Long Game 25: A Breath of Power

[Straw he/him]

Everyone, please get lifeless and awakened ropes.

[Mark IV he/him]

1 hour ago, Magestar said:

Are you saying I'm right, or that I'm a returned?  You keep being Sarcastic, and it's hard to tell when I can't hear your tone of voice.

Yeah, well, I'm not sure either. I thought I'd just point it out. I'm pretty sure I'm trying to say that you might have been right to an extent, but as I said, I'm not really suspicious of meta, so I've got con flicking reads here. I  basically trying to point out that this is also likely a possibility - the mere chance to kill two villagers in consecutive cycles is what an eliminator would aim for. 

Sorry if I'm coming out too aggressive in the game. I don't mean to be. It's just I now realise I've been a bit sleep deprived these past few days (assignment completions and whatnot). So, don't take it personally. That combined with this ridiculous circumstance makes me want to laugh maniacally and tear my hair out at the same time. 

[Magestar he/him]

Yeah, weird things are going on right now.  I feel like the Elims are way overpowered right now.

[Paranoid King he/him]

3 hours ago, Mark IV said:

The returned spotted a golden opportunity to kill two villagers on consecutive cycles (sound familiar, Magestar?). Why not blatantly reduce the number of votes on a person to zero rather than the bare minimum needed to save me. ( for those of you not convinced, if i were returned, why keep it a close call? If two of the returned were roleblocked, then I'd have likely died. Instead, steering the lynch during the day might’ve helped more. )

Just one problem with that idea:

Scenario 1: Mark is a villager. The eliminators overturn the vote and make us single-mindedly determined next cycle. We know they have awakened clothing and the game is suddenly in their favor. We start looking for plans that can still let us win.

Scenario 2: Mark is a villager. The eliminators let him die. We are none the wiser, and we keep on meandering along with no idea of the eliminators strategy. We don't buy rope, and we probably lynch Araris next cycle. But if we do manage to get our hands on an eliminator, they can just enact their plan then. There's nothing stopping them from doing so, and now they're a cycle ahead.

My point is, if Mark was a villager, the eliminators have no reason whatsoever to reveal their hand this cycle. It shows us what they're up to with no benefit to them.

[Frozen Mint she/her]

1 hour ago, Paranoid King said:

My point is, if Mark was a villager, the eliminators have no reason whatsoever to reveal their hand this cycle. It shows us what they're up to with no benefit to them.

The benefit to them is that we'd waste the next day's lynch on killing a villager.

[twelfthrootoftwo]

Wow...

The situation with Mark seems to be one huge IKYK. With five awakened cloths used, it's pretty clear the Returned were planning for this; I'm inclined to think it was an offensive move (which would make Mark a villager) for that reason.

One thought I had was to do the lynch in orange, and run it over the night and first 24 hours of the day. Then we total the orange votes and pile on whoever's leading with actual votes. It's more reliable than throwing awakened ropes around, but requires much more coordination.

GMs, can one person use more than one of the same item in the same turn?

[Elbereth she/her]

LG25: Day Three - Boring Death and a Bunny

Stanley smiled. He’d finally found a drab! He crept through the darkened house, stepping carefully over the debris strewn throughout. It seemed that the man hadn’t done much since his Breath had been taken. 

He slipped into the darkened room where Asher McClallen was sleeping. He didn’t even stir as Stanley drew a dagger and efficiently slit his throat. No life sense, of course. That made things easy. 

Almost too easy… He sighed. Where was the danger, the almost-getting-caught, the fun in slitting the throats of drabs in their sleep? 

Well, he had one more target for the night. Ryth. And it was the same routine as before. He didn’t even have to pick the lock on the door, because it was open. He found Ryth in his bed, sleeping soundly, and drew his dagger. 

Then he hesitated. Killing people for money was fine and all, but…

“I’m bored,” he said aloud. Then he had a great idea, one more great than Alexander the Great. He was being paid to kill drabs. But no one had ever specified how they had to die.

Ryth stirred in his bed, as Stanley looked around the room for something suitable.  There, a sparkling silver blade. Perfect.

He took the blade down carefully. Looked to be some kind of family heirloom, perhaps.

Then he poked Ryth with it. “Hey, rise and shine.” 

Ryth sat up slowly, then saw the shining blade pointed at him and scrambled backwards out of his bed.

“En garde!” Stanley said, and tossed Ryth his dagger. Ryth jumped away from it, and it stuck in the wall behind him.

Ryth tried to pull it out for a moment, struggling to even get his hand to grip the handle, until Stanley got tired of waiting and beheaded him.

“Incompetent fighters these days,” he muttered, and left, tossing the silver blade behind him. Who needed blades when you could kill in so much more interesting ways? But more importantly, who used silver blades when you could have gold?

---

Little bunny Foo-foo,
Hopping through the village
Picking up Plathar Ku
And bopping him on the head!

---

DC died! He was a Hallandren Villager!
Silverblade died! He was a Hallandren Villager!
PK was killed by a Lifeless Rabbit! He was a Hallandren Villager!
Breath was stolen!

Day Three has begun. You have 48 hours to decide who to lynch. 

Quicklinks

 

Signups
Night Zero
Day One
Night One
Day Two
Night Two

Player List

 

1. Luckat (Lularah)

2. Bugsy (Unknown)
3. Araris (Alalar)
4. Assassin in Burgundy (Burganaa)
5. Magestar (Yulis Zorander)
6. The Only Alex
7. Silverblade (Ryth)
8. Conquestor (Lorien)
9. SilverDragon (Jaftar)
10. Mark (Darb)
11. Elodin (Eventeo)
12. Sheep (Kelek)
13. Deathclutch (Asher McClallen)
14. Straw (Pallelae Hominis)
15. Paranoid King (Plathar Ku)
16. Daniyah (Dimsari)
17. Ecthelion (mysterious cloaked figure)
18. Lopen (Talion)
19. Frozen Mint (Shivawn)
20. Dalinar Kholin (Varg)
21. Meta (Cog)
22. Doctor12 (the Healer)
23. Twei (Kolth)
24. Bard (Brick)

Edited August 27, 2016 by Elbereth

[Elbereth she/her]

27 minutes ago, twelfthrootoftwo said:

GMs, can one person use more than one of the same item in the same turn?

Yes. 

[Mark IV he/him]

Did anyone try to attack me last night? Because, ta-da! I'm still alive. And, no, I didn't use a lifeless 'cause I don't have one. 

I forgot to ask this in the last cycle, but did any villagers try to remove a vote from my head on D1? I know this is a silly question, but I'd still like to check.

Vote coming in some time (unless I got to sleep, in which case,  vote will come later)

[Doc12 he/him]

Three villagers dead. How. Why? Couldn't the Returned only steal a single man's breath a night? Or were they more powerful than they had imagined? How came there to be two drabs dead this night? Had one of the villagers attempted to pass another villagers his Breath in an act of kindness? Why would there...be two drabs? 

And friend Plathar. He was a good man. He was an thoughtful and wise man, who had attempted many times to gather the villagers into discussion and planning. Evidently that was why the Returned had gone after him first. If it was a Returned. 

He refused to consider that a villager, one of their own, had sent that Lifeless rabbit. 

And still none of the villagers were speaking. None of them. Were they afraid? Were they secretly talking amongst each other? Why was no one speaking? The town was eerily quiet, and the Healer sat alone, waiting, hoping that the villagers would start speaking up again, praying that more deaths could be prevented this day. 

[Magestar he/him]

Two of those village were innactives, I am pretty sure.

This game is basically set up for the Returned ATP.  

I want lynch canidates, and I think we need a lot of discussion.  I am really haveing a hard time decideing whether or not we should Lynch him.

I am also less suspicious of Meta than I was, because that play that the Elim's made last night does not seem like a Meta move, unless the Elims are Really, Really desperate.

[luckat she/her]

I don't have a lot of time right now, and I'm probably not going to be on again today. I should be on tomorrow for the end of the day cycle, and I'll be able to change my vote if necessary.

First, after all the vote manipulation last cycle, it is really important for us to be careful with our votes. Even one stray vote can lead to a lynch on someone we don't want, and we'll need a lot of votes (at least six) to even guarantee one stays on our targets. So we'll need to put together a solid lynch on an agreed upon target well before the turn ends. We'll need everyone to work together for that.

Second, there were two drab deaths. I believe the only ways someone can become a drab are by 1) having Breath stolen; 2) giving away Breath; 3) awakening the wrong item; or 4) consuming Breath as a Returned. There can only be one Breath theft each night, so the second one must have died for a different reason. Non-Returned don't consume Breath. Neither player died with an item (Elbereth told me players who died would have their awakened items revealed), and the death would have occurred before they had a chance to retrieve the Breath. Therefore one of the two must have given away their Breath to someone. Deathclutch hasn't been on since right about when the game started, so he hasn't been sending in orders. This tells us two things. First, Deathclutch must have had his Breath stolen Night 1. Either the Returned dislike inactives or they figure someone who isn't paying attention is more likely to have more Breath since they haven't been awakening. This could give us a clue as to who lost their Breath this time. Second, Silverblade gave up his Breath to someone for some reason, although I don't know who it could have been.

Third, I think the most recent lynch deserves some good discussion. It was a clear use of Eliminator power, which can give us some leads on their plans and their membership. Here's the vote tally (strikethroughs indicate uses of Awakened Clothing):

Araris (2) Paranoid King, Lopen
Magestar (1) Araris 
Ecthelion (1) Conquestor, Bard
Mark (0) Meta, Magestar, Twei, Dalinar

Two things stick out--Mark was saved by a rather obvious vote manipulation display, and Araris was chosen out of the two players who had two votes to die. This is especially interesting because the Returned initially tried to kill Ecthelion Night 0, and the suspicion of Araris seemed more substantiated to me.

However, looking at this vote tally in isolation does not give the complete picture. Another very interesting thing happened shortly before the turn ended: while the vote seemed like it was solidified for Mark with Ecthelion in a distant second, only 40 minutes before day's end Lopen changed his vote for Mark to Araris. If he hadn't and the vote blocking had been the same, this is what the vote would have looked like:

Araris (1) Lopen
Magestar (1) Araris 
Ecthelion (1) Conquestor, Bard
Mark (1) Lopen, Meta, Magestar, Twei, Dalinar

A 4-way tie with one vote apiece. Unless all four of those players are villagers, I can't see the Returned planning for the vote to look like this. If they're saving Mark or trying to make him look bad, why not remove the last vote on him, and why remove the vote from Ecthelion if he could be lynched? In fact, I think it is most likely that they either reacted to Lopen's vote or planned with him to make that vote. Putting this entire plan together as a reaction to Lopen's vote seems unlikely given the short time frame, although I suppose it is possible they were hoping for a villager to change the vote at the last minute. It's more likely Lopen was in on it. It makes him look suspicious, which he'd know, but perhaps they thought it made him look too suspicious to be an eliminator.

But I want to go back to who was saved. Mark was obviously saved. I'm not sure if that was misdirection or because he has a powerful item--they seem to have played a lot of their hand to protect him. However, I'd like to look more closely at the person who was more subtly saved: Ecthelion. The Returned could have let him die instead of Mark, or instead of Araris, but they didn't. Why? I think it is because he is now one of them. Unless someone comes forward with a Strawman scan that says he's not a Potential Returned, this is where my vote will go for now. Although I'll make sure to change it if the villager as a whole is going in a different direction.

[Magestar he/him]

I could be wrong, but I think DC and SB were killed by the inactivity filter...

@Elbereth, is this right?

[Elbereth she/her]

There is no inactivity filter in this game. 

[Magestar he/him]

Oh.  Huh, that's scary.

Well, I need to pay more attention to things.

[Frozen Mint she/her]

I don't think that we should lynch Mark. It's possible that he was saved, because he was holding valuable items or a lot of breath. But that would mean that the eliminators gave Mark a very important role. Why would you have one eliminator fishing for information and stealing breath? Isn't it risky to put all your eggs in one basket? I would've thought that the one stealing breath would lie low while someone else would try to extract information from other players. It's more likely that the Returned are setting us up to lynch another villager.

Luckat makes a solid argument, so I'll add my vote for Ecthelion. If the majority want to lynch someone else by the end of the day, I'll change my vote to whoever that is.

[Magestar he/him]

I'm going to vote for Frozen, because I just keep having a bad feeling about them.  If, by the end of the day, the Majority is on Ecth, I'll change it then.

[Dalinar Kholin]

Well, as it is we have three leads: Lopen, Ecthileon, and Mark. I'd agree that Mark is the obvious one, but Ecthileon could be just as much a distraction as Mark. They could just be leading us in circles. I'll add my vote for to Ecthileon for now, but only because we need to keep our votes together.

[Conquestor he/him]

Ecthelion, Mage you need to vote with the rest of the village or risk dying next time a lynch happens. We can't let the Returned control the lynch, otherwise we lose.

[Young Bard he/him]

Posting to avoid the inactivity filter.

I'm really sorry I've been busy, everyone. I'm hoping to do a player by player analysis tonight, when I come back.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Wait, why am I being voted on? Again? Just because someone canceled Conquestor's vote, which was entirely out of my control?

Bard, because he posted about avoiding the inactivity filter right after it was just clarified that there is no inactivity filter. He probably didn't want to seem like a lurker.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Ecthelion III

[Doc12 he/him]

Luckat has a very good analysis, but I'd rather hold off Ecth unless someone can scan him with a 4 Breath strawman and confirm him. 

I do think Mark is a bit too obvious. They want us to be suspicious of him. 

Instead,  I'll cast the first vote on Lopen 

Luckat is right  that the sudden change is suspicious, and might have triggered or was planned to cause yesterday's outcome. 

Of course, if majority is still on Ecth, iwould go with them, but I suggest at least scanning him first. 

Edited August 28, 2016 by Doctor12
Vote retracted

[Dani she/her]

11 minutes ago, Doctor12 said:

 

Instead,  I'll cast the first vote on LOPEN {on phone. Someone teach me bbcode. I'll change color when I get home. 

 

You could always copy and paste the red colored text from some other post above and then change the text. That's how I make it work on my phone  

[Conquestor he/him]

We are voting on you because you are an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Also, we need one unified Village vote if we are going to beat the eliminators, so, we need for everyone to vote together.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Conquestor

[Metacognition he/him]

Are we seriously being distracted from lynching Mark? Unless someone blocked him last night (and even then, if he performed two actions, it still might have gone through), we had our first Lifeless Rabbit kill last night. This is right after they saved Mark from the lynch the previous day. I don't think that it's a coincidence. And now we're being sidetracked into focusing on someone else, thus protecting Mark from dying yet again. 

I'm almost positive that Mark must be the Rabbit Holder and they're trying to keep him alive as long as possible. If I'm right, I think Luckat is likely a Returned as well. Before there was the craziness from the last day, she was the one that suggested that everyone make Clothing. 

Quote

It wouldn't hurt to use your second action to store a Breath in Awakened Clothing if you have more than one Breath and retrieve it when you have enough Breath to make something more useful. Then at least if the Returned steal your Breath, they won't get as much, and you'll have the Clothing for in case it's ever useful.

It makes it a lot more difficult to scan for whomever might have caused all the negation when everyone has Clothing, which I think was the idea. She was setting it up so that they wouldn't be found out if they needed to use their clothing. I'll bet that she didn't expect to need it so soon. 

And now, she's trying to get us to focus away from Mark for the second time. In fact, I'm suspicious of everyone that's just following her logic without providing their own at this point. 

Guys, we need to take out the biggest threat first. If we don't lynch the Rabbit Holder this time, then two more of us are likely going to die the next night. While I agree that we should be watching Ecth, the only evidence against him at this point is that he might have won the lottery or he might have Returned and the fact that the Returned (unless someone else was also messing with the votes yesterday) decided to get Araris lynched over him; probably because he is getting so much suspicion. On the other hand, I laid out multiple reasons why Mark is likely a Returned and then they go out of their way to save him (from how the votes were supposed to be, there wasn't a subtle way for them to try to save Mark) and then we start seeing Rabbit kills. 

I will not be distracted so that the Returned can get more kills. 

 

Sidenote: Luckat, how are you so sure that Deathclutch was the target and Silverblade gave up their breath? It seems to me that it could just as easily be the other way around and that you know more than you're letting on here. 

11 hours ago, luckat said:

First, Deathclutch must have had his Breath stolen Night 1. Either the Returned dislike inactives or they figure someone who isn't paying attention is more likely to have more Breath since they haven't been awakening. This could give us a clue as to who lost their Breath this time. Second, Silverblade gave up his Breath to someone for some reason, although I don't know who it could have been.

EDIT: 
I also found this while going back through the game: 

Quote

I'm surprised whoever lost their Breath hasn't spoken up yet. I wonder if that means it's one of the inactive players, or if someone's keeping quiet for in case they are a Potential Returned.

Considering that we now know that it was either Silverblade or Deathclutch, is it just me or does Luckat seem to be fairly omniscient so far this game? Like far more than she has any right to be. 

Edited August 28, 2016 by Metacognition