussed, and I'm only about a third of the way through. I'll give my thoughts when I catch up (which may not be before I need to get to sleep tonight, but I'll try and get on as soon as I can in the morning) I will say that I protest the claim that my analysis was more helpful for the Elims than the Village. At worst, I alerted the Elims to a possible mistake they could have fallen into, and thus prevented said mistake. I agree that I'm probably a decent suspect right now, simply for the fact that I was so heavily active and involved last cycle. But I'm honestly baffled by how much the meta of SE seems to have shifted while I was away, with Villagers now seeming to fear communication. Yes, there are times where Village secrecy can help catch out an Elim in a mistake or a lie, but broadly speaking, public information favors the Village. This is just a fact of Mafia: the elims start with the information advantage, and the core goal of the Village is to reduce that information gap. I will stand on this: Publicized information almost unilaterally benefits the Village more than the Elims. The only major exception is information about core village vulnerabilities that the Elims start off lacking, like who holds power roles. Anyway, Doc, I'm also sorry about leaving you in the lurch, RP-wise. I haven't gotten to your posts in my catchup yet, but I assume you struggled with my absence. Sorry!

True, but that only works if we can know for certain that the elim IS an elim after killing them three times. Else we risk throwing away our own alignment confirm. That might still be worth it, though. I'm not sure. I usually spend a lot more time thinking before posting, but I'm just trying to get this one in under the buzzer.

I've posted some extremely long posts in this cycle; do those maybe count a little extra? If not, does this rules question count as contributing to the game state, and thus count as my tenth post today? I suppose I should pad it out, just in case. Well, one minor observation I've made is that, unless they're doing VERY badly at the game, the Great Fairy mask is effectively identical to the Fierce Deity Mask for the elims. So while the Village CAN'T buy an "I win" button. the elims actually CAN. So we should probably do anything we can to avoid killing the same elim three times, or else we risk handing Loop 4 to them.

This would actually be the most informative outcome. If the elims skip their SK, then it probably means that they're aiming to win this Loop, and thus want as few people dead as possible, to reduce the amount of hard-clears it gives the Village. It would be a huge amount of info about what they're planning in the next couple of cycles.

Well, I'll still contest that I personally feel the intel is DEFINITELY worth the risk, and that the Village should absolutely throw if it was able... but I also agree that there really isn't a viable way to throw with the rules as they stand, so it's mostly irrelevant. Listen, if you didn't want random mechanical observations blabbed for all to hear with little regard for caution or infosec, you shouldn't have played a game with Wonko the Sane. I do actually apologize, though, I really hadn't thought of the NK blunder angle. That's a fair assessment; I tend to undervalue social reads, as I'm terrible at it. I don't think you and I have played before, but kind of my whole thing is being pretty clever with mechanics, but the most oblivious and manipulable person the game has ever seen on the social front. Zymni nibbled on the sweetcorn, enjoying the festival. The question drew her out of her merriment, however, and she reminded herself that she had a mission here, and it wasn't sweetcorn-related. "Well, there used to be light. Before Zant stole the Sols. And there were plants, but they were different colors from your plants. Kind of a bluish yellow-black, you know? But without the Sols, everything is going wrong now." She paused. "Or I guess everything WILL go wrong, when Zant eventually steals the Sols? I dunno, time travel is weird." "The point is, you maybe wouldn't call them flowers, but there were pretty, colorful plants, so maybe? I had a cousin, he tended the garden at the Palace of Twilight." She frowned. "I haven't seen him since the Zant took over and I got turned into a monster. I hope he's okay." Zymni scowled down at her sweetcorn. Something must have gone wrong with the food, because suddenly it didn't taste quite so good. EDIT: For the record, I am fully inventing the lore about the plants. Expect a lot more of that, as there is basically no official lore about the Twilight Realm.