Araris Valerian

I'm working on a large post, but I wanted to respond to this. Could you quote the post you are referring to? I just looked through last cycle and didn't see anywhere that I said (or meant to say) anything along these lines. The exception is role claiming. I think there has been a lot of unncessary role claiming this game, and I'll stand by that (which I've done just about every game I've played). Like you say, the elims have better communication and brainpower than we do. Therefore, they can make more efficient use of role information in most cases than a single villager can. Additionally, the elims make plans, while villagers mostly muddle around. Tidbits of information are much more helpful for plans than for muddling. There are exceptions of course, but I get the feeling that a lot of people this game roleclaimed because they felt like they couldn't contribute to the thread much, and that it was something concrete they could do. This is basically exactly not what to do. Regardless, that is kind of all behind us, since said role claims already happened. This is more of a helpful tip from a longtime SE veteran for future games.

That was mostly a joke aimed at Danex. I'll leave y'all to analyze me and decide for yourselves.

So I'm suspicious for lynching 2 villagers, and I'm also suspicious for lynching an elim? What does a guy have to do to not be suspicious? I've definitely done this before, but I actually meant to post, and just missed cycle end, for the better it turned out.

You are right that Mistborn!Aman wouldn’t ask for advice. But village!Aman (and quite possibly elim!Aman) would definitely fish for information, regardless of role. And I can definitely see him sending in that kill action as well to salvage the lynch this cycle. I guess the elims thought that Aman wasn’t actually a Mistborn, or they didn’t think any of their team was in danger. If you never try, you never succeed . I think my voting record means that if I vote on someone, that person better be pretty darn worried that you are going to die. Not participating in the lynch is a great way to not lynch any villagers, but it’s also a great way to not lynch any elims. Also, D1 lynch is basically random. So there is often a much better candidate than the survivor of a D1 wagon. There are exceptions, but I didn’t think this time it was worth revisiting, and I’ve got a slight village read on Elkanah now.

This reasoning sounds good, but if we assume everyone is innocent, then nobody gets lynched, and we all die to the elim kill. If we assume everyone is guilty, then we have to discuss which guilty person to lynch, which creates pressure and gives opportunities for people to provide evidence that they actually aren’t evil. I also think an innocent until proven guilty mindset provides a great opportunity for elims to hide through inactivity. Since players with low activity levels don’t contribute, we can’t get evidence of their alignment. Perhaps an important thing to keep in mind is that dead players can win the game (most village wins involve lots of dead players), and that dead players can still engage with the game and have fun through the spec doc. So the “moral” consequences of killing someone who actually turns out to be innocent are pretty small.

Um, I don’t think we get notified that all village hemalurgists are dead. Presumably only the HI and the elims would know that this had happened. Edit: I think it might be a good idea for some people to step back from this for a while. Things seem to be getting a little more heated than necessary.

Everyone here is guilty until proven innocent.

While I agree that lynching Hemalurgists is dangerous, I'd argue that it is nearly equally dangerous to make claiming Hemalurgist a get-out-of-lynch-free card. Also, I think the kill on Turtle was justified, since it allowed us to refocus the lynch today on new people. Without the kill, there likely would have been a significant push for a Turtle lynch today. Instead we get to look at an entirely new set of people, and we don't have to try and guess at Turtle's alignment.

You’re probably right. I was thinking that the elims might kill the Mistborn, since at least I think killing Turtle was a pro-village play, but that wouldn’t really be the end of the world. @Illwei, why are you voting so erratically and with no justification? This isn’t the first time you’ve done that, and it doesn’t really prompt any useful discussion. Nobody is going to join you on TJ (or Whysper) if you don’t explain yourself. Supreme. I am pretty suspicious of both Ash and Condensation, but more of Ash, so I’ll move my vote there for now. Maybe Illwei can join me, because there isn’t currently anyone besides Condensation with multiple votes.

If it was me, I wouldn’t claim. No reason to give free info to the elims.

Aman never claimed to me (amazing, isn’t it, a PM with no role claims), but he did ask me who I would kill if I could. I’m not too sure that it matters who the Mistborn is, since they already used up their kill. Said person couldn’t prove their role without getting confirmation from a Kandra. Edit: C’mon everyone, we’re basically halfway through the cycle, and only Illwei and I have voted. We had plenty of votes last cycle, so where’d everyone go?

My tentative read on Elkanah is village. He has been active a lot in the QF since that game started, but didn’t vote in this game last cycle. That suggests he’s not elim to me. Condensation falls more on the elim spectrum of things, after Lotus on my list I think. Better activity but a similar vote last cycle. Oh yeah. I think that part of my post was something I’d been thinking of last night, but never got around to posting.

Well, I don’t hold a lot of stock in roleclaims without any evidence behind them, so I’ll leave my vote for now. I haven’t “cleared” anyone. But that sort of thing comes off villagery to me. Also, I’ve played several games versus elim!Aman, and am not getting those vibes this game (although he is very good at hiding). The feruchemists are kind of strong. I’m actually surprised I didn’t mention it to Straw, since I am on the rules committee, but usually a role that can move a vote is balanced by cancelling the player’s own vote. The feruchemist in this game can cause a 3 vote swing, or 4 if they already were voting for someone else. That seems rather powerful for the elims to have, given the HI win condition. Also, since I suspect the people that joined the end of the Turtle wagon, it fits with that for the feruchemist that used their role last cycle to not be elim (why risk a vote like that and then save the player that your team knows to be a village hemalurgist?)

I share a suspicion of Ash from previous cycles, and Illwei brings up a good point about the info lynch thing. I'm personally more suspicious of The Windrunner Supreme, and to a lesser extent, Lotus, for their very bandwagony votes last cycle. Actually, @Illwei, you voted for Supreme last cycle (for this reason, I presume), and now he's one of your strongest village reads? That seems odd to me, especially when you voted for Turtle with less reasoning than Ash did. My only real village reads are probably Aman (for the Mistborn Turtle thing), Illwei (for getting attacked), and Whysper (for being active and sensible). I'd probably add any living feruchemist to this list as well, and maybe TJ. Top suspicions of mine are Supreme, Ash, and Lotus, in that order. I am curious what Whysper has to reveal. Also, it seems like an absurd amount of roleclaims have been happening. I wouldn't be surprised if the elims know the entire game's distribution by now, based on what everyone has been mentioning in thread. Given how much roles are tied to our lose condition this game, practicing some level of PM safety might have been wise.

This is probably skating the line of directly quoting GM PMs. However, Hemalurgists can have a second role. So this would seem correct; as opposed to Loyal Surgebinder Hemalurgist or something similar. I would say that the votes on Experience could be due to being new, but if we lynch Turtle and she flips village, Supreme is probably a decent person to look at for the lynch next cycle.

What do you mean by this? On the topic of Turtle's claim, I see 3 possibilities. If Turtle is village, then she is almost certainly a Hemalurgist. If Turtle is elim, she probably still is a Hemalurgist, but the third option is that she could be fake-claiming in order to survive. I feel like the Hemalurgist doc would make such a lie hard to maintain, however. If I was currently voting for Turtle, I don't think I'd move off because of the claim. But I'll stand by my vote on Reading for now.

If it's inevitable that you are going to die, there are a couple of things you can do to make the game more enjoyable. First, you can still come up with a list of players you suspect. Then if you are flipped village, we will know that your list was honest (if not necessarily correct), and that can give us some information. Alternatively, if you are an eliminator, you can troll everyone. You could also post a reads list as an elim, but the chances of it actually helping your team aren't as great. My point is, if you stick around in SE, you are going to get lynched as an innocent a lot, and most of the time you won't be able to convince other people of your innocence except by dying (I mean, elim!Turtle could ask the same question). So it's a good idea to prepare yourself to do more than say "I'm a bad lynch option". Another thing you can do is come up with a convincing argument that someone else is a better lynch target than yourself. But that can be hard to do as a newer player, and there's only 5 hours left in the cycle.

I'm going to switch my vote from Ash to Reading. While I still have some suspicion of Ash, he did give some suspicions of his own and has placed a vote this cycle, which is about as much as I can hope for I suppose. Reading is the player I mentioned to Aman as a good Mistborn target last night, largely due to the doc comment made earlier, and his vote on Illwei early in C2. I didn't think that Reading would be a lynch candidate, which was another reason I thought he would be a good Mistborn target. I do think that he makes a fine counterlynch to the Turtle wagon, which I don't fully understand the reasoning behind (Aman has evidence supporting it as inevitable, although I don't think I would ever vote on someone for that reason).

The best way to be less suspicious is to be involved in lynching an elim. And the best way to do that is to be involved in all the lynches.

Well, do you agree with me that some of the eliminators could be hiding by not participating very much? And if so, would you be willing to vote on someone who hasn’t been participating much? One of the reasons it is important to vote is that the eliminators can’t actually be “suspicious” of anyone. They know who all the villagers are (or all but one in this game). So players who are reluctant to vote could either be lost, or they could just be elims that know all the current lynch options are actually villagers. (This is related to why I’m voting for Ashbringer. Finding nobody suspicious is sort of suspicious.)

@Lotus I would just pretend. There have been a lot of posts that weren't very game relevant, so sorting through them probably isn't worth the time. You should be able to get a feel for things based on how the lynch goes this cycle. Here's a list of everyone living who was on lynch train (at least one other vote with them) come end of cycle during days 1 and 2: Amanuensis, Araris Valerian, Whysper, Devotary of Spontaneity, eltruT, Illwei, TJ Shade, Flyingbooks42, Shard of Reading, Elkanah Since we have 2 village flips, these don't give a lot of information by themselves. I'm also not the best at breaking down lynch arguments to find inconsistencies. That leaves: Experience, Ashbringer, Condensation, Mist, Lord Silb, Danex, Lotus, Vapor, Windrunner Supreme, and A Windrunner as players that haven't given us very much concrete to work with. Experience and Lotus are excused for now, but I'm willing to bet that several elims are hiding in this group. In particular, I've played games with Ashbringer, Mist, and Silberfalen before, and I would expect them to have contributed more by now. My vote is on Ash for now since he was involved in the lynch last cycle but backed off toward the end. I'd guess he's fishing for information. It would fit with knowing the identities of all the Hemalurgists.

Orlok is in this game, although he's gone inactive. Hopefully he shows up to dodge the filter, since he's very fun to play with. Also, @Illwei, I have you as mild village right now, but your vote seems kind of random and you haven't really engaged with the lynch this cycle, just the lynch discussion. Do you plan to change your vote around?

Hmm. Elandera claims the point of the Gears lynch was likely to deny information, and then votes based on said elim kill. Presumably the elims would have taken Gears’s reads post into consideration when they killed him, if their goal was to manipulate the information the village has access to. Elkanah is also probably the “easiest” lynch for today, in the sense that he has drawn a fair amount of attention and that we would understand the D1 lynch better by knowing his alignment. I have used this tactic before as an elim, so it definitely happens around here too. Gears hasn’t been around for too long, so I’m not sure if we have a good feel for the accuracy of his reads yet. I’m going to be really busy today, so I’ll vote Elandera, and then hopefully have a chance to check the thread this afternoon and reevaluate. Edit: Reading

I think you sort of have to go out on a limb. Find something you think might be suspicious, and bring it up. This early in the game, you don't need a ton of justification for your votes. If your vote is Really Bad, then the worst case is people vote on you instead, which also contributes to the level of discussion. You could also read some of the analysis posts people have written, and see if you agree with them. That can be a good place to get an idea of where to vote without having to generate a lynch candidate on your own.

My reaction to the lynch last cycle is that TJ and Illwei are looking more village to me. Illwei instigated the lynch on Ventyl, and TJ was the first to back it up. Illwei posted suspicion of Ventyl around 3EST, and voted around 4EST. TJ voted around 4:30. Regardless of Elkanah's alignment, this seems to me like it draws unnecessary attention to both TJ and Illwei, something elims would probably want to avoid. I'm not sure that we learn too much about Turtle and Devotary from the lynch though, unless we get an elim flip from Elkanah. My vote is going to go on Shard of Reading for now. You didn't vote at all last cycle, and I disagree with your views on the lynch. Contribution Crusade Plug: I also think we need a few more votes happening in general. I know some people may feel uncomfortable voting without, but voting is the core mechanic of the game. Not voting is like playing a Mario level without jumping. You have to be pretty lucky to make it to the end in one piece. Only 9/23 players voted last cycle, which is kinda sad. That leaves way too much space for the elims to hide in.