Long Game 1: In the Wake of the Koloss

[loganmathewjohnson]

Haha, NOW all the questions come out. Three of us are DEAD, guys!!! Maybe we should have thought of this before. XD

[Metacognition he/him]

If Spiked try to kill someone the Lurcher has targeted, the target is saved. Effectively, you could take away the Spiked's ability to kill at night, but that would be some extremely lucky guesses to do so with any regularity!

[Oudeis he/him]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Votes

 

Grayv - 7 (Edgar, Aether, Clancy, Beetle, Quinn, Wilson, Mat)

Mat - 3 (Maill, Gambles, Porridge)

 

Interesting that neither the Rioter nor the Soother have successfully used their powers yet...

 

Do we know how many Spiked there are? If the proportions work out like they do in games like Mafia and Werewolf, I'd suspect something like 4 of them.

 

The Spiked have one particular advantage. They know who the other Spiked are, and who the normal Villagers are. They, more than any Villager, have the ability to gang up.

 

In the daytime voting, only two people got more than a single vote. I humbly propose that it might be a likely scenario that they pooled their votes to ensure that a villager died. I realize this isn't the only possible scenario; once it became likely that Gray would die, the Spiked might have dispersed, left him to his fate since they knew he was a Villager. Still, it's all I've got to go on.

 

I therefore recommend to the Seeker that he start using his power upon this list of people. I think it's the quickest way that you're likely to find a Spiked. Once you find one, announce it, and trust the Lurcher to keep you alive. If we kill him and he's a Spiked, we'll believe you. If we kill him and he's not, we'll know you're evil, and we'll kill you next.

 

Unless someone has a better suggestion, I think we should try to focus on the seven who voted for Gray. Quinn did it first, then Beetle, then Wilson. At more-or-less random, I'm going to say Beetle. My thought is, Gray might have been voting on his own. If Beetle were Spiked, picking someone who already had a vote, that Beetle knew wasn't Spiked, would be a smart play, and if I'm wrong and Quinn is Spiked, then Beetle was helping a buddy.

 

So. This is my reasoning, and my vote is for Beetle.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Darnam

[bartbug he/him]

I follow your reasoning, and I could see why you would vote for me. But what I propose is:

Right now, let's not look on why people voted for people. That is something that Spiked or Villagers could do. Let's look at why the Spiked killed the people whom they killed. I mean, I'd assume that they would have a reason.

Edited January 9, 2014 by bartbug

[Kurkistan he/him]

How does that help us, exactly? The Spiked have access to no privileged information beyond who each other is (and conversely who the villagers are), and we know already that their goal is to maximize the chances of killing enough villagers to win the game. What could we learn about their choices that would let us identify who they are?

[bartbug he/him]

We can still look at the victims. What we know about the victims, the Spiked know. I mean, I hope they weren't just randomly choosing, because that would mean that we are sucking because we suck. Which would suck.

 

EDIT: I'm trying to say that if the Spiked were actually skilled in choosing whom to kill, that would be nice, because that would imply greater skill on all parties.

 

EDIT2: We know that we have no info from dr. digits, because they had know info. Let's look at jason, and the other dead guy.

 

EDIT3: Other dead guy is Grayv, who was voted dead. He would be almost impossible to glean information on. Let's focus on why Jason.

Edited January 9, 2014 by bartbug

[Claincy he/him]

@Darnam, Oooh clever, not a sure thing but there is an excellent chance that at least one or two of the spiked voted for him.

 

@Kurk, If person A voted for person B and then they were killed by spiked the next night that can indicate that they are spiked. It isn't always the case, however just before Jason died he started openly suspecting Edgar and then the spiked killed him. That isn't a huge amount of evidence in itself but he is also on the list of us who voted for Grayv. That's two pieces of evidence which is more than we have for most people. So for the moment I am going to throw my vote for Edgar. If we don't kill him we should at least prioritize seeking him.

 

(And yes, I am aware that I am on the list of voters for Grayv and so supporting Darnam's idea is supporting evidence against me as much as it is evidence against the others, but it seems like something worth investigating.)

Edited January 10, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[Claincy he/him]

Sorry for double posting, but I think it's preferable to editing now. Here is the relevant post.

Edgar is looking suspicious. he voted for mat when that's how other people were voting, then switched when it started to look like grayv would win the 'election,' showing that he's anxious for anyone to die that he knows is not a spiked. Also, he's the only one we know for a fact has killed someone. (he had the ax remember.) I know voting is not till the next period, but i wanted to say this in case i die before then.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Meta, can you at least pm the person who was almost killed so that they know? Or is that too much?

I'm leaning toward Edgar or Quinn, but I like your reasoning Kurk. I'm going to wait to cast my vote. I want to see other people' s proof or defense.

[Oudeis he/him]

All the Spiked needed to know was, "This person is a Villager," which they all knew already, because the Spiked all know who each other are. Obviously, they'd also like to take down other Roles if at all possible, but since they don't have access to the Seeker, they couldn't possibly know any better than the rest of us.

 

Them choosing at random is exactly what they'd want to do, and we aren't sucking. We made one decision so far, and it unfortunately was not the right one. This doesn't mean we suck, if we learn something from it. For example, I suggest that it's possible that what we've learned is, the people who voted in a large block might be the Spiked working together. If that's so, then we've got a list of seven people, and ALL of the Spiked are included in it. If that IS the case, and we act accordingly, then the Villagers have won. In other words, it's very likely that we're on the cusp of victory, and therefore aren't sucking.

 

Bart: If you have anything to add on the subject of "let's figure out why they picked who they picked," please provide it. Otherwise, I'm just going to guess that you're saying it to throw off suspicion on you. Which... actually doesn't necessarily mean you're Spiked, because a Villager doesn't want to die any more than a Spiked does.

 

Claincy: Good point. I still recommend that we pool our votes one at a time, since we may need five Villager votes to overcome if the Spiked all vote for one person (and if I'm right in guessing that there are 4). I ask that you swap your vote to Beetle with me this turn as a show of good faith; in exchange, I promise to vote with you for Edgar tomorrow if you still wish me to. I ask this because, since you are on my list of suspects, you might be trying to throw me (and the rest of us Villagers) off of Beetle and onto Edgar. If you're Spiked, you know who is and isn't, and could be trying to discredit me by using my logic to convince Villagers to kill off another Villager.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that, even according to my theory, there are still likely three people who voted for Gray who are yet villagers.

 

EDIT: Typo.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Darnam

[Metacognition he/him]

Mailliw- you want me to tell whomever was targeted who the Coinshot is or just that they were targeted by the Lurcher? Either way, I don't think that would work out very well. What if the Lurker picked randomly and accidentally protected a Spiked player? What if it wasn't the Lurcher and it was the Mistborn with the Lurcher ability for the night? What if it was the Mistborn with the Coinshot ability for the night?

 

There's too many possible factors that could be in play. If I gave out any more information, I'd be giving either the Villagers or the Spiked an unfair advantage. 

Edited January 9, 2014 by Metacognition

[Oudeis he/him]

If the Mistborn every draws Tin, does that mean for a day we're allowed to PM again?

[Metacognition he/him]

For that night/day cycle, yes.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

O.o

I would like to formally request that if the Mistborn is not spiked, could he please use Tin the next cycle?
hopefully he's been busy seeking out people?

Also, as to who 'pushed' and who 'pulled', they were aiming at the same person. It could very well be that the Lurcher was targeting themselves, just in case, and random luck had it the coinshot targeted them. Or maybe the lurcher kind of guessed who the coinshot target was. A few people voiced their opinions before night actions were put in, a few leaning towards Edgar. Maybe the coinshot wanted to take care of business right away? And similarly the lurcher targeted Edgar thinking he might be a target?

Now that I type this out, does seem a little unlikely.
I would assume the Spiked are targeting random people, so no clues or pattern there.

 

Edit: @Kurk, ah, ok my bad. Hopefully we get tin soon.  >.<

*Insert Gambles, speaking in his gruff, slurred drunken speech,
"Well, so wants to start betting on what the Mistborn gets next?"
 

Edited January 9, 2014 by Gamma Fiend

[Kurkistan he/him]

The mistborn gets handed one power a night by the GM, s/he doesn't get to pick.

[Oudeis he/him]

MISTBORN: There will only be one Mistborn. They have the abilities of all of the above, but will only be able to use one per cycle. At the beginning of every night, the Mistborn will be told which ability they have and it’s the only ability they have until the next night.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

I don't think the mistborn gets to pick which power he gets.

 

Also, the Coinshot is a Villager-only rule. If the Coinshot chose to snipe someone, presumably he had a reason to. Meaning either he guessed right and the Lurcher for some reason saved a Spiked person by mistake, or he guessed wrong and lucked out and the Lurcher saved a Villager... or, I propose that the most likely situation, the Mistborn is Spiked, pulled Coinshot, and chose to try to eliminate a Villager. He knows who all the Spiked are, meaning he knows who the Villagers are... and unfortunately, this means he knows who the Lurcher is now, and can tell the rest of the Spiked.

 

That's bad. The Mistborn is a powerful random element, and having him on the bad guy's side is NOT good for us.

 

I'm aware that my supposition is largely speculative. I very much hope I'm mistaken, so if anyone can pick at my reasoning and find a flaw in it, please do so. I'll feel better knowing things aren't as dire as they appear.

 

I have thought of another scenario, but one not much better for us. The Coinshot might suspect he knows who is Spiked, and attacked that person. He might possibly have been right. If so, perhaps the victim was the Mistborn, and drew Lurcher, and saved himself. This still means a Spiked Mistborn.

 

Actual Coinshot: I just wanna say, I personally encourage you to take out any of the people who voted for Gray. I realize we don't have a guarantee that the Spiked are among these seven people, but I've presented my reasoning, and I think doing it for this reason is better than just guessing at random again. If and when we get new information that allows us to make better choices I'll lead the charge to change, but until then, this is what I see as the way to move forward.

[Edgedancer he/him]

Well things are looking bad for me, aren´t they? I have multiple things to say so one after the other.

 

First, the argument that in my defense against the fact that I changed my vote with the mayority. Tecnicly I didn´t. Yes I changed my vote and I can understand that that makes me sucpicous but when I changed my vote it was 4 (me included) against Mat and 3 against Gravy so my vote actually made the mayority.

 

Second, the spiked killing Jason was a pretty smart move. Given that he accused me, it woud seem that I have a motive. Admidetly a bad one given that he already said what he said, I had at least an attempted excuse and that suspicions are on me now but a motive non the least.

 

Thirdly, I´m just gonna go bare and tell you my roll, as thinks stand I´m gonna die anyway, althoug something inside me screams against it.

I´m the Seeker, so yeah and sadly I have next to nothing to prove it.

The first night my target came in as undetected and it wasn´t Gravy, which leaves at least 6 possibilitys on why, so I´m gonna withold who for now and maybe present the name later on, depending on how things play out.

My second target was ... Jason because I wanted to now wheather he was just guessing or accused me on purpose, sadly we all now how that played out.

And thats all I can muster for my defense for now, so... please don´t kill me.

 

Lastly, goodbye Jason may you rest in peace.

[Quiver he/him]

Considering how bad the block voting makes me look, I figure I need to take a second to speak in my defence. Whenever I posted, I was going with the 'no votes are suspicious' train of thought; I had hoped that so many people shifted or jumped to my way of thinking because it was well reasoned out. Instead, I'm guessing it was the spiked players taking advantage of a sudden upswing to off someone and throw suspicion about.

(Paranoid? I'm not paranoid. Who told you that?)

So, I agree with looking at some of the names in the Grayv block, even though that implicates myself.

[Claincy he/him]

@Darnam.

Please note that I do not currently trust you any more than you trust me and I have I think good reason to be concerned. This plan of yours, while I agree that there is a good chance that it is correct, if we follow this path far and you are wrong and there aren't many spiked in the 7, we will just about lose the game with around the same certainty that we would win if you were right.

 

The part that concerns me most is if you are spiked, because if you are, then you would only be proposing this plan if most of the block wasn't spiked. In this hypothetical situation it would be an ingenious move on your part which could very very easily lead to all our deaths. We are playing with fairly high stakes on this plan. With that in mind I plan to keep a healthy suspicion on you until something proves otherwise.

 

So I'm suspicious of you and your suspicious of me, but one of us has to give the first show of good faith so I will change my vote to Beetle this round. Edgar isn't cleared of suspicion in my eyes as he could still very easily be a spiked trying to save himself and he has notably failed to give us any form of proof for his innocence and seeking capability. That could be just a result of bad luck with his seeking, or he just as easily could be lying.

Edited January 10, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[Aether he/him]

@Darnam:

 

Your logic seems sound, but it seems to me that you've forgotten to take some things into consideration:

• First of all, at that point we were focusing on just getting a majority vote for, well, anyone. Thus, once the votes shifted from Mat to Grayv, I hardly think any additional votes would be particularly suspicious. I myself came late to the show, and only really voted for Grayv to ensure that a majority vote couldn't be changed by a Soother or a Rioter.
  .
• Your argument rests on the premise that the Spiked would vote unanimously for someone, which quite frankly would be stupid, because they would then be in danger of being easily identified for exactly that reason.
  .
• Now, they might be forced into such a situation if the focus was on one of the spiked early on, and they needed to shift the majority, but no one really had anything else than our RP persona to go on at that point, so the chance of us randomly mobbing up against one of the spiked is less than targeting an innocent villager. And if we allow for the possibility of both Grayv and Mat both being normal villagers, then it would be smarter for the Spiked ones to spread the votes around, so as to not be easily identified.

 

To sum up, I think it is likely that there is at least one or to spiked villagers in the group that voted for Grayv (and a further look into when and why they voted for him might help identify who they are), but I think the rest of them (and at least half of them if they are four) should have otherwise. That is, if they had any foresight at all. I'll edit in my suspicions once I've looked at the older posts again.

@Edgar:

Sometimes it is so bloody easy to over-analyse this. Yes, if we assume that you are innocent, then it could be wise of them to target Jason to make you look bad. But then again, you can easily make that exact argument to defuse any suspicion Jason's death might cast upon you. Assuming you are Spiked, it would be an ingenious move (and also rather useful) to kill the one who argued against you, and then make the argument that it would not make sense for you to do so, because it would so obviously look like you killed him to shut him up.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
 

Now, my point in bringing all this up is not to muddy the waters (though I think I have quite thoroughly managed to do so, despite my intentions), but to point exactly how difficult it is for the villagers in this game to successfully identify and guess who's who. Darnam's and Edgar's arguments both seem perfectly sound and possibly spot on, but there are flaws to them (though not obvious ones).

 

In my experience, though you can successfully use deductive reasoning to correctly guess who's who, it is extremely difficult to do so. I myself think it is better to focus on psychology rather than logic in these cases. I've noticed that in games of Mafia/Werewolves (or Mistborn Elimination), the enemies usually keep a very high profile so that they can control the group mentality, or they keep a rather low one to avoid suspicion and detection altogether. The former is more easily identifiable, and in our case, the five most out-spoken players are (no particular order): Myself, Darnam, Clancy, Quinn and Edgedancer. I am not certain about that last one, since past Quinn, no one have had particularly long or frequent posts for the last 4 pages.

 

EDIT: Added the line.

.

EDIT 2: Made a new post for the promised list and deliberation.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Aether

[dyring]

Dyring grumbles angrily 'Wisened up finaly have you lot? I told you about that beggar already yesterday. Filthy creature, thieving and trying to sneak in here all the time without buying anything. He is up to no good I tell you! Where is that little despiccable saboteur? I'll give him a good bashing if hes in here fouling up my fine inn again
'

dyring votes for beetle again.

*edit - GM I think they meant you should tell de one who was attacned that he was targeted and saved by the lurcher if you hadent already.
Not that you should telm him who the lurcher was;)

 

*edit 2 - just put some bold to the vote;)(since adding color is filled with bugs for me, and messy to add;)

Edited January 9, 2014 by dyring

[Aether he/him]

       Aether had always prided himself in his work as a scholar, and he felt that his particular talents would be of good use in this crisis. "I have here a tally of the final votes from yesterday," he declared to no particular person as he nailed his moderately sized piece of paper onto a wall in the town square:

• Grayv - 7 (Edgar, Aether, Clancy, Beetle, Quinn, Wilson, Mat)
• Mat - 3 (Maill, Gambles, Porridge, Edgar)
• Porridge - 1 (Kukri)
• Beetle - 1 (Dyring)
• Quinn - 1 (Jason)
• Kukri - 0 (Maill)
• Abstained from voting - 1 (Darnam, Porridge)

       The scholar then pulled out a much longer sheet and hung it up, next to the other one. "This list, on the other hand, maps the deliberation and voting, as well as any voiced suspicion and change of votes. It is all set up chronologically. Perhaps a closer study of these sequence events could help us identify who amongst us has fiendish motives.":

• Porridge voiced his suspicion of Aether and Edgar, but didn't vote.¹
• Kukri gave the first and only vote to Porridge.²
• Maill voted Kukri, but later rescinded his vote.³
• Gambles gave the first vote to Mat.⁴
• Maill finally voted Mat.⁵
• Edgar voted Mat, but later rescinded his vote.⁶
• Porridge didn't want to vote.⁷
• Quinn gave the first vote to Grayv.⁸
• dyring gave the first and only vote to Beetle.⁹
• Beetle voted Grayv.¹⁰
• Wilson voted Grayv, though also suspicions of Mat. There's now a tie.¹¹
• Porridge broke the tie by finally voting for Mat.¹²
• Edgar glued together the tie by voting for Grayv.¹³
• Jason gave the first and only vote to Quinn.¹⁴
• Clancy broke the tie (again) by voting Grayv.¹⁵
• Aether voted Grayv.¹⁶
• Mat voted Grayv.¹⁷
• Darnam abstained from voting.¹⁸

Something might have been missed (especially voiced suspicions). If so, feel free to tell me, and I shall add them to my list.

 

EDIT: Now, note that the five of us were voted for: Grayv, Mat, Porridge, Beetle and Quinn; and three more were suspected and/or voted for at some point: Aether, Edgedancer and Kukri. The villagers who are still alive and escaped suspicion are: Maill, Gambles, dyring, Wilson, Clancy and Darnam.

 

Now, it is slightly strange that there were already three votes for Mat - a rather strong majority at this point - before anyone voted for Grayv, though I think this was because most of us was voting for RP reasons anyway. But what I find really suspicious is how much the votes swung in and out of a tie. Now, we know that Grayv was not spiked, and if we assume for a second that Mat is, this could indicate that his fellow Spiked villagers were trying to swing the vote away from him, which would implicate any one of at least Quinn, Beetle, Wilson (who made the tie), Edgar (who remade the tie) and Clancy (who broke the tie). I am excluding myself and Mat since I was voting with the majority at this point, and Mat because he would obviously not vote for himself.

 

However, if we allow for the possibility that both Mat and Grayv were/are normal villagers, then this curious back and forth voting could be the result of either 1. random chance, which makes it impossible to determined who, if any, of the voters for them are Spiked, other than perhaps if they just left it to mob rule and preferred to vote for someone else  - such as Kukri and dyring - just so sow dissent; or 2. they profited on the mob rule and voted both sides to sow confusion, which would make the tie creators and breakers - Wilson, Porridge, Edgar and Clancy - the most suspicious ones, though any of the original voters - Gambles and Quinn - could also be spiked.

 

Truth is, you can find any number of reasons to vote for whomever at this point, which is why I find it more useful to look closer at the more outspoken and certain ones, or try to find out who's the Seeker(s) and use his(their) knowledge to locate the spiked ones.

 

EDIT 2: Added rescinded and abstained votes to the first list.

 

EDIT 2: Added a missing word.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Aether

[bartbug he/him]

I was trying to keep this not known, but alas, I believe that I need to pull this out.

I am the Seeker, and I have had nothing but really, bad luck. I got Jason seeked as normal, and then (this is new), I got Gambles seeked. He's good, too. 

To reiterate: I am the Seeker, Gambles is a clean, average villager. Now Lurchy, please protect me. I'm almost positive that the Spiked will try to kill me now.

[Aether he/him]

I was trying to keep this not known, but alas, I believe that I need to pull this out.

I am the Seeker, and I have had nothing but really, bad luck. I got Jason seeked as normal, and then (this is new), I got Gambles seeked. He's good, too. 

To reiterate: I am the Seeker, Gambles is a clean, average villager. Now Lurchy, please protect me. I'm almost positive that the Spiked will try to kill me now.

       A second Seeker? Aether thought to himself. Well, I suppose there could be two of them, though the chances of it are rather slim. The scholar walked up to Beetle. The little boy had just announced his strange powers to the group of villagers who had been studying Aether's list. "So you too, claim to be a Seeker?" Aether sat down beside him and looked him in the eyes. "And what do you have to say about Edgar's similar claim?"

 

EDIT: "Since we now have two who claims to be Seekers, and none of which have any reliable information to give, I guess we cannot count on a Seekers help to decide who to target." Aether paused, looking thoughtful for a few seconds. "I can only then go by my first method of identifying Spiked villagers, which was to suspect the more vocal ones.

       "And by that logic, I'd have to target either Darnam or Clancy. I'll vote for Darnam for now, since he is the one who is currently making the most cock-sure claims, though this might change as the day progresses. Besides, his skills as a mortician have proven to be less than useful up to this point." And with that, Aether turned towards the inn to get a drink.

 

EDIT 2: Rescinded my vote as per my agreement with Darnam.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Aether

[Oudeis he/him]

Well... the good news is, we know at least ONE of them has to be lying, so even if we kill off Beetle today and learn he is, in fact, the Seeker, we can just kill Edgar tomorrow.

 

I would also like to humbly point out that this is strong evidence that Beetle or Edgar are Spiked, and that they're both on the list of people who might be Spiked according to my reasoning.

 

@Aether: First, people are going to do what they do in this game for whatever reasons they feel are best. Please refrain from calling them stupid. Second, game theory is all about figuring out the levels. By your logic, if they all thought, "hey, let's all vote together, because no one would believe we'd all vote together! It'll throw off suspicion!" would be a smart move, since it seems to have suggested to you that they aren't the Spiked. At the end of the day, it accomplished the short-term goal of, "a villager died". I agree with you that it's hardly proof. I've read through your impressive compilation. Your conclusion, however, seem to be that four of the five people you suspect (yourself included) are all within the subset of people I suspect, so at the end of the day we seem to actually agree.

 

Sidenote, from my experience with similar games, Villager or not I have been killed off a lot expressly because I am rather loquacious, which is one reason that during that first day, when I had nothing to say, I said practically nothing. I'm not sure I've ever seen evidence that people who talk the most are the killers, but I've seen evidence that people who talk the most get killed off by the Villagers.

 

In short, Aether, what are you conclusions? Do you believe your theory, which implicates yourself, to be that much more sound than my own? I offer you the same deal I offered Clancy. You seem to think that Edgar is suspicious, per your posts. If you'll vote with me against Beetle today, regardless of how it turns out I will vote for Edgar tomorrow.

 

Trust has to start somewhere. As Kelsier says, it's better to trust and be betrayed than to live your life in paranoid fear.