luckat

The illustrations in Brandon's books are on his website. The broadsheet from The Bands of Mourning can be found here (I assume that's the one you're talking about).

That post seemed like a reaction to how quiet this day has been to me. While I think calling it a "road to destruction" is premature, I can't say I disagree that it is worrying how many people aren't talking at all, especially since it is only day 4 and there's only 5 people dead. If it keeps going this way, none of the village will be active enough to find the eliminators after a few more nights. The missions are a better way of dealing with inactives only for inactives who do not log in, and only if there's just a few. I don't agree with a lot of aspects of the Contribution Crusade, but a day thread that is barely a page long at nearly the 3/4 mark of the day is frustrating. I suppose that post could be reason enough for you to put a vote on him though, and it would be good to hear Araris's response to what you said. Also, when did Araris vote for Stink? He was voting for Luna with Lopen before Stink's reveal, and while he didn't immediately change his vote, he did seem on board with a Rae lynch before it was clear that was the direction the lynch was taking. I agree with you that I would really like Stink's reasoning for his vote. I suppose that's one reason I don't like you placing a second vote on Araris: it just encourages Stink's lack of reasoning and makes his vote more legitimate without him having to provide it. I'm not arguing against second votes, but I think giving people something to respond to is more important, and I feel like the other two options would be better choices for second votes.

Sorry I didn't post earlier. I keep getting distracted. I hope I make some sense. I'm surprised there hasn't really been any discussion about the Traitors' choice of a kill this cycle. Elbereth was Well Connected, but I'm not sure if the Traitors knew that, or how they would have found out if they did. Since Elbereth wasn't on at all during the time Stink's hacker contacted him, they must not have been trying to go after the hacker. I'm guessing they were again targeting someone we wouldn't get much information from if they were killed. She hadn't said much this game and had recently said she would start contributing more, so they probably got rid of her before she could do that. They also may have killed her because she was active in PMs. In my PM with her, we talked about how likely it was for Stink and/or his scanner to be evil (not very likely) and inactivity, although we went off topic for this game. Also, I'm wondering how likely people think it is that there were any Traitors voting for Rae last cycle. Since there were so few voting, I don't think it is very likely, but maybe there was one on there. I got the impression from Rae's posts that she was hoping for a last minute vote change away from her, at least once it was clear everyone wasn't going to pile on her. The eliminators didn't want to lead it because that would draw too much suspicion, so they hoped a villager would vote for Stink, and possibly bring it to a tie or a lynch on Stink. If the person who moved Shallan's vote was a traitor and they had someone else ready to jump on the lynch for Stink if it looked viable (unfortunately, I didn't note down who was on when the turn ended), they would have known it was possible to save Rae for a cycle at least. I do think it is most likely the vote changer was a traitor. We know it can't have been Elbereth because she wasn't on when she would have had to choose a person's vote to change. I suppose it is possible there is another Well Connected villager who chose to change Shallan's vote to Stink, but then I am wondering why they would change it to Stink instead of Rae or someone who didn't have any votes on them. I am also curious about all the people who chose not to vote, especially after Stink revealed Rae. Anamax posted after Stink's reveal, but he didn't comment on it, or, well, anything. Luna made a larger post, but she also didn't comment on the Rae situation, which seems like a pretty big oversight on her part. It makes me wonder if she was purposefully avoiding putting another vote on Rae for in case it was possible to save her. Ripple posted after Rae claimed to be a hacker shortly before the end of the turn. I'm actually curious about why she didn't vote for Rae earlier if she was distrustful of her before her hacker claim as she said, and also why she didn't try to save her if she believed the claim. I don't know. That post just seems a little odd. I'm also not sure whether to make anything of her pointing out Rae's white text during the night. I mean, an eliminator would probably know about it already because they might have discussed it, but they might avoid mentioning it just because an eliminator would be more expected to know about it, unless they wanted us to make something out of it and they were disappointed we took too long to mention it. And then there's all the people who only posted before the reveal or didn't post at all. All the quietness this game is worrying me. We're not going to have a chance of catching the traitors if there's so many people who aren't doing anything to find them. After looking at how copy-pasting preserves formatting, I am relatively sure Araris copied SD's name from a player list in a post and it kept that font for the rest of his post, and that the font change is not the artifact of copying from a doc. That's why it only looks different in a quote or on a mobile screen--those have different default fonts or sizes, and his copy-pasting preserved what was shown on his computer. The font it changed to is what I get if I copy-paste from a different post, but is not what I get if I copy-paste from a google doc with the usual default font settings. If anyone has real reasons for suspecting Araris, I'd love to hear them, but Stink's reasonless vote and Clanky's vote for something that isn't even suspicious and the fact that Araris actually seems to be active and the fact that there are so few votes aren't making me happy with this choice. If we do lynch him, I don't think we will learn a lot because of how little real discussion there has been. As for who to lynch, I'm having a hard time coming up with any suspicions. *sigh* I guess Luna or SD wouldn't be too bad of choices since they aren't saying a lot anyway. I just don't feel very suspicious of them. Maybe Luna more than SD. I wish they would respond to the votes on them and that a few other people would say whether they are suspicious or not and that the reasoning for votes was more clear so there was more to respond to. At this point, I wouldn't be opposed to lynching someone who hasn't posted in about 2+ full cycles, especially if they log on enough that sending them on a mission is unlikely to catch them from inactivity, if there isn't a better target.

I wanted to say a few things before the mission. First, I didn’t examine the Rae being evil scenario very well yesterday--I made it look like I thought that would immediately clear the scanner and Stink. So now I’ll address that better now. It is possible the scanner was throwing Rae under the bus to build trust. The assassination during the last night could indicate they knew Rae would probably be lynched because of their plans. However, I doubt that. The traitors may have known Rae was under enough suspicion that they shouldn’t wait too long for an assassination anyway. Unless something comes up to cast doubt on the scanner’s alignment, I’d trust them. The fact that Stink was involved in this doesn’t clear him. The scanner didn’t choose him because of any information they had about his alignment. While it is likely he would have killed the scanner if he was evil, it is possible he didn’t learn they were the scanner until it was a bit late to change the kill. It is also possible he thought someone could know that he knew who the scanner was, so their death would point toward him. On the other hand, I felt like the way Stink revealed was pretty village. I also think that if the eliminators had had the foreknowledge they would have had if Stink was evil, Rae would have put up a better defense and she wouldn’t have tried to cast suspicion on both Stink and the scanner the way she did. I’m willing to tentatively trust Stink for now. Now for thoughts for the scanner. They should be keeping in mind that the False Trails role could be out there, and it is not like Copper in previous games because it doesn’t reveal that someone was covered. Rae wasn’t covered by it, but other eliminators might be. So a loyal scan cannot be trusted completely. With one eliminator gone, if they have that role it is less likely for the scanner to find an uncovered eliminator. If they have the chance, it would be good if the scanner can team up with a data gatherer so they can both scan the same person. Then if the person doesn’t come up as a non-specialist, a loyal scan can be trusted as long as the data gatherer is trustworthy. Also, don’t scan the most obvious target or make it obvious in the thread who you are scanning. That would guarantee that if the eliminators have false trails and that person is an eliminator they will be covered.

Thanks for running this game Twei and Eol. Even though I died early, I had fun with it. The code word mechanic was really great. Also, congrats to the Traders. You all did quite well.

That's not actually possible. You were on a mission the first night, so you can't have been scanned then. If the scanner claimed they scanned you night 1, they lied. It's possible the information was conveyed with a code, but no matter what they were taking a risk in trusting you if they are legit. Thanks for responding, Luna. That sounds reasonable. I wish you luck with getting more involved in the game.

Sorry I haven’t posted yet this cycle. The weekend was busy. I’ll just go over the main things for this cycle, I guess. The Kills Orlok seems like a similar choice as Burnt in that killing him doesn’t give much information. I don’t really think it points to anyone in particular. As other have pointed out, it is interesting that Maill was killed by an assassin. It could be that they decided to go after Maill because they suspected he had a good role because he didn’t want to go on a mission. Maybe they didn’t know what that role was, but thought he was a good choice to get rid of. I was never in a PM with Maill, so I don’t know if he said anything that would make the eliminators want to kill him. I’d be interested in knowing all that he did say in PMs. Claiming false trails doesn’t seem like it would attract traitor attention. I almost wonder if the eliminators weren’t in PMs with him and so they didn’t believe he didn’t want to go on a mission to keep PMs. The fact that he was assassinated so early instead of killed with the regular kill is also telling. Perhaps the assassin thought they might not get a chance to use their power, either because people are on to them or because they expect to go on missions. I wonder if Maill was more the assassin’s choice than the traitors’ choice as a whole. I don’t know if that tells us anything though. Luna I agree that Luna seems to be behaving oddly. It is strange that she never explained her choices for the mission herself and that she hasn’t really been saying much. I also think the fact that she apparently was looking at PMs but not responding is weird. Not wanting to use PMs is fine. However, not responding to direct questions in them, but also apparently looking at them and taking ideas from them (according to Maill about the mission) is strange. I think most of this can be chalked up to her being new (and I almost think an eliminator would get better advice about how to use PMs), but that’s not a great excuse. I think she would be a reasonable lynch if she doesn’t respond and there are no better options. However, we do have a better option this cycle. The Scan As for Stink’s reveal about Arraenae, there’s three reasonable possibilities I can see: 1. A loyal hacker actually scanned Arraenae as a traitor the first night and revealed their result to Stink. This means we have found a traitor pretty early. That is lucky of the hacker, especially with false trails out there, but it is certainly possible. 2. A traitor claimed hacker to Stink to get Arraenae lynched, and possibly to put suspicion on Stink and stall discussion. This seems a bit odd to do, especially since the fake hacker’s name would be revealed by Stink as soon as Arraenae is revealed to be good. Even if we chose to go after Stink next instead of the false hacker, they would be a goner at least by cycle 5. That seems pretty risky for an eliminator plan. It could be done though, especially if the claimed hacker has a lot of suspicion on them. 3. Stink made up a hacker to get Arraenae lynched and then will blame someone else when she turns up loyal. Like with the previous option, it seems pretty risky. They are giving up a member by cycle 5 at the latest. It could be a valid traitor plan to lessen discussion for the next cycle or two, cast suspicion on whoever Stink claims is the hacker, and keep other traitors (possibly Luna?) out of the spotlight for now. Right now I think our best course of action is to lynch Arraenae. It will give us information about whether to trust Stink and his hacker and it is a better lead than anything else we have right now. Also, I think her responses were a bit odd. She accused Stink of stalling discussion by bringing up the scan, but he really did the opposite of that by waiting until midway through the day turn for the reveal--he let discussion arise around Luna, and he also gave enough notice for the votes to actually change in response to the new information. Also, I don’t know how to explain this, but Arraenae’s longer post seems more like it is trying to keep us from trusting Stink and/or the hacker than to find an explanation for an incorrect read. I don’t know why the hacker would have chosen to trust Stink, but maybe it was for the same reason Stink is at the top of Ada’s trust list. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to reveal to one player they sort of trust to get the info out there. Waiting around for another cycle when we might not find a good lynch target and they could be in danger of dying might seem like a waste of time to them. If they revealed the info at the end of the night so the eliminators wouldn’t have time to change the kills around, it wouldn’t be too risky. Also, they could be seeing what Stink will do with the information. If they die, we know to look at Stink closely. Also, with false trails out there they can’t exactly trust a loyal scan 100%, so there would be risk even with someone they scanned.

I think putting an inactive on a mission (if there is one who isn’t logging on at all) could be a good idea later on when it is more likely the traitors will want to make a mission fail. That way an inactive will die instead of an active villager when the mission was likely to fail anyway. For now, however, I think it is better to put together a group of active players because it is unlikely the traitors will reveal themselves by failing missions yet. That way we have some active villagers protected from the traitor kill and we don't whittle down our numbers too quickly. Also, for the people thinking about killing inactives, I think it would be good to remind you that we need to have at least four villagers alive at the end of the game. If it is necessary, it would be better to get rid of inactives conservatively (by having them die in place of an active on a mission, for example) than to just lynch them because we need a kill. If a lynch is going to an inactive because they haven’t said anything, it might be better off as a tie this game. For lynches it is often better to put pressure on active players than vote on inactives because they aren’t posting because active players are more likely to respond, so discussing and voting for active players, even if it doesn’t end up with the lynch on them, gets us the best information. Also, with the four villager requirement, it would be nice if we have an assassin alive with their power still unused at the end of the game so if it is obvious who the eliminators are but we don’t have time to lynch them all and keep enough villagers alive the assassin can take care of them. Although using your power to 100% confirm someone (since false trails won’t mislead it) might be good instead--later rather than sooner unless you think you'll die soon though so they are less likely to randomly die and so you can clear/kill a top suspect. I’ll note that down. Since you went on the last mission and there’s no objections to my earlier list, however, I don’t think I’ll put you on this mission. So far I think I’ll stick to the list I posted at the beginning of the turn for the mission. If there’s any other thoughts about it or objections, let me know. I’ll be on again before the players for the mission have to be selected. However, I will probably not be on during the last couple of hours of the cycle, so any thoughts about this mission should be said before then. I forgot earlier, but I suppose it would be good for me to comment on Burnt’s death. I think she was chosen because she was talking to a lot of players and was a good player for them to get rid of, but she wasn’t high profile enough for them to expect her to be protected. It is likely she was also chosen because her death doesn’t point to anyone in particular--and I don’t really think it does point to anyone in particular, so there isn’t much to learn about who is on the eliminator team from it. In my PM with her, we talked a bit about who would be good to put on missions. We agreed the first few missions weren’t likely to fail. She said other PMs she was in were mostly off topic. Why is Stink’s vote on Maill in the writeup? I thought he retracted it. It can’t be a Well-Connected because Stink was on the mission last night and so couldn’t be targeted. Was it just missed?

So, I think it would be good to have a discussion about who should be on the mission. I’ll start off with a preliminary list. I believe Elkanah, Araris, Kynedath, Clanky, Silver Dragon, and I have volunteered to go on the mission, so that is a good place to start (although I haven’t really kept good notes for this, so I could be missing something). Since Elkanah went last time and Araris said he’s busy so it might be better not to depend on him for the mission for in case, I’m thinking of having the mission be Kynedath, Clanky, Silver Dragon, and luckat. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on the topic?

I’m sorry if I didn’t respond very well. I’ve been stressed about some RL stuff lately which is making it hard to focus on this game. I think Wyrm’s clarification kind of proves my point about how what you were suggesting would be a bad idea. Like Orlok and Lopen have pointed out, the cipher can be used for a lot of different types of communications. It can be used to share scanning results and coordinate protection, yes, but it can also be used to roleclaim (which could be non-Specialist), provide an account of previous activities, explain plans, express suspicions, follow up on previous PMs, ask for clarification before sharing in the thread, really anything PMs are used for. The difficulty in using it does provide a deterrent to using it frivolously, but not everything that would be reasonable to share in code is worth killing for. I did say not to use it too much because I don’t want to destroy communication in the thread, but there are things it can be used for. There are also uses that aren’t analogous to PMs. A Communication Specialist could send it to the writeup, and they can later reveal the keyword to roleclaim. Someone could post encrypted information, and then share the code with someone else to reveal to the thread later or reveal it right before they die. Then they can more easily share information with their death. It could also be used for some people to have a conversation in the thread, and then later they can prove what they actually said in that conversation. Also, as a counterpoint to people using it showing that they have sensitive information, due to the format it would not be difficult for people who do not have information to share to just post a string of random letters which would be indistinguishable from actually using the code. For example: xjkhgeaolwinclahtnkciuecimwuysdfzg. That is actually one of the major reasons I have for sharing this publicly--anyone can use it or fake it, not just people who I know have information to share. I agree a code that is more hidden is better, particularly for sensitive information. I hope anyone with the Hacker and Data Gathering roles set up codes like that to coordinate and share information. However, those codes cannot be used for everything. It would be hard to make a code with everyone you might want to contact in the future, especially if the Communications Expert dies early, while making a PM with a few words that could be used as keys with most people would not be as hard. The situations where this could be useful are by nature the more unpredictable ones, and I think a cipher is a good thing to have for if those situations come up. What Lopen said. I started toying with this idea during the AG, when due to unfortunate circumstances the seeking group didn’t have a very good code set up and we had no way to communicate with new targets of the scan. I ended up not mentioning it then because it took me a while to work out what would be allowed (my original idea of using infoencrypt was rejected), and by the time I had worked the idea out the village was just too inactive for it to be worth it and there wasn’t a way to set up communication between people who hadn’t previously had PMs. I wasn’t thinking about it at the very beginning of MR11 because I didn’t have a messenger and I wasn’t sure about using it in a game that was more pressed for time than a LG and I died right after really thinking about whether to use it. I’ve been hesitant about bringing it up because I know there are risks involved and I’ve been worried about someone reacting to me exactly how you are. However, I think having a cipher that anyone can use with minimal setup and can easily be faked as an option is a net benefit for the village.

It only highlights who the eliminators need to target if people only use it in situations where the eliminators would want to target them. The Vigenère cipher is a tool that can be used well or poorly. I hope it will expand communication beyond what is possible with PMs. PMs are generally considered useful for the village, and I think this can be useful too. Nearly everyone using it (or faking it) is exactly how I want this to be used. I know there are drawbacks and people might not want to use it or might think it takes too much time. But I wanted to give it a try sometime. I agree that systems that appear as ordinary posts are better for sharing sensitive information. However they are extremely limited in that the information that can be shared must be established beforehand. They take a fair amount of setup, and I can’t think of a way to make one for everyone. I hope people who have very important information to share will try using a more subtle code that is better hidden and possibly easier to decode and harder to break. However, what I am proposing can be used by anyone to share any information with little to no prior setup. This is just an idea I had. I think it will be more helpful for us than for the Traitors. I am hopeful the players will be able to use it well. I could be wrong. I think it is worth it to give it a test run, and this is a good game to test it in since everyone can PM at night and there are no PMs during the day. I don’t get why you are suspicious of me for trying to expand communication options. People can use it or not use it as they see fit, and they don’t have to use it for information the eliminators would kill for. It you think it is a bad idea, say so, and perhaps give other ideas. But why on earth Scadrial are you suspicious of me for suggesting using a cipher that I originally brought up in a game when I was good? If I actually meant to ask about Traitors communicating in a doc, I would have asked about Traitors communicating in a doc. Why would you even think that’s what I secretly meant when the question I actually asked was a legitimate question that wasn’t addressed in the opening rules? Why would the GM openly hint at someone’s alignment like that or “answer” an unasked question in a way that doesn’t clearly give the answer? When I ask a GM a question, I ask them the question I mean, and I take that answer for the question I asked. I do not secretly mean something else--if there is another aspect to the question, I ask about that part as well because the GM cannot read my mind. As you can infer from my followup question, if I had been thinking about the eliminator doc, I would have asked about that as well. I also do not assume the GM’s answer refers to a situation they may not have been thinking about when looking only at the question at hand. Now, it is possible I also asked him about the doc in private. I do not ask questions that pertain to my role or alignment in the thread (unless they are part of a long list of other questions). I ask them in my PM with the GM. However, I did not ask about this one. In fact, it didn’t even cross my mind. I think everyone has been assuming the eliminators have perfect communication, even while on missions, and can therefore plan how many fails there are if there is more than one of them along. I agree with Lopen that clarification on that would be nice. You say you tend to overlook players who ask the GM questions, but now I think you are swinging way too far in the other direction. So someone who is openly trying to figure out how the game works is just trying to gain trust? Honestly, I have usually asked questions via PM in the past. I am making an attempt at asking questions that are useful for everyone in the thread instead of only in private because I think asking the questions openly is better for the village, not because I sneakily want to gain trust. I want to make sure those answers make it to the thread (because they don’t always) and I want to make it clear how I am spending my time (so people don’t think I’m going inactive and so they have an idea of what is on my mind). Please don’t make me regret trying to make the rule clarifications I ask for more transparent. Also, if I’m your top suspect why didn’t you vote for me? Shallan was last on during Day 1--regardless of her alignment, she couldn't have sent in orders during the night. Phatt was on earlier today, but he was off during the entire night except for the first few minutes of the planning phase. He technically could have sent in an order if it didn't require info from the night. Both Ripple and Anamax have been about as quiet as Phatt, but they were on the Shard at least enough to send in orders. (I doubt I'll actually have time to check activity levels every cycle like that.) Sorry I can't come up with brilliant ideas at the start of every game. What do you want me to do, go through and give suggestions to every role? I don't think I have the time or energy for anything intelligent right now.

I meant to post sooner, but I kept getting distracted. Well, at least this might be useful for future cycles. First I want to say a bit about the missions (for the ones in the future). I’m not sure about Ada’s idea because it kind of shoves aside the mechanic instead of making use of it. It does limit the amount of information the traitors can get from it, but it also limits the information we can get from it and how we can make use of it. It also won’t be very effective if people are already sharing roles in PMs and saying whether they are willing to go anyway. I think the missions are best used as either a way to protect people who are likely to be targeted by the traitor kill (especially early on when missions are unlikely to fail) or as a roleblock on people who are suspicious to hopefully take away traitor actions. I also think it would be good for leaders to post who they plan to send before the planning phase ends so others can give feedback and so the people going on the mission are prepared for not being able to post or PM for the rest of the night. Anyway, I would be fine with going on a mission if someone wants to send me. I wouldn’t miss PMs too much. Also, I have an idea to extend private communication beyond PMs. We can use ciphers and/or codes in the thread that are set up in PMs to share things with people we have set them up with. While normally a cipher would just point out who wants to communicate privately so much that they spent time setting one up, the one I have in mind is relatively simple to use, requires only a little set up, and can be used securely by everyone. First, I’ll go over what is allowed. Anything that requires using another website or something to encrypt or decrypt a cipher is not allowed. It should be possible for ciphers to be used manually. We are allowed to write our own programs to make encoding and decoding faster if we have the skills to do so, but we are not allowed to share them with one another and we shouldn’t use websites to do it for us even if they are available. My idea is to use a Vigenère cipher. The link tells a bit about it, but I’ll describe it here. This type of cipher uses a keyword known only to the message sender and recipient. It is stronger than a simple substitution cipher, where each letter is replaced with a different one, because it uses several different sets of substitution rules: each letter of the keyword says how much to rotate the corresponding letter of the message and thus which substitution rules are used. I’ll show how to use the Vigenère cipher in the spoiler. It is best to remove punctuation, spaces, and capitalization when using this cipher so the message cannot be easily guessed. It wouldn’t hurt to make abbreviations and leave out unnecessary words as long as it is understandable and unambiguous once decoded. One way to come up with keywords is to use words in your PMs. You could come up with a systematic way to go through the words that were used in PMs when you send messages to one another. Or you could post where to find the word (third post, first paragraph, tenth word) along with the message if you didn’t set up a key beforehand. Or you could make a list of keys to use in your PM for future communications. Keywords should not be too short. Four letters is probably too short for a message of any length. Also, keys that are difficult to guess (uncommon words, a few words together, or even random collections of letters) are better. Avoid reusing keywords for several messages. That way there is less text to use to guess a keyword and even if one keyword is discovered, the others haven't been. If messages are too long, it will take too long for the recipient to decode them, or they might not even bother. So keep any messages reasonable. Also, even with ciphers being used, the thread should primarily be used for public discussion, so if you like this idea, don’t overuse it. Please avoid making posts that are entirely in code. If someone wants to use this cipher with several people, it could be useful to give codenames so the recipients know whether a message is for them without others knowing who it is for. Replies would make it more obvious who is communicating, but if many people have coded messages, or if some people make fake messages, that is less of a worry. I hope this is helpful. I think it will be good because it allows some measure of coordination without the traitors seeing it even when we can't use PMs. It should be very difficult for the traitors to figure out what the encoded messages say, even knowing what code is being used.

What about communication among people on the mission? Would that be allowed?

Sorry about not posting. I was feeling a bit under the weather and I’ve been preoccupied with RL stuff. I might not be very active this game. However, I’ll at least send in any relevant orders and probably respond to anything specifically for me in the thread or PMs (poke votes don’t count). Hopefully I’ll be able to post a few times each cycle too. Vote Tally: Rae (1): Max Maill (1): Stink Burnt (1): Lopen BB (1): Rae luckat (1): HS Lopen (1): Elk I’ll just give post some scattered thoughts for now. There hasn’t been a lot of lynch discussion this cycle, and there’s a bunch of people tied at one vote. Because of that, it is probably best to let it go to a tie. While lynch discussion and the connections made by who is willing to vote for or defend who is important and lynch discussion with no willingness to lynch is not meaningful, if there isn’t enough discussion then lynching someone at the last minute doesn’t do any good. Also, I don’t think there can be any vote manipulation this cycle since Well-Connected has to choose a target the night before, so anyone who wants to force a lynch would have to vote publicly at the last minute and the traitors can’t just anonymously make sure one of us gets killed, so it staying at a tie is assured. I think, in comparing the new mechanic to The Resistance, we need to remember that the traitors’ win condition is still the SE win condition of killing enough people to win (although with the necessity of us having enough people to fill a mission, that number is less for them). They don’t have to make missions fail, so successful missions won’t tell us much. It might be better to focus more on the roleblock and untargetable aspects of missions than the success/failure parts (other than making sure the people on missions are active enough to send in orders) unless a failure happens. It might be reasonable to use them to get rid of inactives if there’s someone who doesn’t post or get on for two or three cycles in a row or consistently skips every other cycle or something, but it might be more reasonable to use missions to protect people from the traitor kill or to roleblock suspects. If a mission fails, we can figure out what to do about it then. (If it isn’t due to inactivity, there is at least one traitor among the three surviving members.) I think it would be good for everyone to be involved in picking teams for the missions. While it isn’t a requirement, if the leader gives their thought process publicly and people make suggestions, it will be less likely for a traitor leader to choose their ideal team without drawing suspicion. Since there is only 24 hours for planning, and not everyone will be able to be on at the end of the cycle, discussion in the planning phase should start early. It is good that there has been some talk about missions already so we have a bit of a head start on that. @Wyrm Is someone who is on a mission allowed to participate in PMs at night? It’s not mentioned that they aren’t, but I want to make sure.

Lily is signing up if it's not too late.

Thanks for running the game, Meta! And congrats to the Spiked! You all did well at remaining hidden. It was fun.

If the Traders have an Observant Aviar, I'm sure they already figured out they can use it to find the protection that was publicly asked for in the thread. It's not exactly a difficult idea to come up with if that Aviar is on your mind. If I constantly edited myself based on what might give the Traders some ideas, I would end up saying next to nothing. If everyone did, that would just clear the way for Traders to use any ideas they can come up with without most of the Trappers planning for them. Also, I don't think it's fair to ask our protective roles to take a risk when they might not even know the risk is there. It could even be said people asking for protection publicly are trying to clear the way for Trader Observant Aviar to work. I don't want to stop them from protecting Ada if they think that is the best idea, and if I had a Death Sight Aviar, I probably would protect him even having considered Observant Aviar, but I also don't want them to make a decision blind. (Or maybe, if it is likely he will get protection, it would be good for other types of Aviar like Mind Shield and Power Sensing and Messenger to target him too so the Traders don't know anyone who targets him has to have a Death Sight Aviar. I'm just throwing out my thoughts.) That does seem to be what it is with Arraenae. I just don't really feel good enough about the situation to add my vote anywhere.

There's been a lot of discussion about the eliminator kill and the Sori reveals, but not much about the vote manipulation that happened. Does anyone have any thoughts about that? Was it done by an eliminator to guarantee a kill or protect themselves, or could it have been a Trapper? If it was an eliminator, do we think they chose to manipulate one of their own votes, or is Elbereth more likely to be good? Also, and probably more relevant to the discussion at hand, why was a vote moved from Kynedath, rather than any of the players who had two votes on them well before the cycle ended. (Ada didn't place his vote on Kynedath until half an hour before the cycle ended, when many players wouldn't be on.) I doubt it was to protect Kynedath. It's nice to know Ada was Hidden. That doesn't guarantee the Traders attacked him, but it seems likely. Of course, it's still possible it was a WGG. Ada's claim that he purposefully voted to give evidence that he was Hidden seems odd to me because then that just tells the Traders he is an open target during the next cycle, even if he wasn't attacked. I can't shake the feeling that it would be a good way to pull off a WGG with Hidden instead of something that shows up in the writeup ("look, I was Hidden and there was no attack--they must have attacked me"). However, I think the explanation that the Traders tried to attack Ada is simple enough to accept. Protecting him would be a good idea. I am a bit worried, though, that making it obvious where Death Sight is would make it easy for a Trader with an Observant Aviar to find who has a Death Sight Aviar and possibly get rid of it. (If it's a WGG, that could even be the point of asking for that protection. I'm probably too paranoid though.) Mind Force might be safer to use, even if it means Ada's Aviar wouldn't be useful, although it could also be good for a Trapper's Observant Aviar to watch him for if he is attacked (in which case Mind Force wouldn't be good). (Not that anything I say about how Aviar should be used is useful at this point since a lot of people won't be on to see it before the turn ends. I always take way too long to write anything.) The whole Sori thing is interesting. I agree with the people who think it is more likely Kynedath, Stink, and PK are all good. Two Sori having the same mentor isn't that outlandish, especially since it seems like the kind of thing a trolling GM would do. Wrt the Sori, there are four possibilities: 1. Kynedath and Stink are both evil. Then either they connected most of their team in a hurry to protect PK from Ada (which is super risky), or Stink claimed Sori with a mentor someone on his team was already claiming Sori to (which seems like bad planning). 2. Stink is good and Kynedath is evil. Then Kynedath used his Messenger Aviar to fake claim Sori. That's a reasonable thing for an eliminator to do, if a bit risky since there isn't a way to prove it. It's also a big coincidence that the Traders would claim Sori to someone who actually did have a Sori. 3. Kynedath is good and Stink is evil. Then Stink claimed Sori hoping to not actually get lynched, and he just happened to claim as a mentor someone who already had a Sori. The likelihood of this happening depends on the number of Sori with Messenger Aviar, but I'd say it's quite a coincidence if it's true. That would also be a really weird plan on Stink's part if it was true. 4. Stink and Kynedath are both good. Then the GMs decided to make two different Sori have the same mentor. That is entirely possible for them to do. It means that there is only one guaranteed Trapper for two Sori, instead of them clearing two people if they both die. It also might be expected to cast doubt on one of the Sori claims. There are a lot of other ways the roles could have been distributed, but this one is reasonable and doesn't require a coincidence so much as the GMs making a particular choice. Again, of these I think both Kynedath and Stink telling the truth makes the most sense. I think it is best to hold off on lynching any of them until later, if none of them are ever attacked. Unless further evidence points their way, I am willing to trust them for now. Regardless, PK is almost certainly good. (If it's possible, it might be good to get a Mind Force Aviar to PK so he can target himself with it to guarantee he can't be killed except by the lynch while only tying up one Trapper action. Then we guarantee a known Trapper will survive to the end. At least, I think that would work.) As for the vote now, I don't really have strong suspicions about anyone. The lynch discussion and votes that go with it are very important, but I'm not in a hurry to lynch someone when most of the discussion has been about people I think are good and the Traders weren't even able to make their kill. (I think voting early on is important because it spawns discussion and shows connections between players, and trying to force a no lynch has too many ways to go wrong, but I don't think actually lynching someone, especially early on, is essential, and late votes aren't as useful.) Also, it's late and I'm too tired to do any analysis on anyone. I haven't really looked closely enough at Arraenae, but I don't understand the suspicions. So I think I'll hold off on voting for this cycle. On the other hand, with the votes as they stand a vote manipulator could change the lynch from Arraenae to one of the Sori. Although I suppose that happening would be enough to prompt more discussion the next cycle.

Twei already answered this: As far as I can tell, the only possibilities for the lack of an attack are that it was blocked by Hidden or Mind Force or the Traders didn’t send in an attack. We already know Ada was Hidden/Mind Forced, so it might not be necessary to look any further for the reason the attack was blocked. However, if anyone else was Hidden or Mind Forced, it might have been them that attacked or was attacked. While I’m posting, here’s a vote tally: Arraenae (0): PK {1}, Stink {1}, Water {1} Water (1): Arraenae {1}, HS {1} Polking (0): PK {2} PK (3): Ada {1}, Maill {1}, Polking {1} Ada (0): PK {3} Stink (3): Stink {2}, Water {2}, Ripple {2} Maill (0): Ripple {1} Kynedath (0): PK {4} Organized: PK (3): Ada, Maill, Polking Stink (3): Stink, Water, Ripple Water (1): HS

So I guess I’ll go through what happened in the writeup. There’s two main things: the lynch and the kill (or lack thereof). Vote tally at end of cycle Phatt (3): PK, Arraenae, Maill Ada (1): Stink Maill (2): Luckat, Lopen Shallan (2): Clanky, Elkanah SilverDragon (2): Shallan, Water Kynedath (2): Elbereth, Ada Vote tally in writeup Phattemer (4): Paranoid King, Arraenae, Mailliw73, Elbereth Adavantos (1): IrulelikeSTINK Mailliw73 (2): luckat, TheMightyLopen Shallan (2): Elkanah, Clanky TheSilverDragon (2): Shallan, Water So, Elbereth’s vote was changed from Kynedath to Phatt, and Ada’s vote on Kynedath was removed. I believe the only way for a vote to be changed is with the Influential role. It is interesting that someone would choose to use one of their limited uses on this vote. That implies to me that whoever had that role was in danger or the Traders thought it was worth it to either confuse us or protect one of their own. Ada’s vote could have been removed either by him using the Hidden role, or someone else targeting him with a Mind Force Aviar. Ada could tell us whether he was Hidden or not. It is interesting that he chose to vote if he did use the Hidden power. And Ada got to mentioning the lack of a kill while I was typing this, so I’ll try to be brief. There is actually a fourth possibility: The target of the attack or the attacker was targeted by Mind Force. I’ve kind of been thinking it is likely Death Sight would be in the writeup since it is typical protection. It’s precognitive, but it sounds more like they are forewarned of the attack and can counter it/escape quickly than that they avoid it in the first place since it says they can survive one attack. I could be wrong about that though. On the other hand, I suspect Mind Force (and Hidden) wouldn’t be in the writeup (with the exception of vanished votes) because the actions themselves are prevented. Clarification on how these show up in the writeups from Twei/Eol would be much appreciated. I think the simplest explanation for the lack of the kill is that Ada was the target or attacker and the attack was stopped with Hidden or Mind Force. However, if the attack was stopped by Hidden or Mind Force it could be anyone who didn’t vote that was the target or attacker (Kynedath, SilverDragon, HS, Polking, or Ripple). It is reasonable to suspect the Traders tried to kill Ada (or it was a WGG) since it seems he is often the target of early attacks. However, the other possibilities should still be discussed, especially if there is evidence for any of them.

Sorry, I don't think I explained myself well there. I've been a bit distracted. Lumping Beautiful and Mind Force together was probably a mistake. Beautiful certainly shouldn't be used this early. Mind Force, on the other hand, wouldn't be completely unreasonable to use at this point, but I still think using it now would be premature. It isn't as simple as protection. With protection like Death Sight, there is no drawback to using the power. It isn't very likely to succeed, especially the first cycle, but it won't do any harm if used. Mind Force, on the other hand, blocks all actions. (I doubt it does anything about Aviar theft, since that doesn't count as an action.) It is much more likely to prevent Trappers from gathering information through Power Sensing, Observant, or Messenger Aviar, or stop a Death Sight Aviar from acting, than prevent a kill. It also has the potential to mess with the lynch if whoever is using it doesn't pay attention. If how I think it works is correct, it also doesn't allow information about the Traders' target to get through if it does prevent the kill. (Preventing a kill would be wonderful, but it would be more informative with Death Sight than with Mind Force.) And if there is no kill, there's no telling whether it is because Mind Force blocked the killer, Mind Force stopped actions on the target, or the target was Hidden. I'm not saying Mind Force definitely shouldn't be used. I'm just saying that if anyone means to use it, they should consider the potential consequences carefully. They should look at how the votes stand and remember that using it prevents both actions by and actions on their target (which could potentially be a lot). If they are lucky enough to stop a kill, they should keep in mind the possibilities for that and not just assume they found the killer. Cycle 1 is probably a bit too early to use it unless they have a good idea of who is a Trader or who will be attacked (which is usually hard to guess the first Cycle). As for the C1 lynch discussion, I'm not necessarily in a hurry to kill, but it is important to have discussion and find links between players. This whole discussion has been had time and time again. Even if the lynch ultimately goes to a tie, it's better not to decide that too early unless there are a lot of other things to discuss that can give information about alignment (which there haven't been). Talking about whether to have a C1 lynch isn't useful discussion. (Then again, I'm not very good at the kind of discussion that is useful C1.) Current Vote Tally: Ada (1): Stink {1} Stink (1): Maill {1}, Lopen {1} Water (0): PK {1} Arraenae (0): HS {1} Elkanah (1): Arraenae {1}, Maill {2} SilverDragon (2): Shallan {1}, Water {1} Phatt (2): PK {2}, Arraenae {2} PK (0): Clanky {1} Maill (1): Luckat {1} Kynedath (1): Elby {1} Shallan (1): Clanky {2} And sorted with only active votes: SilverDragon (2): Shallan, Water Phatt (2): PK, Arraenae Ada (1): Stink Stink (1): Lopen Elkanah (1): Maill Maill (1): Luckat Kynedath (1): Elby Shallan (1): Clanky Since Maill hasn't responded to my vote, I'll leave it there.

As usual, I can’t think of much that’s useful to say this early. I agree with Hellscythe that the Patji shouldn’t be in a hurry to use up their limited actions. I think this also applies to whoever is Influential. Both are more useful when there is more information and a higher concentration of Traders. I also think anyone with a roleblocking Aviar should hold off on using it. A Beautiful Aviar is more likely to harm Trappers’ information gathering or protection than Traders’, and it can’t block the Trader kill. Mind Force can potentially block the Trader kill with luck but it is also likely to get in the Trappers’ way. Also, if Mind Force is used and there is no kill, that doesn’t mean they found a Trader because there are a lot of other explanations. So it’s probably best to hold off for now until there’s good suspicions about who is a Trader. The Traders have the advantage when it comes to stealing Aviar since they have more minds to put together. However, guessing codes isn’t going to be simple, even for them, especially early on when there aren’t enough code uses yet to work with and there aren’t any clues to who hasn’t been using them. It’s probably best to focus on other things for now. Anyway, it’s a bit early for strong suspicions, but I feel a bit suspicious of Maill. It’s more of a gut feeling than anything else, but that’s good enough for a Cycle 1 vote, I guess. (I don’t usually vote this early, so...)

Fourth of the Moon is signing up. (Sorry for jumping in at the last minute.)

Here's a vote tally Elkanah (2): Sart1, Hero2, Phatt Sart (1): Hero1, Mashadar Hero (4): Elbereth, Ripple, Orlok, Lu Jain (1): Sart2 I suppose I'll go with Maill and Orlok and vote Hero. Even though I still suspect Ripple and Sart. Making a two vote difference to ensure a lynch is probably our best bet at this point.

First I’ll mention that revealing roles won’t give the spiked a list of people to kill because they already have confirmed people to kill and it doesn’t seem like the roles they would want to kill exist. I don’t think revealing roles helps us much since the spiked know what lies to tell anyway, but it doesn’t really hurt us. Second, if all the spiked are active we can’t make a mistake this turn. If any are inactive, we have a bit more time, but not much. It is possible for us to basically lose before we technically do because of inactives and soothers/rioters. If Sart is telling the truth about being a village smoker, spiked emotional allomancy is less dangerous for us, but we’re still in a pretty bad position. At this point, we need every villager on the same person to guarantee a lynch. It is likely the spiked will join us for now, even on a spiked target, so they don’t make it obvious who they are, but we are in a lot of danger. Next, I’m going to go through the player list and say my thoughts (skipping Orlok because he’s confirmed). I don’t know how useful any of this is though. Sart has been quite active the last few cycles. His activity makes me think there is a good chance he is a villager because of how much he seems to be trying to help the village. However, there are a few other things that are a bit odd. His Smoker claim raises my suspicions. I don’t like his defense that a Spiked Smoker would never reveal themselves as a Smoker. That’s exactly why one would: because the idea of it is so absurd that doing so gains trust. But more than that, I think the way he claims to have used his power is odd. Why did he smoke himself in case of vote manipulation when he almost never voted anyway? Wouldn’t leaving himself open for a potential seeker be better if he wasn’t voting and there would be plenty of other targets for soothers and rioters? It also doesn’t really match what he said here. Did he smoke himself even on Night 7, when whoever smoked Maill was active, but also when Sart’s name was on a list of potential seeking candidates? Why let up the same night the seeker was killed? You can say the spiked wouldn’t have dared neglect smoking with the seeker still alive, but there was evidence against a lurcher existing given the previous deaths of Ada, Stink, Wyrm, and especially Kipper. So they knew he was likely to not have a chance to scan anyone that night. And if you were thinking of revealing yourself to gain trust or wanted to avoid being revealed as a smoker through emotional allomancy, it might have seemed worth the risk. I think expressing suspicion of Jain is unhelpful. Jain is inactive. He has occasionally logged in, but he hasn’t posted in cycles, and he has gone several stretches without logging in at all. If he is spiked, killing him doesn’t even accomplish much since it is unlikely he is helping them anyway. If he isn’t, then we just waste a cycle. It feels a bit like Sart is stalling until the spiked can bring down our numbers even more. Also, since Maill turned out to be innocent, I can’t get the suspicion that one of the people who encouraged the lynch on him was spiked out of my head. Sart certainly tried to get Maill lynched. This is a smaller thing though. Hero has been up for the lynch often recently, largely because he was high on Maill’s suspicion list. When he realized how close he had come to being lynched, he encouraged a lynch on Maill. He also said today that he thought the spiked were controlling the lynches, but for the most part it has been villagers lynching villagers. If anything, he was a driving force behind Maill’s lynch. I feel like he’s been jumping around a bit much today. Elkanah challenged Sart after he revealed himself as a Smoker. I don’t quite understand how that drew Sart’s suspicion so fast, especially since I expressed some doubt in response to that too. But more than that, I am wondering why Elkanah hasn’t responded at all. Could he just not come up with a good enough response and hoped the suspicion on him would die down? I also would like an explanation from Elkanah about this post. It looks like a code of some kind, but given he was never in contact with a Seeker or anything, I’d like to know if its purpose was anything other than just trying to confuse people. At this point, there’s not much point in keeping secrets. Elbereth hasn’t really been high on my radar this game. I’m not sure why. Maill thought she was suspicious. I think that was largely because she kept her vote on HS. She’s been pretty active this game. I could go either way on her. Ripple was inactive for a very long stretch of time this game. She gave a reason for this (exams), but not until she was prompted. It also happened that she went silent right after a day when she was up for the lynch. Most of the votes on her were ultimately removed on Day 2 (close to the end of the cycle), but one remained: the first one. And that one happened to be soothed. Interestingly enough, no one really brought that up. So I am wondering: Why was Orlok’s vote for Ripple soothed Day 2? Is it because she is a soother? Or was a spiked soother trying to protect her? And, while I understand being busy because of tests, why didn’t she at least drop by to say why she was gone for so long until I called her out? Was she trying to lay low after the Day 2 lynch? Mark claims to be a Thug. I kind of wonder if that is just to deter us from lynching him. Also, that’s not usually something you want public because it just tells the spiked not to bother attacking you. I feel like he has been pretty active all game, although his posts are usually pretty brief. Maill had him high on his suspect list. I don’t think he would be the best choice to lynch at this point, especially if he really is a Thug. Phatt has been quiet often this game, although him GMing is enough to explain that. I feel like he might have made more effort to post in this game if he was spiked. However, he did seem to want to lynch Maill a lot. That probably doesn’t mean much though. Mashadar has been pretty inactive. He’s been on and posted enough that I am hopeful he will vote when we need it, although he hasn’t voted much this game. However, he hasn’t even been on this turn at all. He could be laying low. He retracted his vote from HS right after Maill mentioned someone having scanned him. It could be that he never felt that strongly about HS, or it could be that he didn’t want to risk voting for someone who had supposedly been scanned. Jain has been logged out about as many turns this game as he has been logged in. He has been the go to for an inactive lynch, partly because he was close to being lynched the first day. Whenever he has posted, it has been about his inactivity. His most recent post almost seems like a challenge to us to lynch him, which combined with him being a Thug makes me wonder if he was trying to get us to waste a lynch on an inactive Thug. However, that isn’t strong evidence. Even if he is spiked, there isn’t much reason to lynch him. It is doubtful he is aiding them at all, and if he is ever the last “semi-active” spiked left, he will have to log in more often or he will miss kills. Weiry has obviously been logged in to the shard since he is an admin. However, I am inclined to take his post here at face value, even though it wasn’t technically in blue text. I’d say he counts as inactive. Bort hasn’t posted all game. He went a long stretch without being logged in. He did get on the shard recently and post, but he ignored this game. Maybe he forgot about it. I’m calling him inactive for now. Creccio hasn’t been on since his one post. I doubt he’s coming back for this game. I won't vote just yet. I haven't quite decided who I think is most suspicious. But I plan to cast a vote before the cycle ends. I know I'm not doing a good job of being active or doing anything in a timely manner. I'm sorry about that.