Elbereth

That's obvious, and why I'm putting Crimsn not necessarily as high priority - if there was a highprince, it's highly likely to have hit Megasif. It'd just be nice to make sure.

Note: I've been scanned as unaligned, so (if Drake is telling the truth, obviously, but I know he is) I couldn't have killed anyone. If a highprince was involved, though, it could've hit Crimsn or Megasif. It's probable that it was Megasif, since he's new and unlikely to be attacked, but I'd recommend that the Parshendi scan Crimsn anyway to see if anything turns up. (I don't know if she's a Son, so I may be disadvantaging my own team, but I'm more inclined to think that she could be another Ghostblood - see Sart's post about how she and Joe are the ones who switched from Orlok to HH without ever voting Jon, C3.)

*sigh* How useful. >> The Parshendi other than the Shardbearer don't know who the Shardbearer hit. You don't know how you survived, or claim not to. I suppose the fact that you scanned me correctly implies you're neither Shardbearer nor Voidbringer, but if that's so I'm confused. Obviously, disagreed that we should lynch BR now. Hmmmmm. My personal vote, aside from Jondesu, would be to lynch Drake until/unless a Parshendi comes forward to explain exactly how he survived. If none do, he's lying and is Voidbringer/Shardbearer, in either of which cases the Alethi benefit. @Crimsn-Wolf, how did you survive? It's generally good form to ask the GM if it's allowed first? Note about lynching Jondesu again: It's still in everyone's interests. Including the Parshendi's. If you don't lynch him, the Ghostbloods will be able to see your doc, massively reducing trusted conversation (given that the Voidbringers are not a threat to the Shardbearer, who could then claim and be protected/coordinated with). And it's not like he's another Parshendi vote, either. He's not. Whyever would he vote with the Parshendi? He has exactly no reason to do so whatsoever. Jondesu is the one person, regardless of alignment or peacefulness, that everyone should want to lynch. EDIT: And regarding the agreement, I'd argue that the lynch on Jondesu isn't over until he actually dies.

I do recall the trick, yes. I just wasn't sure if it was being allowed. (The fact that no one's asked Seonid about it yet makes me think that such a thing hasn't happened, though.)

Interesting. Seonid is allowing deleted conversations, then? I would hope that the other two (well, one, given that Jondesu doesn't care) is claiming Nimbleform, so there's at least some way to keep everyone accountable?

Sorry - edited that in once I realised that my logic wasn't making sense. Interesting. If he wasn't protected by another Parshendi's Warform, then Shardbearer or Voidbringer seem to be the only options. (Does that mean you dont have the identity of the Shardbearer revealed in your doc, or just aren't telling the thread?) Interesting. Hadn't considered that angle. Nope, I didn't attack anyone, as you should well know.

*sigh* I was hoping that someone else would hit Jondesu, but apparently not. Also, thanks so much for hitting me. >> Much appreciated... Four attacks. Presumably one was the Ghostbloods, one was the Parshendi, and one was the Sons. Fourth has to have been either decayform (on someone who had no power - you won't be warned if you have a passive or no power, I learned from Seonid) or a Highprince retaliation. Anyone have theories to which is which? It seems pretty obvious that the one on Megasif was the Parshendi (in which case well done), and the one on Drake was the Sons. (Speaking of which, Parshendi, care to verify that someone did protect him? If not, Drake's our last Voidbringer, which would be useful to know.) Anyone have guesses on which of Crimsn and myself was attacked by the Ghostbloods, and which by something else? EDIT: Wait. That logic is out of order. Megasif also could've been killed by decayform/highprince and one of Crimsn or me by the Parshendi. Parshendi, care to confirm which you hit?

Thus why I didn't think the offer would be taken up. It's a reasonable idea if you're going for an unaligned win, certainly. If we find the last Voidbringer (still assuming there's only one), then it'll be much easier to lynch Sons every turn because the peace-aligned Alethi will be willing to given that there wouldn't be any more secret roles among you. It's just not what I consider ideal, because I'm not going for an unaligned win. If you want to, though, have at it.

I'd suggest that all the Parshendi scan each other to find the last Voidbringer(s), but somehow I doubt that'd go down well.

I'm aware. I think it somewhat less likely that Cloud is one of those people. Theory only holds if there actually were three decayform kills and no Parshendi kill, though. Otherwise I'd look at... honestly, I could see any of the other three Parshendi being Voidbringers. Alv for being so annoyed and refusing to lynch another Parshendi, even a Ghostblood. Daniyah for being very, very quiet - though apparently she hasn't been very active in games since last November. @Daniyah talk, please! Drake for suing for peace so much (which is an excellent excuse to try to get Alethi lynched). Time to reread the thread, I think. >>

Now read through the rest of the thread, and more comments! (Not as many, happily.) No. Flash was Shardplate. He claimed that. You don't seem to be paying much attention this cycle? >> This is the second time you've confused something fairly obvious. I am well aware that the lynch/Shardbearer aren't going to actually try to target unaligned Alethi. I'm also aware that that is likely to happen a lot, because mislynches and miskills do happen. Frequently. (In normal games, I believe the lynch accuracy percentage is roughly 33%.) Yes. You are more dangerous now. This is obvious. What made you think there was trust in the first place, though? At all? This is SE. Trusting an opposite faction is... not exactly something that happens very much. Why does it matter what you assume, as I said earlier? I don't intend to honour this agreement, nor see a reason we should. Right. Good to know. Slightly less suspicious of you now, then, though that's still more thought about what the Voidbringers should do than I'd expect from someone unaligned. (Also, you're more active than I can ever recall seeing you. I can't verify that point completely, though, since I haven't played much recently - can someone else tell me how active he's generally been in recent games?)

Well. I have a lot to say, and I suggest that everyone read all of it, not just the quotes where I'm responding directly to you. Here goes! Most of my response is in my post above, but a few things - Why would the Ghostbloods find it practically impossible to win once Jondesu's gone? They still probably have two or three Alethi Ghostbloods. That's an assumption I just don't understand. This may have been before the change in the game, but other factions are definitely still major threats. The Parshendi can kill. The Voidbringers (assuming there's only one left, which is hopefully the case but I'm starting to be paranoid there are two) can kill three before they're gone. The Ghostbloods also haven't been touched yet (which will change now, happily), and also have a kill every cycle. Also, why does it matter whether the Parshendi assume we're going for an unaligned or SoH victory? The only difference is that we'd be a little less likely to concede on the lynch. It doesn't exactly change anything else. Correct. Obviously. Why were you so certain that Orlok was dying? You're the first person to bring this up, and did so twice before anyone else. You seem very certain. Disagreed, actually. I'm not sure the fix is balanced (from my limited perspective), but I do think the game needed to be fixed somehow because the Parshendi obviously weren't having any fun whatsoever and felt like they were being slaughtered. How many the Parshendi get? The Parshendi got one Shardbearer. If they got any more than that I would be seriously concerned with Seonid's judgement. How are you certain that there were three Voidbringer kills, and not a Parshendi kill and a Ghostblood kill? You also seem oddly certain. I'd guess that either you or Mint is the last Voidbringer, or you both are, or the Voidbringers have claimed to the doc. 2. I hadn't thought about that - it does make sense. The Sons know we might lynch Jondesu, and therefore of course have no incentive to kill him. >> Which is why he needs to be lynched anyway. 3. I blame it on both of you, Drake. Both the Shardbearer and you changing the lynch to an unaligned Alethi. I'm not terribly happy about that. 4. Not really. They're going to have a harder time for it, but even if there's only one they could do a bit of damage, and two could do a lot because no one would expect it. Good luck with your wisdom teeth! Not necessarily. As Cloud has pointed out (several times), it could also have been three decayform kills and the Parshendi Shardbearer not getting on before the cycle ended to submit a kill or choosing not to. Whose gain, Joe? How exactly would you gain from Brightness' death even if she is the Shardbearer? Point that I think needs to be raised just for consistency's sake: Drake is likely to die this cycle, like Orlok was last cycle, and thus has nothing to lose from lying about this. And there was certainly enough discussion about that in previous days that it's not impossible for Drake to decide to do so because he thought he was going to be killed. (Note: I don't think this is the case, at all, just like it wasn't the case for either of the other two scanners. I do think he desrves to have the same point raised, though. ) Right. There have been posts since then but I can't seem to load them, annoyingly, so I'm going to post this and then see if I can fix that.

So... here are my thoughts on the unaligned victory versus allied. (Note: I’m unaligned.) My assumptions: 4 unaligned Parshendi (one with a kill and an extra protect now), 1 GB Parshendi (Jondesu), 1 Voidbringer. ~5-6 Sons of Honour (giving them a starting number of lives similar to the Voidbringers and a similar proportion between them and the unaligned), 3 Alethi Ghostbloods, 4-5 unaligned Alethi. Everyone seems to want an unaligned victory. This is for a number of reasons - the Ghostbloods want it, obviously, because it helps them immensely in keeping the numbers even into late game. And many of the unaligned want it because of a desire to go with the peaceful, compromising option that lets the most win. That’s the reasoning as I understand it, anyway. And a year ago, I would’ve been the first to join the peace treaty. I love that kind of win. I seriously don’t think it’s feasible, though. If the unaligned ally, here’s what happens: the Voidbringer will take out about three people before they’re killed (because they’ve got Warform and Stormform, so need to be hit three times - one Decayform kill before they’re revealed, and then two before we can hit them enough to kill them fully, probably). The Sons kill every cycle, as do the Ghostbloods. Whereas the unaligned have two tools: the Parshendi Shardbearer, and the lynch. We have no more scans - Orlok and Asterion are almost certainly the only Alethi scanners (there might be a GB Artifabrian, but if that’s the case they’re certainly not sharing), and Drake is likely to die tonight. So we have to rely on logic and gut. Regarding the lynch: while that could be a tool of the unaligned, we have no guarantee that it will be. There are at most 10 unaligned, out of 19 players in the game. Not all of those factions are the same, yes, but all know their own members and can direct the lynch away from their own. Which, then, will lead to unaligned being mislynched quite a lot, because there’s no one to defend that group in the way the others will be. So that’s a tool of ours only in name, practically. From the Alethi’s side, here’s what happens: there are five kills in the game (Ghostblood, Parshendi, Voidbringer, Sons, lynch). Of those, the first three are practically guaranteed to be leveled at us (and if you say the Voidbringer is only half a kill, they’ll probably get in as many kills as the Sons will - it’s already Day 4 here. 3 kills is a lot.). The Sons’ definitely won’t be, but with the way the lynch is going there’s no guarantee that the lynch will hit the Parshendi, either. And yet the Parshendi have 12 total lives, 8 of which are unaligned. The Alethi have 13 total (not counting Shardplate/protection, yes, though protection isn’t much of a life because it has to land on the right person and I don’t think there’ll be much more Shardplate out there since one’s already been used up), 4 or 5 of which are unaligned. And despite that, the Alethi want to treaty with the Parshendi, and lynch one of the Sons today. Why? I do not think an unaligned victory is possible. We would have to find and kill every Ghostblood, Son, and Voidbringer, while they direct 3.5 of the 5 kills available each cycle. (.5 being the lynch, since it’s their tool as much as ours and they know what they’re doing.) Theoretically, yes, it’s possible to win. In practicality, the Alethi have a far higher chance of winning with the Sons. On the other hand, if we ally with the Sons. The unaligned Alethi and Sons together can control the lynch, and also actually know who needs to be lynched. We don’t have to lynch ourselves at all and risk hitting more unaligned Alethi, because wiping out the Parshendi is the aim. We can coordinate kill/lynch targets and protection. I don’t see why it’s a bad idea. Yes. Obviously the Parshendi won’t like this, nor will the Ghostbloods. Their best chance to win is if everyone tries for an unaligned victory. But it isn’t the best chance for the Alethi. If you want a peace treaty, go for it, but know that that isn’t the optimal play for you to actually win the game. Note: I would not have said any of this last cycle. If the Parshendi didn’t have a kill and Shardplate now, I was looking a lot more at the unaligned victory because the Parshendi obviously weren’t enjoying the game. I disagree that this is like MR7 - the Parshendi aren’t a hidden faction scattered among the others, aren’t being killed under the pretext of being eliminators, and Jondesu isn’t someone they want/need alive anyway - but it’s similar in one respect: they felt like they were getting slaughtered without a way to fight back. If that were still the case, I wouldn’t be advocating this. But it’s not. And so, I highly recommend that the Alethi look a little harder at why they want a peace treaty, and whether that’s more important than a much better chance of succeeding. So my vote is staying on Jondesu, thank you, because I'm not interested in lynching a Son when we've already had four hits on Alethi this cycle and are on equal and possibly worse standing than the Parshendi currently. (P.S. I’m not going to be annoyed at people who still want to do the peace treaty, though. I’ll suspect them of being Ghostbloods, because that’s more likely, but I have no problem with wanting to have fun more than achieving a win condition. I’m not forcing anyone to agree. I just want you all to actually consider the choice.) I have about ten multiquotes that I also need to go through and respond to, and I will do so at length tonight. For now, though, Orlok and I are in Yosemite, and waterfalls are a little prettier than arguments about alliances, so I think I'll pay attention to those for today.

*sigh* That's going to make things a bit more difficult, and annoying. >> If no one minds, now that Orlok's been confirmed as an Artifabrian, I'd like to lynch Jondesu, please?

Apologies - I'd missed that. My comment was more directed towards people who want to lynch him, not you specifically. The train of thought just originated from your post. Drake, you are very likely right. Thank you, then. Good to know. You are likely dead, then. Apologies. Question: was anyone else roleblocked? I'd like to know if the third Voidbringer also switched into Decayform.

Right. This post started a decent length and then got longer. Apologies, all. First, @Drake Marshall, any scan results to share? Or any other Parshendi? It's fairly obvious that you haven't scanned a Son/Ghostblood, otherwise that would have been announced far before now, but it'd be useful to know in any case. Agreed on the 3 Voidbringers, 1 Ghostblood distribution. I do seriously question why we would wait to take out Jondesu, though. If we can manage to remove all of the Ghostbloods, we can get rid of their kill, which is useful for all of us. Waiting indefinitely seems inadvisable. If we had a guaranteed other Ghostblood or Voidbringer (or even Son of Honour), perhaps, but in theory Jondesu is the person that everyone should want dead. (Other than the other Ghostbloods, obviously.) And it would come close to verifying Orlok as a second scanner. Having two (at least for now), we could then scan even faster and potentially even achieve that very peace that everyone's arguing for. How, exactly, does it make sense to lynch the person who can help to accurately achieve that win faster? Why do you think you're dying this cycle? Were you roleblocked? So, that's not the case, as far as I can tell. Apart from the lynch there were two kills: on Asterion and Roadwalker/Cluny. The Sons seem very likely to have a kill at this point, and I think it fairly logical that they would've killed a Parshendi. Thus, they hit Cluny and the Ghostbloods must've hit Asterion (which makes sense, as they wouldn't want to be scanned). The kills themselves, then, don't lend credence to the idea. I do still think it's possible and even probable, since that is the best case for the Parshendi. But I don't see any indication of it here. Again. Yes, he is? He's revealing one of the secret roles that needs to die in order to achieve that victory. I agree that some of his opinions lean towards the Sons, but his action of revealing Jondesu is in favour of that neutral victory. So I don't exactly see the issue. Unless you know something I don't, there has in fact been a Ghostblood kill. Or at least an attempted one, on Asterion. And... let's see. Both Cluny and Elenion were in Decayform. Presumably both roleblocked someone (since they must have both switched last turn because death comes before switching, though @Seonid you didn't techincally actually say that in the order of actions). Asterion implied he was also roleblocked, in which case it seems more likely that Elenion roleblocked and killed him, and Cluny hit Orlok (which... might even make a certain amount of sense given Orlok and Cluny have been connected in LG33, though I'm not sure that's an argument that's valid enough to pay attention to), probably not with the kill because he had no reason to believe he'd be dead and the kill would be more useful later in the game when they actually knew more roles. Oh - and if you think that Orlok is likely to die this cycle due to being roleblocked, why vote on him at all? That's a complete waste of a lynch. Also, regarding allying with the Sons even if they lie to us: I think everyone agrees (and agreed last cycle as well, which makes it somewhat unlikely to me that the Sons would think it would work) that the Alethi would immediately go for an unaligned win and kill the Sons at that point. No one likes deception and betrayal unless they're the one causing it. Jondesu.

And if this were... hm. Maill? I could see Maill doing that. Maybe. And maybe Joe, if he were being a particular troll, maybe, and also didn't care if he lived because he had exams or something. But no one else that I can think of would pull such a stunt. Certainly not Asterion. It's too messy, and not all that necessary. Nice argument, though. Props for this one. Please don't call me Elb? It's my second-least-favourite-nickname.

If he didn't scan you, why did he say he had? Honestly, if he's lying it doesn't matter whether he scanned you or not. The result (his death) is the same for him either way.

In response to your quote in my long post, that is. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Mmm. That's possible, assuming I believe the peace treaty Parshendi that they're actually genuine. Which is not necessarily the case - it certainly wasn't with most of Venture in LG23, for instance (also a faction game with a hidden faction among the public ones, which most people professed to be trying to find and almost no one actually was). And that assumes that the Parshendi would do that if the Voidbringers just claimed. Which would be just really sad. It'd entirely remove all of the Voidbringers' chances of success, when on the other hand the Parshendi and Voidbringers are far more likely to be working together. That might help the Alethi-Parshendi alliance, but it'd practically doom the rest of the Parshendi. I don't think any of them would actually countenance that. So given your word, I can put a lower likelihood that the Voidbringers have claimed, perhaps, but I most certainly cannot actually rule it out. Also, slightly interesting that you haven't responded to what I said in response to you. Not an entirely unexpected reaction, but does affirm to me that you're a Voidbringer.

Regardless, it's the same amount of lives lost. The Alethi have such a majority that I would think that losing one would be less valuable than being certain that the protection's being used on an actual teammate, butI suppose I can see why that wouldn't be the case. ...That's not a problem with the theory? It's a theory for a reason. It can be proven wrong, but if it is that's not a problem. It's just a false theory. (Sorry. Semantics.) Clarify the 'would have stayed silent'? Silent in what context - not claiming to the Parshendi, not defending yourself in thread, not asking for protection?

I'd suggest, Drake, that you either tell the Parshendi or have an Alethi PM you in order to have accountability about who you're scanning. (Probably not an issue, but accountability is nice.)

Not really lynching someone out of love. Lynching Maill in LG24 was love. This is just... agreement to terms, more. Sorry.

Multiquotes incoming! From yesterday: We already do. For instance: First, this is a faction game. Those are hard to balance even if you're very good (which Seonid is). Secondly, just because it's not a game that's easy to break doesn't make that not a viable tactic. The two aren't incompatible. It's not a guaranteed way to win, certainly, but that doesn't make it a bad idea. @Sart, regarding your plan, you're being contradictory - both saying that other factions couldn't hit Drake because he's well protected and that we're lynching him this turn in order to give us insurance so that we can kill him if he lies. The two don't go together. Either he's protected and we can't kill him, or he's not and we can. ....HH. In what world is this mindset a good idea? (This isn't a game related thing, just unhelpful.) There's a third option here. You could actually make a decision - if you don't like the bandwagon on Yitzi (and you obviously didn't like it enough to vote on him), you could actually pick someone else instead of passively waiting to jump on someone else's bandwagon. If everyone had that mindset, nothing would ever happen. The point of this game is that you can't trust anyone and have to rely on your own judgement to decide who seems evil. If you always wait for others to vote, it becomes much harder to do so... On to C2! Results of the writeup - it's interesting that Elenion was attacked apart from the lynch. Two possibilities for this: 1) Sons of Honour killed him as a suspected Voidbringer and in order to get information from the lynch (thinking that he would actually die). Which is possible, but then raises the question of why the Ghostbloods didn't attack. (Two likely scenarios are either that they're waiting and don't want to alienate either side yet, or they simply forgot.) 2) The Ghostbloods hit him. Which is especially interesting, because it was mentioned a couple times in thread that it benefits the Ghostbloods to hit the Alethi more than the Parshendi (because the Parshendi are going to get hit by the lynch and so the Voidbringers will be a lot faster to be wiped out than the Sons of Honour, in theory). And yet they kill a Parshendi? The most interesting explanation for this, I think, is that the Ghostbloods knew he was a Voidbringer, because the Voidbringers have claimed to the Parshendi in their doc already. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Interesting theory, in any case. Excellent. Elenion. What? Why does the fact that he could be wasting a scan (which obviously he didn't) correlate to the fact that he has to be lying? That's kind of the least likely explanation... This has been answered, but briefly - we don't. But if he's wrong, we'll know soon, and he'll die in turn. It makes more sense that Asterion scanned the person set to be lynched, not less. That way if you weren't a Voidbringer, we wouldn't have to waste another lynch on you in order to get actual information, and if you were... well, this happened. Joe, might I point out that neither you nor Yitzi is from the original 13 colonies, or England? Just saying. What a lovely summary. Mind giving us your thoughts about how things have gone rather than just summarising, @Megasif? I'm somewhat curious why the Parshendi did so? I would think it would be in each Parshendi's interest to protect themselves, not others of whom they are not certain of their true alignment. Case in point, Len being a Voidbringer. Which implies to me that either the Voidbringers have in fact claimed, or the Parshendi that protected him was also a Voidbringer. (Or just didn't think things through. That's definitely also possible.) I disagree. As someone else pointed out, you're assuming that we won't kill Asterion if he's lying. Which we almost certainly will, because if he's lying he's not useful and likely to be of a secret faction. That's all for now! Think that's enough?

Actually, no, it doesn't. >> I'm Eponine, not Cosette. *sigh* For which I'm slightly interested in murdering Hael. Anyway. First, Joe, obviously. Second, Araris, a couple things. One, there is a pauper noble. It's Orlok. Have you not been paying attention? The missing neutral of the six is Cosette, who hasn't revealed yet. Also, Joe isn't causing that much of a problem, I think? He's also ensuring that there is a lynch, and that people actually get on it rather than having only three votes in the entire cycle.