Araris Valerian

Uh... Shouldn't folks just avoid targeting the confirmed villagers? That way we force the elims to kill outside of the folks we've already confirmed as village.

The folks currently on my mind are Divergent, coco, Archer, and Wonko. Earlier on I had the latter two as village reads, but I think they both fit the profile of the elim team I've got in my head, which has an emphasis on strategy and thread control. Both Archer and Wonko were clearly thinking about the strategy of L1, and while anyone could be thinking about that stuff, it's fairly clear that the elims were thinking about it, and so it could have bled from their doc into the thread. 4 players didn't vote during D2a or D3a: Ash, Coder/Drake, Burnt, and Hael. I think we should ignore all of them for now. Aiming for a L1 win is a risky play with low/inactive teammates that aren't voting. Hoid, Archer, and Mistfallen all had 2 votes during D2a, while Wahr had 5. Wahr is confirmed village, and the odds mean it's pretty likely that at least one of Hoid/Archer/Mist is elim. Mist/coco/TJ/Divergent/myself voted for Wahr, and probably contains 1-2 elims. Archer uses a weird mechanical analysis to rule out Divergent and coco from his POE. I'm not a fan of that. Anyways, I'm sticking with my vote on Divergent but would be happy to switch onto Archer or coco. Also, all the folks that died should at least consider going for the Blast Mask. That puts pressure on the elims to not repeat the L1 kills.

You know, the best part about this time loop thing is that Arenta gets to charge everyone rent for the same days over and over again! (unfortunately for her, she hasn't yet learned that rupees can be found all over the place in pots) Absolutely not. We get 3 exes to hit 2 elims, and we cannot afford to waste them. I think the best place to start is with the D3a exe, and whether or not we think Hael is a villager. I don't have much of a read on him, so it would be good to hear from @Divergent, @Stick., and @Hoid Slayer, who all voted Hael D3a. I'm also still of the persuasion that the majority (3-4) of the elims are active, otherwise they wouldn't have attempted the L1 win. Actually, I'm going to vote on Divergent for now. His interaction with me about whether I was assuming Wahr was village is bugging me. I'll have to go back and reread, but it makes me think he was overly confident in Wahr's alignment. I'm also still interested in looking at the group that voted for Wahr D2a. Interestingly, all of those folks voted D3a as well. Interestingly, both people that voted Mistfallen D2a are confirmed village, and both by execution rather than by NK.

And the elims get 6 more NKs before we make it that far. So if they want to stop us, there's not a whole lot we can do. Not to mention that if any of those 4-5 folks are elims themselves, us tiptoeing around them is going to make it a lot harder to win.

I guess I'm assuming Wahr is village in the sense of wanting to consider the worst-case scenario, and that we should still be trying to exe an elim today. But I'm not factoring that into any of my reads, because I don't have a village read on Wahr. Besides that, I was really referring to D1-N2 activity levels, before Wahr's exe, when I made the comment about activity levels. I'm very confident that exeing an active villager is not going to significantly hinder the village's ability to obtain the Mask of Truth, and beyond that, said Mask is not even really relevant until L3 at the earliest but more likely L4. If we lose the game because someone came out 1 rupee short in L4 and we really needed that alignment scan then y'all can blame me.

I don't recall saying that anywhere. If I did, I recant. I don't have a strong take on Wahr's alignment. Wahr hadn't done anything that looked village from my perspective. For the first exe, that's really all I need to be okay with voting on someone. Except that if a villager is about to get the Mask of Truth then the elims can just NK them. We can't be scared of exeing folks because of the economy. In fact, if we exe active players then the elims will be less likely to kill them in future cycles because multiple deaths increases the amount of money folks start the following loop with. Beyond that, the Mask of Truth isn't going to win the game for us, assuming a villager is the one that ultimately gets ahold of it.

I just think it’s easier to do elimination from a group of 5 than from a group of 10. Which of those 5 do you find most suspicious and why?

I disagree pretty strongly. This game uniquely allows us to exe active folks without permanently losing access to their thoughts, and we should take full advantage of that fact, especially now, when they will just miss a night turn, and thus can just tell us their thoughts at the start of L2 anyway. What do folks think about my suggestion to focus on people who voted Wahr D2? Is anyone opposed to my suggestion that at least one elim is among those 5 players, and if not, do you have a reason to vote outside a 5-person list with at least one elim?

Yeah, but it takes a few minutes looking at the rules and a single sentence to say that the elims can skip 2 kills and still win L1 while only clearing 3 villagers. I don't want to downplay the value of pointing things like that out for folks that didn't read through the rules, but after 2-3 posts the mechanics are done being discussed and we have the other 95% of the day to spend. If you include trying to guess the motivation/strategy of the elims under mechanical analysis then that can get you a bit further, but at that point you are in the realm of trying to guess which players have posts/activity levels that match with the proposed strategy and we're really just in the normal realm of solving at that point. Good point about Mistfallen's mask. I'm honestly a bit tempted to vote for Archer despite my previous posts. But why don't we exe someone who voted on Wahr? It was a 5-person train, so it likely includes at least one elim. I honestly don't mind getting exed too much since I haven't been keeping up with RP very well. Of the remaining players, if we exclude Mistfallen, that leaves coco, TJ, and Divergent. I'm wanting to avoid TJ since he was inactive D1, which I don't think fits very well with the skipped kill. I'm a fan of Divergent's post just now. Having lots of suspicions is easier to do as a villager than an elim I think. So I'll vote coco for now.

If we could solve the game mechanically then we’d just auto-win, right? We can’t ignore getting reads on folks. I also think there is relatively low value in speculating about the alignments of the dead folks until post-L1. That’s not to say it’s useless, but if anyone’s not sure then just din’t worry about it right now. Pretend it’s D1 again (this is my general advice to anyone who gets stuck in a game of SE). I’m going to drop a vote on Mistfallen for now. I’m still a bit behind on my reads but I’m currently operating on the assumption that the elims are trying to win the loop, and thus that they are exerting some level of thread control. Since folks come back, I think this is an excellent opportunity to execute someone a bit more outspoken that we might be reluctant to kill in a normal SE game. If we’re wrong, we get to potentially clear a villager that is actively helping out, and they get to jump back in the game for L2. I know there’s not a lot to respond/react to with this vote but I’ll work on that part later.

Mostly just poking in my head to say I’m following along but a bit too busy to write a consolidated post just yet. Main thought is that Wonko is tunneling on Archer, and I still lean toward those two being village. If the elims want to have winning L1 as an option, they likely want to avoid standing out, which those two haven’t done.

I don’t really have any reason to trust you, so the vote is sticking for now. I tend to vote with a guilty-until-proven-innocent philosophy. Still too busy to go and re-evaluate the thread.

So you think that if Archer/Wonko is evil, there would be movement in the thread to direct attention away from them and/or towards other people. And presumably from folks that are able to exert some sort of thread control. Given your suspicion of Archer, who would you consider to be his teammates based on that? edit: @Stick. The loops ends after D3 no matter the exe results.

Oh. I thought you were being weirdly aggressive. I'm gonna leave my vote for now because I don't have the time to figure out who else to put it on. What do you think of my reasoning in regards to elims being unlikely to skip the NK if one or more of them had already come under fire?

I'm confused as to what you're getting at here. I've given the reasoning for everything I've done this game, and nobody that I've seen has posed any questions in my direction. And even if they had, I said I was going to be busy. Wahr.

I need to be getting to bed but I think that Archer and Wonko are probably both village. I don’t think the elims would have skipped their first NK if one of them was already under suspicion.

I like this post, or at least the general idea behind it. I disagree with the activity-based reads on both Doc and Burnt though. Burnt is returning after several years, seems pretty reasonable that she'd post a bunch. And Doc tends to be pretty high-volume as well. Also, there wasn't really much analysis to do, so folks focusing on RP doesn't really stand out much to me. Still, if you're right about Wahr's usual behavior then I can get behind that read. And I tentatively agree with you on Coder as well. I'm fairly busy, so chalk my activity levels down to IRL stuff more than to alignment. I've got ~75 exams to grade this weekend, which is going to eat into my RP time.

Arenta has a room that is only half-exploded available for rent! Just 5 rupees per night!

Not sure if you're referring to me, but this was not my point against you. I'm bothered by the lack of direction behind your posts, not by them helping the elims. It's fair to say that most elim teams can come up with strategies on their own, and pointing things out in the thread is rarely a detriment. But we need to go beyond just pointing them out, or it's mostly just fluff that anyone could have said. Wonko. This is a weird take, because from my perspective the community is more pro-info sharing than it was ~5 years ago. I think fewer players/shorter games lends itself in that direction, since the elims have less time to take advantage of open info.

I've decided that Arenta looks like a grouchy version of Impa. After tripping earlier in the day and being rescued by a fellow named Wahi, Arenta had mostly stuck in her room for the day. It was rather hard to maintain the look of an intimidating landlady when half the town saw you getting rescued by a random stranger. The call to move to the south gate jarred Arenta out of her stupor, and she headed outside to see what passed for a flood of people in these parts heading south. Fortunately, they recognized her enough to steer clear, and she made her way to the southern gate without incident. Of course, at the pace she was walking, there wasn't really anyone to bump into for the latter half of the walk. Along the way, Arenta saw Thistle rummaging in his shop, and she rapped her cane on the door. "Hey, Thistle! You'd better get going. I'll not have you dying before you settle up with me." It didn't look like the florist would budge, but fortunately someone else came along to give Thistle a hand, since Arenta certainly wasn't going to haul a bunch of flowers halfway across town.

I mean, we don’t have to come to a consensus on a strategy. I’m gonna be voting for folks that look like elims and trying to see who reacts suspiciously. Ultimately our goal is to get as many reads as possible, and then to refine those reads. The first cycle only gives us a couple of exes to work with, so we likely won’t figure out a ton, but you work with what you can. I feel like anyone excited about playing the game could have made that post. But from a villager I’d want them to go further. That’s why I’m flagging Wonko.

I'd say go for it if you've got a read or two. If it impacts the elims we can factor that into our analysis moving forward. I'm a bit wary of Wonko myself.

How are the elims choosing the outcome if we exe one of them? In other words, there are two possible outcomes to the first loop. If we sit around and do nothing, then the elims have the exclusive choice as to which of those outcomes results. But if we exe them, then they are limited to a single outcome. At a minimum the village has the ability to try and force a specific outcome, and we shouldn’t just pass on it. Also, what’s the proposed strategy for avoiding an elim? Isn’t the ability to consistently exe villagers on purpose equivalent to the ability to consistently exe elims on purpose?

Gonna continue my RP later, but I’d like to respond to this and to Archer. I think we should play the first loop as a normal flipless game would go. If the elims want to bus/NK themselves, we can’t do much about that. As a result, we need the thread to be a place where we can generate info without relying on the end of loop results. I think the best way to bring that about is to be trying to exe elims every cycle. Not to mention that I don’t want the elims to be the ones that get to choose the outcome of the first cycle. We need to force them to react to us, not the other way around. Despite all that, this doesn’t mean that Wonko/Archer are bad exe targets. No particular reason to trust them at the current moment.

“Hey, you owe me those 5 rupees in rent!” If I see you wearing a mask you spent my money on then I’ll…” The shrill voice echoed across the town square before dying away as Arenta’s gaze was momentarily drawn to the side, where one of the townsfolk was trespassing. She shouted the oblivious fool, ”You there! That’ll be 5 rupees!” The newcomer glanced over, saw an elderly lady waving a cane wildly above her head in his general direction, and quickened his steps as if to escape unnoticed. ”Don’t you act like you didn’t hear me!” Arenta turned back toward Ouae. “I’ll deal with you in a moment.” She made as if to chase the other fellow, but slipped on a cobblestone and fell forward. The cane flew out of her hand and Arenta reached out desperately for something to halt her fall. (open invitation for someone to either help or ignore a bothersome old landlady)