shadow1

You see this is a fundamental difference in what we're choosing to find important. I'm quite frankly just voting the most obviously scummy people and I'm not overthinking it or trying to create complicated narratives. It's served me well in terms of accuracy. That said, I recognize that a lot of people are making meta related cases that my eyes sort of glaze over, so I understand why I might have different reads than others. Definitely not against tying the vote, we get more town controlled kills that way.

Striker is based on his vote at eod yesterday and his vote on araris today - the notion that he was trying to act suspicious so then he could omgus vote whoever went after him. That isn't a thing. @Matrim's Dice Sure, I don't think I'm getting anywhere with the Tani vote today so I'll gladly do StrikerEZ if that is more viable

The problem with this case, Aman, is why is this not just one narrative of the events that could be true but also could be false? Maybe he just did expect that from you. While they may be true I find it hard to weight things like this. Also, with your sus on illwei: I don't really agree. I was being very genuine last game where I said I really just didn't understand her playstyle or posts. I don't think I can use a meta read of 'looking odd' to read illwei, because I never understand what she is getting at in the first place. I'm not that fond of any of the current wagons. I doubt voting here will lead to an elimination but Tani or Striker is most likely evil imo. The Sibling's play is also somewhat problematic but I'm only just noticing this.

Okay, this is all very fair. Not sure I can relate to 3) without the meta but I can imagine that makes sense to you. Also I'm not entirely sure (2) works but I'm certainly not against trying I used to have quite a similar style. Do you always play like this (specifically with the style of questioning)? I didn't notice you doing it as much in the last game we played. Also, like, even if he's saying something brilliant, if there is no organization or punctuation to the comment, people will likely not really understand it or find it convincing. Like saying something more clearly is actually a very standard way to change someone's mind.

Also I feel a little scorned that this site has decided my social status is now 'darkeyes'... like at least I'm not skaa anymore but jeez, can't I at least be a low dahn lighteyes?

This post will be a critical reading of the thread on night 1 and day 2 so far, grouped by topic so it is not awful to read. THOUGHTS INSPIRED BY NIGHT 1: Kas Townread I've seen a decent amount of suspicion directed towards kas. I have him a townread. This may be influenced by me seeing him post more in our empire chat, but I fundamentally do not think a wolf gets so invested in reads as he is. I would be shocked if he is faking this kind of frustration. In some cases, scum frustration can be channelled to look like town frustration (such as when a player is going to get eliminated and act frustrated on that), but given the specificity of his frustration on a specific read, I think it is very genuine in a necessarily town direction. For example, these posts: He also was planning a self vote for a while - scum can do things like that, true, but everything in our chat and the thread shows a very complicated progression around trying to deal with his frustration in that way. I think he's town. Baker Townread Scum are cowards. They think they need to fake engagement to look like villagers, that they need to torture themselves over contriving fake reads. It really messes with their heads. The Baker doesn't care about looking like a villager. He cares about his bread. Also, I may be biased by the fact that the marble rye he made me is absolutely delicious. If we elim the baker, who will supply us with delicious loaves of bread? He seems to be the only person in this village actually contributing to our subsistence needs, it's a very villagery thing to do. My general views on aman's play What can I say. Aman is a very helpful townsperson, and posts sharper inquiries than anyone else in this game. I also get the feeling aman would be a formidable scum, and he told me last game that he pockets people effectively. We haven't pocketed each other this time (probably healthy) and while I have no current interest in eliminating aman, it's not a strong townread due to aman undoubtedly being capable of being a nice-manipulative. I can see instances of aman pocketing different players in the game - which hey, I do too, as both factions, just when I vibe with someone. But I suspect being friendly is not a reason to townread aman. This is like a meta read of aman's scum play I'm completely guessing at based on us having similar playstyles. THOUGHTS INSPIRED BY DAY 2: Araris voting for Striker I find this interaction very interesting. I haven't gone through and verified all the inferences here but at any rate, this is a good analysis to be doing and not a bad vote. Striker's response is just... premeditated omgus? Striker doesn't suggest Araris' read is weak on its analytical merits. Araris' followup to this is correct. The engagement continues: This sounds impossible. The wolves have an objective of trying to look like villagers and think like villagers, so you can't act like bait to wolves without being bait to villagers. A little siren will go in their wolfy heads... "this would look suspicious if I piled on, I'd better not!" Quite frankly I find this hard to believe is a genuine distinction you believe you can make, it seems counter to fundamental features of the game. Tani's silly suspicions Are you seriously contending that this was malicious? For 'misusing a colour' to be scum motivated, e!baker, who thus far has been focused on operating a bakery, would have to actually think this will somehow create a permanent sort of misunderstanding. It can obviously be easily clarified. There is also a very obvious counternarrative that it's, oh, an accident. If true at all. I also don't know why you're jumping to the conclusion that it would be the Baker who did this... if deliberate, could it not be a frame? Would e!baker really do it once in play daylight first, just to make it obvious when they do it maliciously? This is a horrible line of reasoning and about the least likely explanation for these events. Oh, and then this: @Tani Scum illwei would not tell you this if it was scummy! Obviously! Since when is the game so easy? It's something not indicative you're reading into, and the read is even worse directed towards illwei than it was as a vague suspicion. Also, does the fact that you almost just falsely used this 'evidence' against the baker give you any pause about its reliability? Questions to Aman Aman, since you ask lots of questions I figure you might like to answer some too. As much as I say you're probably a sneaky scum, you know, I might like to catch you if you are @Amanuensis How is this helpful to support someone voting themselves? What do you get out of this? You sometimes ask questions like this. I don't really see how they are useful, or how a player can do anything but speculate on the answers. Curious what the point is? Why devo? Genuinely want to know where this case is at. Also I am quite thrilled that I've found a community that loves brandon sanderson, mafia, and now AOE2. How can all these people share all my specific nerdy interests? Thanks for the invite aman

I don't really see what distinctly made it stand out as a counterwagon attempt, nor did I think any of archer's posts looked particularly good. A four player wagon in an 18 player game, on its own, doesn't raise red flags. I appreciate you elaborating but I'm not sure I agree with this matching the actual situation on the ground at end of day. @Amanuensis Hey aman! I'm really enjoying it, this is such a nice community As to your question, my doc isn't very active aside from kas, but I think the most likely case is that archer was trying to waste time on meaningless things/trying to frame us. I don't think kas is elim - for one, I don't think someone gets this frustrated about people not listening to their reads unless they are a villager. I know you read into what information people have or wouldn't have a lot as a way to see if they're lying, but A seems like a less likely play than just he was doing it to waste time with a bad suspicion of both of us. Or, if he did, that's not something I can really take beyond speculation. B seems reasonable, but it would be in addition to what I think would be his main purpose of discrediting us. I also think that requires thinking the scum really want this information... I don't know, if I were scum, I don't think I'd care much. I've also been pretty open with thinking that information is probably better revealed than concealed, so there was probably an easier way to get that. But more than anything, given that other motive I think it's hard for me to reason backwards to infer the elim distribution from this, unless you have a better reason to think it's that over the other explanation? I do like what you're trying to do with this line though, it's fun reasoning

@The Baker If it's not too much of a bother, could I please get a loaf of marble rye bread?

Well not me, you know I would NEVER

I do love how my vote is on point when I just read through the thread a couple hours before deadline and place a vote on the person whose play seems generally the most problematic, instead of overthinking and reading into random minor things with obscure lines of reasoning. There's something to it Good job team! @Striker, I have some questions about your reasoning given here: "Anyway, not a fan of this Archer exe appearing out of nowhere. I like Archer’s posts. Thaidakar since a Devo exe isn’t happening." I have a few questions. Firstly, what about the archer exe appearing "out of nowhere" made it look particularly problematic to you? Second, why did you like archer's posts - can you flag some in specific that you liked and thought were townie? And third, what's your understanding of the thai case that made him a plausible scum to you? What you posted just then is very vague and general, so I'd like to know some actual posts that informed these preferences. Also I am assuming nightposting is allowed here since everyone is doing it though I've never played with that before. It's fun!

Pains me to kill another canadian (sorry!) but I'm still voting you XD There's multiple things I flagged about your play that you didn't really address here either.

Archer

Hi everyone! Sorry I'm late, my sister was visiting and we had a verrrrry long to do list (including going to the top of the CN tower which I've been meaning to do for all of the two years I've lived in toronto and finally got around to it we also got helix piercings which is fun) I suspect this will be a long post, I will read the whole thread and post thoughts. Rules thoughts Starting with reading the rules. Seems fairly standard in setup but looking at the PRs, I think the forger(s) should claim right away and not use their ability unless in a very narrow circumstance, such as at F3 if they know they are going to die. I think that role is incredibly anti-town as a general rule and they should be held accountable if they use it. Other than that I do not think anything should be claimed until it becomes relevant. Revealing empires thoughts WRT discussion on page 2 about whether revealing empires is valuable: from my experience, people trying to catch 'slips' of people knowing too much is just as often a red herring as it really is meaningful. I don't think its valueless in theory, but also, I think any remotely competent scum can monitor their posts for that, just as they monitor not posting that they're scum in thread. Someone knowing about an empire could also be based on other things, like their impression of who seems to be in a doc or something. So I don't think it's a particularly probative line as opposed to just going directly for people knowing if they are scum or not or who their scumchums are - auxiliary things like that also can be a distraction for scum to waste time on. Not valueless, but generally low value in my mind. I do think it helps us have a more complete understanding of the game, and avoids people wondering 'how did you know that extra information' when there's probably quite a good reason in many instances. It's the fact that it's a distraction and makes it harder to understand the game state. Distribution of scum between empires thoughts It has to be completely random or the game is a bit broken. For example, if we get three scum flips in one chat, we could then clear or strongly townread the fourth player of it? That would seem to be inserting an unearned faction cop element into the game. I don't know why we would think we would get this boon and I am very wary of reasoning like that, as intuitive as it may be to assume a more spaced distribution. If I were the GM designing this there is no way I would give that extra tool to the town just for the sake of symmetry. Player tone notes These may be mediocre reads based more on who I agree with than who is scum. All the same, I'll just flag a few things. I don't like Matrim's dice's rather poorly explained support for wanting empires kept secret. I do like JCV actually running the math on distributions - it seems committed to town having correct data. I'm not sure what I think about aman (sorry aman, no pocket this time XD) Tani's opening reads a bit off to me (if very cool of course). Illwei's confidence in posting things that I think are exuberant inferences also has small flags in my mind, but I have played with illwei and I do think that is consistent with their town game I just witnessed (and I think perhaps not even scummy in the first place, aside from it seeming insincere fmpov). I don't think any of this ^^ is reasons that make aman more likely to be scum. I like aman's long followup to this, though I'm not in that chat so I can't verify which characterization is correct. But without perfect knowledge of the details I do think this looks more like scum just putting out a weak vote with somewhat forced justification. That is how it reads at least here and I appreciate the counter narrative from aman. People trying to read me already thoughts FWIW this wasn't going to do anything, I hadn't even tracked down the game thread until an hour ago XD Just want to point out that I kind of hate how it is sus for someone not to assume male pronouns on an internet forum lol But also yeah as it turns out there are multiple ways kas knows this, it is not particularly insightful as a line of inquiry. Sort of what I was saying earlier about tangential inferences of having too much information sometimes just posing distractions. Outstanding weird things Why post this? Am I missing the significance of why posting about RP would be sus? Just seems fun to me?

Lollll. Another GM tip: Never put a rule in your ruleset that gives any player a free doctor protect that night if they successfully rickroll the GM. The players will take that very seriously XD Also I too am down for a chill game! Just finished tryharding one last night and will preferably not repeat the effort. Don't worry about spoilers, I am usually rather oblivious. But I will read it asap, it will be fun to do while playing a game based on it. Thanks for the welcomes everyone!

Hi illwei! Don't you two tell everyone my meta now XD I need at least one game of pretending to be a noob first okay

Ah good to know! For the RP are you just making it up completely or is it based on brandon sanderson lore?

Hi aman just invited me to this game from MU and I'd love to join if there's space I haven't read elantris yet, but I will happily read it this weekend if I should know the lore for this game!