Mid-Range Game 56: Day of Reckoning

[Quivil she/her]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Do you think Araris can stop a kill? Do you think Stick's power-set counts as a Thug? Do you think two players count as a lot?

Sri. I was just trying to see if those counted. Not that I thought that was a lot.

Araris redirects, not stops. Stick? kind of halfway. And no, lots is 20-49.

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

If you inherited Stick's powers, does it mean you'll survive if Devo kills you right now? Do you think it's worth test-driving?

I didn't inherit Stick's powers, I stole them.

I keep powers I steal for only the cycle I steal them on. I just checked.

[Kasimir he/him]

31 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Found some relevant posts. Please give them a look since I think you'll have better judgment atm.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Things I noticed:

• Fake role claim that fell apart under closer scrutiny
• Bargaining to be kept alive longer via proving their role

Things I'm not sure I can notice due to current emotional state:

• Devotary's tone

Bonus thing I noticed for irony's sake:

• I suspected Devotary to be a Conversion role (which she was) and I insisted on exeing her to save us future headaches.

 

ED1T:

Honestly hate bringing past games up / player meta up as a reason to vote someone, so that's big part of why I really don't want to make a decision based on this info + upset Devo more. But alls fair in love and war, yeah?

Devo, I hope you don't perceive my "wanting to kill you" since D1 as a personal thing. I'm just trying to be the best Villager I can, ya'know 

 

I can't really tone read but I think the closest match I can find would be this one:

Agreed about the fake roleclaim - but Devo's also made genuine roleclaims as an Elim before. In LG68, she roleclaimed as an alignment scanner (which I believe she was) and in AG7, this kickstarted Wilson panicking when Devo made a fake action claim (sort of roleclaim tied, IIRC) which contradicted what V!Mat had told me. She claimed to have Lurched Mat with a protect item, but Mat got hit by a kill that night and lost a life, so that shouldn't have happened if Devo was really Lurching him.

Devo's tone is stronger and more negative here this cycle - that's my take. I don't feel well-equipped to work that out either - would like others to sound off. It's true that Devo's been playing looser and off baseline; AG8 was a good example of this, so I don't know where to go with that.

I think the plausibility of this, more than anything else, hinges on the plausibility of the neutral Epic Hunter roleclaim since that's really what's at stake here. As far as I can tell:

Quote

 

Epic Hunter:

Abilities: Y-shot kills, Epic scanning
Wincon: Kill X Epics, with at least one Village Epic and at least one Elim Epic among them.

 

I just have a hard time making sense of this wincon - trying to find and kill an Elim Epic could/should be hard, I guess, but given the apparent Epic population of this game, killing X Epics really doesn't seem that hard. We've had exactly two Regular claims and Mat, which means you could throw a stone and hit three Epics. Having to hit one Elim Epic is a bit harder, I suppose, but eh....

Note that if Striker's wincon requires him to seek Elim cooperation as well, he may be motivated to lie to cover for Devotary even if you ask about his wincon (sorry bro, I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but I also need to highlight that as a possibility.)

[Amanuensis he/him]

So Orlok confirmed Araris targeted me, and that I did nothing, so that's cool I guess.

Araris could still be Village, though I still do not understand where this one-time-use item is coming from. I'm not sure if I'll be able to trust Araris or Archer until the source of the items reveals themselves.

Since you're here @Tani , do you mind submitting your kill on Thaidakar the Ghostblood, since he's apparently been scanned non-Village?

[Quivil she/her]

4 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Since you're here @Tani , do you mind submitting your kill on Thaidakar the Ghostblood, since he's apparently been scanned non-Village?

Done.

Technically it's Devo's kill.

And I can't choose what action I copy.

And I can't steal the faction kill.

So if I can't kill anyone with Devo's power, he's probly elim.

Or fakeclaimed the killing part.

And the wincon... possibly.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Tani

[Orlok Tsubodai he/him]

Back to working through the thread, because I hate myself.

Unsure how I get this to be anything but a link: 

Quote

I'm okay with joining you on Experience for the moment as I'm just not fond of where Experience is ending up in my groupings. Karn, Experience. 

Quote

I'm pretty sure that the Elims are working out who likely is a Village Epic and who isn't from our reactions to the issue. Which I think adds an extra layer of confusion - Mat and Exp and, in my view, you - all basically seemed to have instant fairly robust credences in Village Epics in a way that stands out from the crowd.

@Kasimir, I'm inclined to agree with you on the idea that immediate acceptance of village epic indicates that it comes from a village epic - I had the same reaction. What I'm curious about here is you simultaneously holding this view, and voting on Experience. I think (at least at that stage in the game), tentatively clearing Matrim, Experience and Stick, to whom you were replying, would have seemed the logical extension of your position. 

Given Matrim's flip, I'm not suggesting the rule holds, but I am curious about what reads as a contradiction within a post.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I just have a hard time making sense of this wincon - trying to find and kill an Elim Epic could/should be hard, I guess, but given the apparent Epic population of this game, killing X Epics really doesn't seem that hard. We've had exactly two Regular claims and Mat, which means you could throw a stone and hit three Epics. Having to hit one Elim Epic is a bit harder, I suppose, but eh....

Note that if Striker's wincon requires him to seek Elim cooperation as well, he may be motivated to lie to cover for Devotary even if you ask about his wincon (sorry bro, I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but I also need to highlight that as a possibility.)

Basically why I'm having problems believing it too.

Like, my thought process essentially boils down to, we still have no dang idea why we're not getting Alignment flips.

If there was a role in the game that could reveal them via targeting, it'd already have happened.

If there's a single role we need to kill to stop it, that's like shooting fish in a barrel. And an insanely difficult climb for the Village to make, which is another reason I don't think this is a conversion game. 

But what Devo's claim does is lends credence to there being Elim Epics, which we just don't know.

So combined with the fact there's no alignment flip, it seems to me the catch of this game is we're looking for roles.

And what's a better Blackout troll then giving Reckoner Allies the Epics and Corrupted Epics non-Epic roles?

So that when people flip with no alignment, we still know.

ED1T:

9 hours ago, Tani said:

Done.

Technically it's Devo's kill.

And I can't choose what action I copy.

And I can't steal the faction kill.

So if I can't kill anyone with Devo's power, he's probly elim.

Or fakeclaimed the killing part.

And the wincon... possibly.

Honestly, I would bet money on you not killing anyone, thus proving it's a faction kill and not a role kill. Good choice btw!

Edited February 15, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Experience he/him]

Stick. I have no idea how to have any reads whatsoever without the alignment. Kinda feeling iffy about araris again, though it's still gut. Everything is really just gut at this point though, cause no fricken flips.

~

Emfatic felt the others. She felt their frustration. She felt their fear. 

And she became their fear. 

Wandering down endless tunnels. 

No one to accompany her. Not even a shadow.

All she wanted to do was help others... but... she was a failure. She would never be able to help them. She couldn't even get out of these blasted tunnels. 

And so she let the shadow in her soul take over. At least then she wouldn't have to be afraid. 

Because feeling pain was worse than feeling nothing at all.

...

Emfatic woke a short time later. Opposite her were strange symbols carved on the icy wall.

Spoiler

I had allomantic glyphs here, but they didn't load right...

 

Emfatic stayed where she was, and for the first time in her life couldn't sense anyone.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Experience
didn't work sad

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Experience said:

Stick. I have no idea how to have any reads whatsoever without the alignment. Kinda feeling iffy about araris again, though it's still gut. Everything is really just gut at this point though, cause no fricken flips.

~

Emfatic felt the others. She felt their frustration. She felt their fear. 

And she became their fear. 

Wandering down endless tunnels. 

No one to accompany her. Not even a shadow.

All she wanted to do was help others... but... she was a failure. She would never be able to help them. She couldn't even get out of these blasted tunnels. 

And so she let the shadow in her soul take over. At least then she wouldn't have to be afraid. 

Because feeling pain was worse than feeling nothing at all.

...

Emfatic woke a short time later. Opposite her were strange symbols carved on the icy wall.

  Reveal hidden contents

I had allomantic glyphs here, but they didn't load right...

 

Emfatic stayed where she was, and for the first time in her life couldn't sense anyone.

RIP Allomantic Symbols (images load if you put the link, not by copy/pasting the image, in case that's what happened).

Also I think you forgot to color your Stick vote

Edited February 15, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Experience he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

RIP Allomantic Symbols (images load if you put the link, not by copy/pasting the image, in case that's what happened).

Also I think you forgot to color your Stick vote

Ah frick yeah lol. Stick. Meant to unvote them actually. 

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

@Kasimir, I'm inclined to agree with you on the idea that immediate acceptance of village epic indicates that it comes from a village epic - I had the same reaction. What I'm curious about here is you simultaneously holding this view, and voting on Experience. I think (at least at that stage in the game), tentatively clearing Matrim, Experience and Stick, to whom you were replying, would have seemed the logical extension of your position. 

Largely: wanted to put some more pressure on Experience, and didn't expect to final vote Experience as I was also still side-eying Thaid (but new players IMO are always off-limits C1), deeply unsure on Mat, and still harbouring negative gut on Araris. And you're right to say I struggle to read Araris but I do think he's readable- it just takes a hell of a long time, but I have absolutely no issues just changing my reads on Araris repeatedly, which is more or less what happened across AG8 - just went up and down until I think about D5 or D6 where I finally started to come around to Village Araris.

I don't think I was convinced any longer at that point that immediate acceptance of Village Epic had to come from a Village Epic. Experience was directly reasoning from the name of the Village faction to the conclusion that Village Epics were possible, but also challenged Archer early on (asking him if he was claiming Epic), which meant that he was the only player in my categorisations who inhabited two categories simultaneously. So I just wanted to push him a bit more and see what came out of it.

When I did the analysis at that point, I wound up realising that there were too many IKYK layers for me to be comfortable with, alongside what I say here:

Quote

Some of this level of discussion naturally does connect back to the actual gamestate level, because Villagers will and should be basing their perspectives off gamestate assessment! We probably also shouldn't be expecting the same kind of assessment from the entire Elim team. But here's a second reason to think that Elim perception of what the Village thing to say is would be partly based off gamestate: if we think the Elims may have one or two Regulars or non-Epics (minions, I think Devo called them) - then it is possible that Elims might not feel necessarily so beholden to advancing the idea that claiming Epic is a very bold move for a player if they were Evil. On the other hand, if they have a full Epic team, then I think it's reasonable for them to be more cautious about claiming or suggesting Village Epics. But ultimately, what I really want to highlight here is that there's a number of factors at play including boldness, assumptions about what info the Elim team has, and what level of IKYK is going on, so in retrospect, I'm probably being a bit too confident in my earlier claims myself.

Basically: I'd started to doubt I could make coherent sense of what was going on with Archer and reading people's reactions to Archer because there were too many factors at play, so I settled for a brute-force categorisation approach and then went, "Oh hey, Experience appears in two categories, and interestingly, no one else does, which is a weird anomaly - let's put some pressure on him and see what happens."

[Amanuensis he/him]

Where I'm at today.

Exe Archer, see if Tani is able to kill Thaid.

If Tani's Thaid kill fails, exe Devotary tomorrow. If it succeeds and there's a second kill that Devo claims / a NK, we reevaluate.

After that, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

Where I'm at today.

Exe Archer, see if Tani is able to kill Thaid.

If Tani's Thaid kill fails, exe Devotary tomorrow. If it succeeds and there's a second kill that Devo claims / a NK, we reevaluate.

After that, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't know a subtle way to ask this without giving the game away and am regretting the lack of PMs immensely.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I don't know a subtle way to ask this without giving the game away and am regretting the lack of PMs immensely.

I admit I'm too dumb to pick up on subtlety tbh though yeah, feel you on the PM front. I'm pretty sure you and I account for a large percentage of this game's posts.

[Orlok Tsubodai he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

I admit I'm too dumb to pick up on subtlety tbh though yeah, feel you on the PM front. I'm pretty sure you and I account for a large percentage of this game's posts.

I can assure you that the two of you account for an unholy proportion of this game's wordcount, and thus difficulty summating in a spreadsheet. >>

[Experience he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

I'm pretty sure you and I account for a large percentage of this game's posts.

I'm more than pretty sure about this xD.

[Amanuensis he/him]

I reserve the right to blame TJ.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

I admit I'm too dumb to pick up on subtlety tbh though yeah, feel you on the PM front. I'm pretty sure you and I account for a large percentage of this game's posts.

You don't think he's pulling a Meerkat?

Because I'll be honest, that was my first thought when I read it, and I didn't want to give the game away, and I must admit I'm feeling alarmed that you don't seem to be taking that as a possibility as well. Because the timing is sketch and doesn't add up, and neither does the volte-face from Archer's previous post.

This is what I was hinting at when I said I understood how Orlok felt talking to Stick now because it's taking up all my self-control not to point that out.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

You don't think he's pulling a Meerkat?

Because I'll be honest, that was my first thought when I read it, and I didn't want to give the game away, and I must admit I'm feeling alarmed that you don't seem to be taking that as a possibility as well. Because the timing is sketch and doesn't add up, and neither does the volte-face from Archer's previous post.

This is what I was hinting at when I said I understood how Orlok felt talking to Stick now because it's taking up all my self-control not to point that out.

Oh, that!

I think I didn't consider it because I'm just straight up convinced Archer is an elim anyway.

ED1T:

Like, at the start, I believed Archer because a Medium role with delayed or limited flips makes sense. Except none of the role limitations he's claimed since make any sense to me unless he had a role like Reviver, which he's conveniently not commented on. That plus the insane amount of role claims we have since gotten makes his look so incredibly weak in comparison. Especially with no apparent redundancy.

And TBH, at this point, I think the elims are deliberately using the nature of a Blackout game to confuse and mislead us. Hence the abnormalities with Archer's claim and Devo's claim both.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

6 minutes ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

I can assure you that the two of you account for an unholy proportion of this game's wordcount, and thus difficulty summating in a spreadsheet. >>

RIP, sorry bro

From this, I'm inferring if you ever put us in a doc together, it'll be the Second Coming of House Urbain.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

From this, I'm inferring if you ever put us in a doc together, it'll be the Second Coming of House Urbain.

If by us, you mean you and me, I propose we just bro it out in thread and rarely talk in the doc anyway.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

If by us, you mean you and me, I propose we just bro it out in thread and rarely talk in the doc anyway.

I'm down for that. Interesting choice of tactics.

[Orlok Tsubodai he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

If by us, you mean you and me, I propose we just bro it out in thread and rarely talk in the doc anyway.

In before it turns out this is exactly what you're doing

[|TJ| he/him]

9 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I reserve the right to blame TJ.

Too much blaming TJ is going on in this game smh >>

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, |TJ| said:

Too much blaming TJ is going on in this game smh >>

Uhm, hello? No alignment flips? Kayana amount of roles?

You asked for this.

ED1T:

I say that with love, if it wasn't clear <3 I've embraced the insanity and I'm thriving.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Amanuensis

[|TJ| he/him]

4 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I say that with love, if it wasn't clear <3 I've embraced the insanity and I'm thriving.

Haha, yes ofc  My reply was in jest as well, you can blame me all you want. xD