Long Game 7: The Annealing of Luthadel

[Metacognition he/him]

Mesist was content to let the Nobles play their petty games with alliances and treaties. He, like Kassel, seemed to know that it would basically turn into backstabbing because that's what Nobles like this did! Instead he decided to focus on the bigger problem. 

 

"I suppose it comes to me to point out that there hasn't been anyone arguing against the idea of turning on Ashette. Now, that may be common here in Luthadel, but from where I come from, if you're part of my crew, you're part of my crew. I don't think the Skaa would let one of their own go without a fight just yet; even one of their own that seems hellbent on getting themselves targeted. You'd think there'd be more discussion going on, if they weren't satisfied with the results.

"But you know, I have seen that kind of behavior already tonight and now it's looking all manner of suspicious to me. 

"Hyrun, you're off the hook for now. I'd like to know more about why Tonul took it upon themselves to stand up for Fien. As far as I can tell, those two seem to be in cahoots more so than anyone else at this point."

Edited July 24, 2014 by Metacognition

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Alright, no time for RP, but I want to try and get at least some discussion going!

I've been trying to breakdown the game into the possible numbers of Roles that might be in play, so we can at least have some sort of rough guess as to what we may be up against, Skaa-wise. 

The first thing to keep in mind is, as cruel as the GMs may be, the ultimate objective of designing a game is to make it as fair as possible for all of the Teams participating! So as long as we keep that general assumption in mind, we should be able to come up with fairly accurate guesses. *Of course, unpredictable game imbalances, and any incorrect assumptions on our part can always lead us completely astray in trying to figure this out.

 

2 Great Houses with 4 players each. 2 Semi Houses with 3 players. And then the rest of the Lesser Houses with 2 ea, and a random Kandra thrown in the mix somewhere. This seems to be the general assumption so far. If we go with the estimate of 4-5 Skaa, which sounds just about fair, then that could leave a possible placement of at least 1 Skaa in each of the Greater and Semi Houses. Because having a Lesser House with somebody being paired up with just a DF does seem rather cruel *but is still a possibility*
 

Thinking of what the Skaa might actually have, role-wise, if we assume that the Roles were assigned to the Team before the Random rolling of seeing who gets what, then we can try and guess what would be the most-likely team set-up they have. *These are of course my complete speculative guesses, and I could in fact be way off.

1)Smokers Nevermind about Smokers. Forgot Bronze doesn't actually find out Alignment this game. So the Skaa might actually have a Seeker, then, as they could use them to hunt down who their biggest targets should be.

2)Vote-Manipulation Role -- toss up between which one, but that definitely seems like messing with votes would be very useful to them
3) I'm not sure between Tineye or Pewter. Both seem equally likely, depending on their numbers.

4)Mistborn, a JoaT would be very key for them

5) Could be anything else, really. If they have 5 players, they're already pretty well stacked, then, and anything else at this point would just be gravy, for them.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Gamma Fiend

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Panda actually started making sense for once. So I had to retract my Vote. (Though honestly, it seems more suspicious that's he's playing Logically.)

Jain, making sense?! What has this world come to?

I think we've pretty firmly established the Eight Houses. So there's no need to deliberate on that anymore. Meta, I think you're right about no one defending Ash, even a little. I retract my vote for Ashette. I haven't yet decided who I will put my final vote on though.

Gamma, I'm not sure I agree with your assumptions on the Skaa metals. My guesses are:

1. Pewter/Iron. A defense role is pretty standard for the Evil tea,, thought not a hard rule.

2. Soother/Rioter. This I agree with you, Gamma. A vote changing role is one of the common roles given to Team Evil.

3. Seeker/Tineye. This way, they would be able to spread false information or gain more information, which would help them target more dangerous nobles.

4. Smoker. This one is my final and least likely guess. In this game, the Smoker's aren't as vital as in others, where Bronze detected alignment. But having someone to help cover them would be very useful.

I doubt that the Skaa have a Mistborn. There's probably one, maybe two Mistbornin this game, and while possible, I don't think the skaa have one. Especially if there are five.

Mailu surveyed the crowd, taking notes of who interacted with who. He watched the accusations fly everywhere until all but the quietest one had spoken up. So much backstabbing. So many lies. Even the people Mailu had grown up with, friends, he wasn't sure he could trust any more. The skaa were a nuisance and a disease. They were Ruining the nobility, causing them to scramble and turn on each other quicker than ash fell. Stupid skaa. Mailu decided to sit at a table near the back, one raised on a platform, to watch the proceedings. He left a chair open, if anyone wanted to talk, he could use the info, but he didn't desire anyone to come either. For now, he would watch and wait.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Jain, seeing a convenient open seat, immediately went for it. Ignoring the other person occupying the table and his belated greeting, he sat down, took out his pack of cards and asked the man to a game of poker. Before the other person could reply, Jain drew in some other chairs, formed them up around the table, propped his toy panda up on one of the seats ad sat patiently waiting for other people to join him.

 

This is going to be a political game, so of course I'm gonna be rational.   

[Dellexe he/him]

Kaldin sat down, gingerly removing the panda from the seat. Kaldin swore he almost felt a sense of anger coming from the stuffed creature.

"Mind if I join in?" Kaldin asked the man with the cards. "I'm a bit rubbish at this game, though I do very much enjoy playing it."

 

I'm kinda lost right now. Mountains of blue and black text to read and try to understand. I'm not too good at this yet. Wandrin still hasn't done anything since he was last called out, so I'mma throw a vote his direction.

[Newan he/him]

Hi guys. My work just got more intense and my best friend just got home from school, so I've been really busy.

I've been checking in, reading the posts, but I didn't want to say anything until I had time to sit down and do some hardcore analysis with charts and stuff. I wanted to have something to add to the discussion.

Unfortunately, unexpected situations have arisen for the third time in three days, and I will not have the chance this cycle. So I only have one thing to say:

Please don't lynch me. I promise I'll be better. Don't give up on me now!

[Tulir he/him]

 

"But you know, I have seen that kind of behavior already tonight and now it's looking all manner of suspicious to me. 

"Hyrun, you're off the hook for now. I'd like to know more about why Tonul took it upon themselves to stand up for Fien. As far as I can tell, those two seem to be in cahoots more so than anyone else at this point."

That was purely RP and I explained it here.

[Metacognition he/him]

Purely RP isn't any better reasoning than being erratic, IMO. 

 

I stand by my reasoning so far, unless you have something more to add. It's not like my one vote is going to kill you as is, but if that's all you can offer us, then other people might start to pay closer attention to you too. There's still plenty of time left in the day. 

[twelfthrootoftwo]

Personally, I think RP has a lot more reason to it than random actions. (Didn't you vote Fien as soon as the game started, Meta? Or was there more reasoning there than your RP feud?) After all, flavour and worldbuilding inform the rules. Why shouldn't characterisation inform our actions, if it's not hugely detrimental to the game?

So I didn't jump on Tonul's actions at first. But after seeing Meta's first post, something else occurred to me from Gamma's actions - namely, how he stuck to his vote for Ashette. 

"Shorry, Chette," he slurred, "I'm not really a philossifer or anything, but those are pretty shoddy reasons for your atnics earlier. I actually doubt you're skaa filth, but you're obvishly not trying to help us at the moment!" He gestured aggresively towards Ashette, splashing wine out of his cup, but miraculously missing his sleeves as it spilled.

I've noticed there's two types of lynch votes: the ones where you actually want a lynch, and the ones where you just want an answer. Normally the latter kind get retracted when an answer is given, whether or not it's satisfactory, unless the voter has decided they're an eliminator. So Fien, why keep your vote on Ashette if you didn't think she was Skaa? Were you aiming to scare her straight?

This is supposed to be a vote seeking an answer, but I'm not sure if I'll be on again before the rollover. So please don't everybody suddenly decide to bandwagon Gamma! I certainly don't want him lynched just on this flimsy evidence.

[Newan he/him]

Tonul, Cat, Kal Dell, why haven't you changed your votes? You said you were only voting for me because I hadn't posted.

I'm guessing Cat and Kal Dell haven't been on yet because of sleep, but Tonul posted without addressing my post, so what's up with that?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

On the topic of who we should actually vote for, there are 3 options. The first, is just pick someone at random and have a 1/4-1/5 chance of killing a skaa.

The second is to kill someone based off of suspicions the whole group has access to in the thread. Unfortunately, at this stage that doesn't mean much more than a random kill.

The last option is to kill one of the High Lords. There are three scenarios which would follow this choice.

1) The Lord is a noble in an uninfiltrated house.

2) The Lord is a noble in an infiltrated house.

3) The Lord is a skaa in an infiltrated house

The question is, how bad are outcomes 1 and 2 and are they worth the risk for a possible #3 which would seriously cripple the current skaa capabilities. Also if we do choose to kill a Lord, should they come from the Great or semi-Great houses.

In my personal opinion, killing a Lord this turn is the only action we can take that allows us to use a similar amount of information to the skaa. Given that killing a Lord of a full Great House would have only a 1/3 chance of passing the power to a skaa if the house was infiltrated, and has the added bonus of not leaving myself as an option, I believe we should go for a Lord.

Any thoughts?

[Ashiok]

I dunno if we want a day one lynch, as I've said before. All the roles are useful, and EVERYBODY has them!

Also, if we lynch the head of a Great House, it makes it easier for the Skaa to get the power through kills

Edited July 24, 2014 by Ashiok

[Theorymaker he/him]

I'm personally against killing House Lords/Ladies but that's just me.  

[Kasimir he/him]

I really hope you aren't joking.
 
In two out of three of your scenarios, you're asking us to kill a noble--and a noble in a position to use their House powers to our benefit, without invoking the 1/3 chance of passing the power to the skaa if the House was skaa-infiltrated. I don't see how we're using a similar amount of information to the skaa here, by going after the House Lords of GHs.
 
I think it unlikely a House Lord is skaa. It's not an impossibility: King has said that there are no safe roles. But here's my reasoning: skaa House Lords can destroy House powers. If they're the only skaa in their House, better to destroy the powers and deny them to us than to keep them around and use them should they be in danger of dying. Giving the skaa the House powers and the ability to destroy them from the very start seems a bit unbalanced, given the skaa already have an advantage. But granted, this is an assumption about game balance.
 
So let's say we go with your plan. I submit that it would further incentivise, in possibility 3), our skaa HL to destroy the House power, unless we succeed in a 1/4 chance in finding them. No. That's bad odds.
 
This is the second time Araris has suggested a plan that runs somewhat counter-intuitive, if we are to be charitable. That looks rather wanton and deliberately so, if we are to be uncharitable. 
 
I don't usually vote on Day One, but when I do, it appears I vote for Hadrian Penrod, once again.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

But it was pointed out before that with as many vote changing roles as there are in this game, reaching a tie vote will be extremely difficult. If we don't take control of the lynch vote then a skaa soother/rioter will do it for us. The only information we have right now that is available to the whole group is who the Lords are. If we go by your assumption that none of the Lords are skaa, then doing a random lynch becomes closer to a 1/3-1/4 chance of killing a skaa. However, if you have access to any information that we should use as a group to decide a less than random lynch I would love to hear it.

I will vote for whoever the group decides to kill, regardless of who it is, because I believe we should control the lynch on the first day.

Unfortunately, killing anyone in a Great house, skaa or not, brings the skaa closer to gaining the power. A random lynch has a 2/11 chance of hitting a minor house, unless we reveal to everyone which houses we are in, which we already decided against. If anyone can show me how to stop the lynch then I support them completely, otherwise we should act in the small amount of info that we have.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Araris Valerian

[Kasimir he/him]

Convince me that suggesting we collectively target a House Lord is the same thing as preventing vote-changes. And if you've argued earlier that we have a poor chance of finding skaa on Day One, that is absolutely correct. I'm going to stay agnostic on the issue of a Day One lynch, especially because I don't want to bring up that tired old debate again.

So here is where I disagree with you:

1. Don't forget, we have Smokers too. I don't know how many of them there are, but this will also be better tomorrow if all Smokers start Smoking someone, which I really hope they will do. Still, we're arguing about what course of action to take today.

2. Really? Is it so bad if a skaa soother/rioter controls the vote? If they do, it gives us information. You yourself have acknowledged we don't have much information on Day One, so it's all a shot in the dark. Any vote shenanigans gives us information with which to work with. We know that they're trying to direct heat away from people, and towards people. Right now, we don't know anything about their intentions, or their strategies, or how they're trying to play.

3. You're also asking us to create a vote dogpile. And the thing is, a collectively-negotiated dogpile gives us almost no information at all; looking at who voted for whom isn't as helpful in such a scenario. It creates more noise than signal. does remain and I submit it is fair to say that it creates noise.]

4. Even if I were to agree about the issue of creating a vote dogpile (I most certainly don't), creating a vote dogpile is a separate issue altogether from a strategy of going for the House Lords (of the GHs/sGHs, yes, I know.) I therefore think it slightly disingenuous to suggest that your strategy of targeting House Lords is to prevent vote shenanigans.

My vote stands.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Kasimir

[Araris Valerian he/him]

So if I had not posted that idea, who would you have voted for? My goal is to list possibilities for us to make organized decisions, and nobody else has provided a reliable strategy of what to do this first day.

On a side note, I am sad that posting a (potentially terrible) strategy has made me more of a target than people who have not made any contributions at all. Based on the first 48 hours of voting, this group likes contribution, and I have given more of my own personal thoughts on stragety then just about anyone except the people disagreeing with me.

Another strategy we could try, if we want info about soothes and such, is to decide on 2-4 people that we could all tie, and just see how the soothes react. We would need to find a balance between how much information we stand to gain and how much leeway we want to give the skaa with controlling the vote.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Araris Valerian

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Jain, seeing a convenient open seat, immediately went for it. Ignoring the other person occupying the table and his belated greeting, he sat down, took out his pack of cards and asked the man to a game of poker. Before the other person could reply, Jain drew in some other chairs, formed them up around the table, propped his toy panda up on one of the seats ad sat patiently waiting for other people to join him.

 

This is going to be a political game, so of course I'm gonna be rational.   

Arent these all political games?   

Kaldin sat down, gingerly removing the panda from the seat. Kaldin swore he almost felt a sense of anger coming from the stuffed creature.

"Mind if I join in?" Kaldin asked the man with the cards. "I'm a bit rubbish at this game, though I do very much enjoy playing it."

 

"I have never played this before. Though, if you teach me, I'm willing to try a hand," Mailu told the two who had sat down at his table with cards. He was bluffing of course. If he acted new and innocent, he might be able to learn something from these two. He might be able to win a bet or two, if he played his cards right.

I have to agree with Kassel here. Hadrian Killing off the House Lords of Great Houses? From an RP standpoint, that's absurd. From a game perspective, that's exactly what skaa in the great houses would want to do. Kill off The Lord of an infiltrated house so that one of their own can get the power of being a house Lord. I can't see how it's helpful to us at all to vote them off.

[Ashiok]

I'd have to mostly agree about Hadrian. His plans seem skewed towards the skaa more than nobles, by that night just be early game balance speaking. I'll give him one more chance to defend himself, then I'll make my decision for good.

[Tulir he/him]

Apologies, Wandrian, I wasn't really paying attention when I posted that.  I will be back later  with some more posts, before the roleover time.

[Ashiok]

Can somebody do a vote tally? I don't have the time to do so right now

[Kasimir he/him]

If you had not posted a strategy that would be congruent with the ideal strategy for skaa, I would likely not have voted at all. (Although I admit I have a question for Kal Dell which I'd probably have placed a vote on him to get him to answer. If you're looking at this, Kal: there were two informational votes on Newan by that point in the game. Why add a third if you only want him to respond, rather than to actually kill him?)
 
As I mentioned previously, I don't tend to vote on Day One unless something strongly catches my attention. (QF2 was an exception and that was because we generally can't afford to not lynch at all on Day One in a QF.) As people have pointed out previously (not in this game), we get information first and foremost from the lynch discussion. While it is inevitable that we need to lynch sooner or later, I don't feel particularly strongly or urgently about a Day One lynch in this Long Game.
 
Are you contributing? Yes. I can't deny that. But I can't just ask if you're contributing. Just as you've said, almost everyone in this dog-and-pony show has been contributing, to differing degrees. It's just as important to actually look at the content of the contributions so far. Am I certain you're skaa? No. I'm not sure what to make of you. (And many people in this game can attest to the fact I'm pants at reading people and assessing motivations.) But as I've said, your strategies are consistent with the aims of skaa. I don't think that's evidence for your being skaa. It's way too early for evidence, and it being consistent with your being skaa does not imply or in any way 'prove' that you must be skaa. (To say otherwise would be bad logic.) But nonetheless, that is certainly something I wish to flag.
 
And as Ash requested:

Jae (1): Aonar
Ash (2): Fien, Jain
Tonul (1): Meta
Meta (1): Shiv
Jain (1): Hadrian
Newan (2): Cat, Kaldin
Fien (1): Racine
Hadrian (2): Kas, Maili

[Ashiok]

I'll bet that the skaa have a manipulator, so there will be a day 1 lynch. The question is: who chooses the lynch? Us or the skaa? Which gives more info?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I listed several plans. The idea of killing a house lord was based upon the idea that they are a known quantity, and that if they are not skaa, killing them has little or no difference than accidentally killing one of the nobles within that same house. If anyone wants to organize a system where 2-4 people are tied and we let the people with vote changing powers decide, that would give us some info about the skaa at the cost of most likely allowing them to get a certain double kill the first night.

So my list of plans this night is expanded to 5:

1) Random person

2) Suspicions

3) House Lord

4) Allow vote- changers to decide

5) Me

At this stage of the game, to me only options 3 and 4 seem useful. So, even if you think I should die tonight, I would also like to hear which of the other two option you prefer. Again, nobody else had listed strategies when I put up my suggestions, and killing a house Lord, in my opinion, is not too bad, unless everone agrees that a skaa is almost certainly not a Lord due to game balance. Lets take a look at my 3 scenarios.

1) Noble in penetrated house

This is only really bad if the skaa inherits, otherwise it's just the same as killing a regular noble within the house

2) Noble in secret house

Same as above, except the skaa won't know who to target to pass on/remove the power afterwards

3) Skaa

This is somewhat unlikely but also would be very helpful, a skaa on night 1 and recapturing a House Power

In summary, I want to avoid having a close vote unless we are specifically trying to use it do determine the allegiances of the vote-changers, and I feel that the next best option is a House Lord, partly because nobody has explained to me why any of my other choices are better.

@Ash That's what I'm trying to prompt discussion about

Edited July 24, 2014 by Araris Valerian

[luckat she/her]

Tonul, Cat, Kal Dell, why haven't you changed your votes? You said you were only voting for me because I hadn't posted.

I'm guessing Cat and Kal Dell haven't been on yet because of sleep, but Tonul posted without addressing my post, so what's up with that?

 

Thanks for posting. I'll retract my vote for Wandrin now. You're right that I didn't sooner because of sleep.

 

I don't know if I should actually vote now. I might not have time to get back on later and keep up with arguments. I agree that Hadrian's plan is suspicious, but I'm inclined to give him a second chance because it is his first game and because it's really close to the end of the day and piling votes on someone now doesn't seem like a great idea. Also, I'd kind of expect skaa to be more careful than suggesting a plan like that, that really only looks good to the skaa and to Nobles that are trying to put their own house ahead. But maybe that's just me.

 

Edit: Color

Edited July 24, 2014 by luckat