Long Game 10: A Game of Shards

[Guest]

On mine it doesn't give any gender but whatever.  Let's just drop the topic.  Devotion would protect itself.

You just search for Aona.

[Splinter he/him]

You just search for Aona.

Oh yeah you're right!  I just searched for Devotion.

[vineyarddawg]

 

Basically, yes, an OC witness deception, as I said a while back, would only work once. (Unless they wanted to sacrifice multiple OCs)
1. OC steps up and says that they are the Witness.
2. OC implicates someone.
3. We lynch them.
4. We find out that it's the wrong person.
5. OC is analyzed and killed.

So they would have to sacrifice an OC for that to work. Of course, they might do it for an important Shard.

 

 

I see your point, Snoopy, but would there be no way to actually tell who was the real witness and who was the OC claming it?  

 

If there's no way to authenticate the witness and if we guess wrong on the 50/50 coin flip, the witness dies after using their power just one time, and the OC is running around for another cycle.  More to the point, though, if Team Odium has a protector role, they could just protect their fake claimant and nothing would happen even if we guessed right.  Or what if a villager protector role decides to pick sides and accidentally protects Odium's claimant, but nobody protects the real witness?  That would be a disaster.

 

I guess the point I'm getting around to is that if there's a witness double-claim, we should think about just killing both claimants straightaway.  It would cost us a villager, but it would also cost team Odium an OC or even Odium himself, and we have more numbers than them.  I think that's a strong option to consider, though I don't like guaranteeing that we lose a villager.  If we can't figure out who the real witness is, though, we're going to lose them anyway unless we make sure to protect two people every night, one of which is guaranteed to be at least an OC.

 

EDIT:  As I'm thinking through this a little more, my point about Team Odium protecting their own still holds true even if we try to kill both claimants, as we don't have the ability to have more than 2 killing roles in a cycle (a lynch and a Ruin-kill in the day cycle).  So we still have a potential exposure, but the coin flip is not on the person, it's on whether or not Team Odium has a protector role.  (And remember that Peng was protected by a lifeless on day 1, so that's one protector lost for either the villagers or Team Odium.)  

 

I'm not 100% sure whether I think my own plan is the best idea, and I'm willing to listen to other opinions, but I'm definitely thinking it's the right idea at this point.

Edited February 8, 2015 by vineyarddawg

[Guest]

@dawg

Good points.

The solution you just pointed out is exactly why we won't have a double-claim. The OC wouldn't double-claim for fear of getting killed. Likewise for the villager. (Probably) If we went with that solution, we would probably get no witnesses. After all, who would just throw themselves out like that to die?

I just don't see a double-claim happening. IF it did, death would be a reasonable course of action. If a single-claim happens, we should just ignore the witness. Or kill it. I'm really not sure I'm that point

What should we do if a single-claim happens?

[Guest]

Eesh. It's hard to decide that though. Almost everyone will look suspicious/clean, examined long and hard enough.

[leiftinspace he/him]

I don't think i like the double kill strategy. We could just lynch one of them, and if we are wrong ruin or his investee could get the other one. if we are right, yay! even if odium did have a protective role, we would still know who the false witness was, and they couldn't protect them forever. my guess though is that they wouldn't do it unless they had a LOT to gain from it.

[leiftinspace he/him]

And i got ninja'd

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

I don't think we have to worry. The OC's probably wouldn't do something that risky when they're so outnumbered right now

[Guest]

^Exactly.

I personally don't think they would do it at all. I don't think a double-claim will EVER happen. Based in this discussion, I'm questioning whether a single-claim would happen, with all the talk of death.

[Tulir he/him]

If an OC claims to be the witness, won't the real witness say that they are lying? In that scenario, we know one is lying- and the other is telling the truth. We kill one, which is a 50-50%  chance of being right- and if we're wrong, we'll have irrefutable evidence of an OC identity who we can then lynch. I say we stick with the witness plan for now, save the killing for later :V

Except I tend to be more suspicious of those who claim they are leaving and will be inactive, as one game when I was an Eliminator I attempted that.  It is a good strategy, especially if everyone else agree not to lynch temporary inactives.

 

I don't think we have to worry. The OC's probably wouldn't do something that risky when they're so outnumbered right now

Except, that is one way they win.  Doing something risky.  I could easily see them sacrificing one of their own to a powerful player/role from our side.

[Ashiok]

Wait, so if we lynch odium, does he move to last invested target? If so, then he might just call witness kills himself to kill another and body-hop (Like worldhopping, but 1000x less legal)

[Alvron he/him]

I volunteer as a target for Ruin to kill if it comes to it.  Or Odium if he's bored.

 

I stated during the day round that I will be able to get back to the game during this night phase but that won't happen now.  I got to work last night to find that a colleague has left and I'm to cover his shifts on top of my own.  So for the next five days I will be working 16 hour shifts and will have very little if any time to fully keep up with the game.  I fully understand if my death is called for and support the idea as having inactives can give a place for the OCs to hide or deflect suspicions to.  In the interest of not giving the OC any leverage to use against me, I am outting myself as a Normal Worldhopper and have not nor ever have been Invested by any Shard at any stage to this point.

 

After going through the thread and going over what little notes I took, my only suspicion is Lord Pifferdoo and most of that is based on what has been said in the world PM we are in.  At the start he was active and helping in the planning but went almost dead silent since then and has only been asking very silly questions like how are we communicating while on different worlds.  This is contrary to his style during the Anniversary Game.

 

Again I am sorry I am not able to be as active as normal but I shall at least try to keep up to date.

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

(guess you're not getting any of the Marquis's special roast nightmaw tonight)

 

But if you are, in fact, a normal villager, then there's really no point to killed you. Dead, and you just put Ruin at risk of detection from a Witness that may be Odious. Alive, and you give the normal worldhoppers that one person advantage when the player count gets down to the wire. The OCs would have to "waste" a kill on you that could be directed towards different targets. 

 

So I'm all for keeping Alv alive, even though he said some very hurtful things.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Heh, the same few people apologize for off-thread tangents, and then get right back to it.  

I didn't mean to come across as heavy though, there is absolutely nothing wrong with joking around and having a good time in these games, that proves we're coming together as a community and generally having fun! It's just that eliminators will try to take as much advantage as possible with that sort of behaviour becoming commonplace.

The more we encourage posts that provide content to the thread, and contain analysis, and encourages game discussion and participation, the less any eliminator can get by on just posting the bare minimum required. The more we get people talking, the more we can get a feel for them!

Which leads me into responding to Unodus...
 

 

How annoying.... >.>

What do we even learn from this? There wasn't really any base for suspicion here, all we did was lose a major role. A role he didn't even have time to use! Can we just go one round without trying to kill each other for once? This is exactly what Odium wants us to be doing. Like I said at the start, Lynches at the start of the game can only hinder us, please can we stop doing them now before we lose a shard or worse? 

The lynch is exactly one half of what this entire game is. It's our tool for hunting the Eliminators. Without a lynch, there's no pressure for people to actively participate in this game, and any OCs can just sneak on by without any sort of suspicion. Mislynches are a part of this game, and they will happen. That's been discussed many of times before. It's the information we then grab from those mislynches that helps us moving forward.

Who defended the lynchee? Who was up for vote instead? Was there an influx of suspicious last minute votes? How were the votes manipulated? (that last one doesn't really count for this game with the shards and all!) XD

Without a lynch, then the OCs don't have to worry about any pressure at all this game, and we lose our biggest edge in finding them.

Which leads into discussion about our best way leading forward to find an OC or Odium. The Witness.

The idea of a fakeclaim being made about the Witness does seem severely unlikely, as it just buys that player a turn at most. But the whole assumption that everybody is saying that the OCs absolutely won't make such a gambit? The members of House Urbain are rolling over in their ash covered graves! The fact that multiple people are saying such a thing suggests that they would indeed try such a gambit. Yeah, sure, it loses them a member that's already being outted and going to die regardless, but it gains them the death of the Witness, the single best tool I've seen in finding killers in all of the games we've played so far. So I wouldn't say there's absolutely no way that the OCs would try that exact ploy.

Thus the Highprince of Paranoia has spoken.

 

Edited February 8, 2015 by Gamma Fiend
grammar

[Guest]

I believe I said that they would try it if they could take out Cultivation or another with an equally powerful ability.

[Unodus he/him]

Gamma, while I do agree that lynching has its uses, Lynching at the start of the game only helps Odiums team. The chance of us hitting an enemy is too slim in these first few rounds, and working everyone up about "who said what" is only making things more difficult for ourselves. The Shards need time to find and set up communications with each other, the least we could do is give them a few rounds without killing each other so we can establish a basic network of communication. We're on a time limit, and every time someone needlessly dies means we have even less time. 

 

While pressuring people into acting gives us a good idea where their allegiances lie, its not a perfect system. From my experience, it kills more people than it saves. I'm not saying that we shouldn't not question people altogether, but we need to make sure that we aren't being manipulated into killing our own.

 

What I'd like to know is who Odium invested in last night. Only one kill was made yesterday, but Odium had the chance to make two if he invested in OC. Since not investing at all is unlikely, since he'd be taking the risk that his shard won't pass on- I think its very clear that someone was invested by Odium last night, but they chose not to kill anyone. However, they also chose not to reveal their identity, at least- not to my knowledge.

 

We could put all this effort into establishing alliances and what-not, but all it takes is for us to finally lynch Odium- then the whole process has to start all over again because Odium will become one of us. If we're going to win, then people need to admit when they've been invested. If we lynch Odium, we can then secure the victory easily. If we don't, Odium will pass his inheritance- and you'll be safe.

I believe that it is in the general interest of everyone to admit when Odium invests in you. We can use the information of who Odium invests to work out who is Odium, as Odium will only invest in people he can be sure won't turn back and use his powers against him. Also, Odium cannot invest in himself- if someone has been claimed by Odium, that eliminates people from the list of potential suspects. This does, however- require people to be truthful. The only reason multiple claims will come up is because one of the Eliminators is posing to try distract us- if you still come forward then we'll at least know one of you is an Eliminator. This strategy is much more based around survival of the team rather than the individual, would people be interested in maintaining this kind of plan?

Edited February 8, 2015 by Unodus

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Gamma, while I do agree that lynching has its uses, Lynching at the start of the game only helps Odiums team. The chance of us hitting an enemy is too slim in these first few rounds, and working everyone up about "who said what" is only making things more difficult for ourselves. The Shards need time to find and set up communications with each other, the least we could do is give them a few rounds without killing each other so we can establish a basic network of communication. We're on a time limit, and every time someone needlessly dies means we have even less time. 

 

While pressuring people into acting gives us a good idea where their allegiances lie, its not a perfect system. From my experience, it kills more people than it saves. I'm not saying that we shouldn't not question people altogether, but we need to make sure that we aren't being manipulated into killing our own.

 

What I'd like to know is who Odium invested in last night. Only one kill was made yesterday, but Odium had the chance to make two if he invested in OC. Since not investing at all is unlikely, since he'd be taking the risk that his shard won't pass on- I think its very clear that someone was invested by Odium last night, but they chose not to kill anyone. However, they also chose not to reveal their identity, at least- not to my knowledge.

 

We could put all this effort into establishing alliances and what-not, but all it takes is for us to finally lynch Odium- then the whole process has to start all over again because Odium will become one of us. If we're going to win, then people need to admit when they've been invested. If we lynch Odium, we can then secure the victory easily. If we don't, Odium will pass his inheritance- and you'll be safe.

I believe that it is in the general interest of everyone to admit when Odium invests in you. We can use the information of who Odium invests to work out who is Odium, as Odium will only invest in people he can be sure won't turn back and use his powers against him. Also, Odium cannot invest in himself- if someone has been claimed by Odium, that eliminates people from the list of potential suspects. This does, however- require people to be truthful. The only reason multiple claims will come up is because one of the Eliminators is posing to try distract us- if you still come forward then we'll at least know one of you is an Eliminator. This strategy is much more based around survival of the team rather than the individual, would people be interested in maintaining this kind of plan?

 

Unodus, lynching is the only way for us Villagers to gather information. It's a trialed-and-tested method that has been used in countless games. We can't just sit back and hope the Witness or Awakener pick up something. It'd just take far too long, and too many innocents would die in the process.

 

Yes, we'll get plenty of mislynches. We've only hit an Eliminator once on the first day. But it's from these mislynches that we gain information. We start to see who's behind the lynches, and our lynches become more and more precise. We NEED the lynches. As for the Shards getting in contact with each other and setting up communications, I highly doubt that they'd be able to achieve that until Cycle 4 or later.

 

I highly doubt any of the OC will admit in getting invested in. In fact, I don't think anyone will, in fear of getting lynched. Besides, Odium most likely won't invest in a Non-OC.

[Guest]

Unodus, the OCs are not trying to help us. You seek to be under the misconception that they are. What motivation would they have to come forward? If they did, Ruin would kill them.

Edited for clarity cus I got ninja'd.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Snoopy

[leiftinspace he/him]

I agree with the idea of anyone who gets invested by odium to come forward. anyone who is an oc probably wouldn't, because it would draw attention to themselves, which is what they DON'T want.

[Guest]

Exactly. Doesn't Odium know who the Champions are?

[Unodus he/him]

Panda, If we're going to win, we're also going to need Hoid to be super-charged to make full use of his powers. You admit that there will be mislynching, but we can't afford to lose any more major roles. This means we have to wait a few turns to give Hoid the chance to be invested by as many Shards as possible before we start accusing each other without any information. There is never information in the first few cycles, therefore- the first few cycle will almost certainly be mislynches. We can bypass this waste by just waiting a few turns before we throw out major accusations, which will give people in major roles more time to use their powers. I'm not saying we shouldn't do nothing, poking people for information has its uses, I admit- but following through with them only creates more suspicion that ultimately just repeats the cycle. Information from lynches isn't enough to prove someone guilt, we have to rely on other sources of information to back up our points. For example, we must consider that there is information that, as regular Worldhoppers, we cannot know. Endowment already knows who all the shards are, and we can assume Cultivation is making PMs for trusted individuals who are concocting a plan of sorts. We have to put faith in our shards because they know what we can't, for the sake of protecting themselves from Odium. I'm not saying that we should just believe people randomly, but that some people know more than they're letting on. Therefore, we can't just kill people on a whim. 

 

The Eliminators rely on our mistrust of each other  to hide within the crowd, the Lynching only works because its inevitable that we catch someone eventually. How many people have to die before that happens? Better to wait until we actually gather real evidence than to risk killing someone of strategic importance.

 

Snoopy, there's no guarantee that an investiee will become Odium in these early cycles- what it does do is eliminate the potential people who could be Odium. Ruin will only need to kill the investiee if we catch Odium within the same turn. If that does happen, we'll win the game. (OC can't kill anyone by themselves).

Edited February 8, 2015 by Unodus

[Unodus he/him]

Wait, how many OC are there?

[Guest]

We don't know.

[vineyarddawg]

Unodus, I really don't mean to be insulting with this comment, but it seems like either you're trying to intentionally mislead us or you haven't read the rules of the game very well.  Clearly, Odium would choose to invest in his OC's, not a regular villager, since the OC's are on his team.  And the OC's have no reason to tell anyone outside of their own team that they were invested. 

 

Also, when a shard is shattered (unless by Odium), the investiture ability survives, since it's given to the last person in whom he invested.  So if we lynch Odium or get Ruin to kill him, his investiture ability... 1 kill a night... would still survive.  And even if we did manage to kill both Odium and his investee in the same night, that's still only 2 of Team Odium.  We don't insta-win in that case.  We'd still have to find and kill the rest of the OC's (I guess that would be 3 others, if Winter is right and there are 5), which wouldn't be easy.  With no kill power, it would be far easier for them to blend in with the rest of the crowd.

[Unodus he/him]

Sorry, I was under the impression that there was only one OC for some reason x.x

If Odium did invest in one of his own, though- why was their only one kill last night..? Surely Odium and the OC he invested in would have made their Order...