Araris Valerian

I think you are in a weird place of simultaneously taking this game way too seriously (when you are under threat of dying), and also not seriously enough (when you aren't). But I will say that the latter is almost entirely responsible for the former, so you might want to reconsider your playstyle in the future. It is possible to engage in behavior that objectively helps the elims while you are a villager, but I don't think it causes anyone else in the game to have more fun. There's a lot of grey area between playing optimally and helping the elims, and I think we as a community try to be open to less conventional playstyles, but (at least some of us) are also rather competitive (myself very much included). It might be worth your while to try and read some past games to try and get a feel for this balance. I think Alvron and STINK have done an excellent job of finding the balance here, and more recently Wilson and Orlok have been exploring it . I'm not sure that this is a helpful attitude to have. We could act on different suspicions now, and avoid what I consider to be a double mislynch. I think people often have the mindset that lynching X will give us lots of information, but really, it's generally more accurate to say that X flipping elim will give us said information.

What if both Ventyl and TJ flip village? I don't think we learn much of anything in that case.

@TJ Shade, you asked me why I didn’t talk about Ashbringer during the night. My list I gave there was not active players who hadn’t voted, it just happened to contain 3/4 of them (if Ashbringer is the only other such player). @The Young Pyromancer I think Elbereth is getting read as suspicious because she has made several long posts. There’s often some elim feel that comes from that, just because of the large volume of opinions being given. However, if Elbereth is evil, then leaving her alive for a while won’t hurt, because lots of posts means lots of things to analyze after she’s dead. I do still need to go back and see what set off my gut in particular though.

I don’t really think either Ventyl or TJ are elims. Elim!Ventyl would almost certainly know that squiring doesn’t use Stormlight. Village!Radiant!Ventyl would also know, if Ventyl had actually squired. Thus, we probably have a Vanilla!Village!Ventyl. However, due to probably lying about his role, I can understand the votes on him. The chaos he’s creating isn’t helpful to the village. And like I mentioned last cycle, TJ’s double vote manip soft-cleared him in my eyes. I’d also like to point out that it is totally possible for two people to strongly want each other dead, while being on the same team, provided they don’t know that fact. I’m less sure what to think of Devotary right now. @Devotary of Spontaneity, you seem against the Ventyl/TJ lynch. Who are your suspicions, if not any of the people you mentioned? I’m going to put my vote on Gears for now. I’m sticking with my read from last cycle, and this post: seems non-committal to me.

I flagged Devotary, but I'd like to hear more from her next cycle. I feel like Elbereth has said a few things that felt off to me, but that's probably just because she's said a lot of things. I'll need to go back and see what specifically I disagreed with. This is a good point, especially considering that Gravity would help the elims given all the action manipulation effects that will likely be flying around this game. Although, it's worth considering that Striker just threw this out there to mislead us. I also certainly would not go down the rabbit hole of trying to guess role distributions. On the topic of Ventyl, I bet he's just trolling, trying to become the new STINK.

You may be right about Truthwatcher. But I also think new player hesitancy could be compounded by having a teammate up for the lynch. I agree that I’d like to see a vote and some analysis before I make a stronger read. Gears said he wanted a tie, but that could just have been an excuse to retract from Striker. Also, I think that given the attention that had been drawn to Striker, we likely would have lynched him in the next couple of cycles regardless (For comparison, Gears has already suggested lynching Ventyl and TJ, the other two people we focused on). So this may have been an attempt at distancing as well. @Elbereth Who are your elim reads? You have a lot of people as village, and TJ as neutral, but that doesn’t really help with our next lynch (although I’m fine if you don’t want to share until the day comes around).

Wow, go to sleep and the world up and changes on you. I honestly didn’t think the lynch on Striker would stick, since half the votes on him at the time were caused by confusion. Probably the two strongest village reads I get here are Sart and Joe. I mentioned during the day that I thought the tone of Sart’s post where he voted Striker didn’t seem like distancing (too aggressive). I’d probably soft-clear TJ as well, for a couple of reasons. For one, the double vote manip would seem excessive if he was elim, and a E/E lynch train is very unlikely for D1. Probably my two strongest (still not super strong) elim reads are Gears and Truthwatcher. Gears wanted to maintain a tie, which is a way to stay neutral. Easy place to hide as an elim. Truthwatcher didn’t participate in the lynch, and was against either lynch, but also didn’t vote Ventyl or me, the two people that they expressed a willingness to lynch. Again, it seems like an elim trying to remain neutral. I also continue to have a mild elim read on Devotary, due to the positive interaction with Striker and overall neutrality. I’d like to point out that elims can (and tend to, in my experience) ask rule questions that may incriminate them either in the elim doc or their PM. So I’d be careful in the future about thinking of this as AI. Also, for everyone hesitant about D1 lynches, here’s a bit of proof that they aren’t totally useless .

I'm questioning my ability to wake up in time for rollover, and I'm too tired right now to do any analysis (but it's just D1, so that's fine). I'll move my vote from Devotary to TJ Shade like I said I would earlier.

That's kind of the point, I guess. Devotary has made several posts, but hasn't actually given any opinions or voted. Basically, it's pretty normal to get mild suspicions of people that are posting a lot. Devotary has posted a fair amount, but nothing in their posts was particularly off-putting. That makes me suspicious in and of itself.

I think the behavior is NAI, but the actual votes aren’t necessarily. If an Elim has votes on themself D1, then there are probably some AI poke/stab votes flying around. This gives me a mild village read on Ventyl. Also, my original vote on Ventyl came because there was a pseudo-justification for voting on Joe rather than Ash, but poke votes don’t really need a justification, so it seemed like hedging to me, despite the emote. Anyway, I doubt that most players are Radiant, because it would detract from the Squiring mechanic. And I think it somewhat likely that the elims would have spent some time discussing role distribution by now. I think it could also be argued that a singular role claim might make an IKYK for the elims, given that Ventyl is probably a reasonable target for a protection action now. I’m going to put my vote on Devotary for now. I agree with Elbereth that Devotary is kind of neutral despite making several posts (and I find staying neutral to be inherently elimy). It’s also possible that if Devotary flips elim, Striker is also an elim (not a super strong connection, but better than nothing. I also realize that there are currently no other votes on Devotary, but there is some time for that to change. If I had to vote on Shade or Gears, I’d probably pick Shade to solidify the vote since I have roughly equal trust/distrust of the two.

Whoops, I’ll edit that into my count. Never mind, Elbereth.

Here's a vote tally: TJ (0): Elbereth1 Joe (1): Ventyl1 Ventyl (1): Araris1, Elbereth2 Gears (2): Striker1, Orlok1 Elbereth (1): Gears1 Striker (2): Sart1, Matrim1 Matrim (1): Elbereth3 So currently up for lynch are Ventyl, Gears, and Striker. However, I doubt that Matrim is going to leave his vote where it is. Ventyl's vote is a poke vote, so Joe doesn't really have any pressure on him. I also don't think either of the votes on Gears are that likely to stick. It would be nice if more that a third of the players could vote. I'm pretty fine with any of the current candidates for the lynch, but I'll be looking to see if there's someone better than Ventyl tomorrow. I'd also say that of all the votes, Sart's seems the least likely to be distancing IMO (so Elim!Sart + Elim!Striker is probably not a thing), and Matrim comes across as fairly village in his interactions with Striker as well. Edit: Could you clarify? Your vote is on Ventyl (unless I missed something), who isn't involved in the discussion about Striker. Also, Gears is a top lynch candidate, rather than the singular target. Although I do feel like the votes on him are a little more likely to stick than the others, since they come from Striker and Orlok. Edit 2: I guess Ventyl is not actually up for the lynch.

Yeah, I'd agree that it's important to distinguish between a different opinion about optimal play versus intentionally trying to hurt the village. I would even go so far as to say that elims might try a little harder to conform to what is considered helpful in the current meta than villagers do. So people doing things I disagree with often (but not always) lands them a very slight village read, at least at the start of the game.

The reason I consider role analysis posts NAI is that the person posting them has nothing at stake (and thus there is no reason for an elim to give away information), and their post isn't helping solve the game (something a village would want to do). These are the main two things that make me think someone is one alignment or the other. On a personal note, I rarely read through role analysis posts because I largely find them about as useful as poke votes. People should usually do their own thinking about how to best use their role.

@Matrim's Dice You missed the last bit of Striker's post: Basically if there is a counterclaim that is proven false, there is a fairly obvious lynch that should follow.

I want to kill you, not get you to post. It's a Stab Vote (TM).

I’ll put my vote on Ventyl. I’ll also point out the no lynch vote minimum, so currently one of TJ, Joe, and Ventyl is slated to die.

Hmm, didn't realize that they were one-off concepts. In that case, I'll be an Old Guy. Each cycle, you must reference something that isn't as good as it was "back in my day". And to fit, I'll change my name to Ookla the Curmudgeonly (out of season, I know), the now ancient Lord Heron (see LG 50).

I'll join as Arlon Curm Heron, a Blue-Blooded Noble.

PM Safety! Never roleclaim! (actually, it's fine to roleclaim, but generally you should do it as part of a strategy/playstyle, rather than just because someone PMed you).

@The Young Pyromancer My trust of you (at least by C3) came from how erratic you were acting and that I thought an elim would try and put themselves in the spotlight a bit less. Guess I've learned my lesson about you.

Yeah, most of the time I play as characters that have already been killed, and my usernamesake is from a totally different universe. I think immersion often goes a little out the window in these games.

So I guess I'm technically still alive . This game was very fun, for the short bit I was alive. It was very fun to watch @Ashbringer after that, who has my highest regards for his excellent performance following me demise. I shared a lot of my thoughts on the game in the dead doc, but overall I think the game was fine as run, and @StrikerEZ and @Young Bard did an excellent job GMing. I'll be happy to play this ruleset again if I have the opportunity!

I'll sign up as Aurylass, an old lady with no tolerance for foolishness.

I probably lost that by the fact that everyone knew my alignment by the second cycle. Guess I’m losing my touch.