Long Game 24: The Godless City

[little wilson she/her]

You're assuming there is another Dula. I'm far more skeptical about the idea of there being two Dulas.

[Emerald101 he/him]

I'd really hate for this to turn into follow the cop. . .

[Arrae]

Emerald, I don't think this will turn into a Follow the Cop game. Dulas aren't very effective. They can only find eliminators, so they'll completely miss any neutral-evils that we might want to get rid of. We have to be careful not to trust people just because they are not-eliminators. Plus, the village has no role scanners, so anybody can claim a Dula and get away with it, especially an eliminator. Right, Burnt?

[Elenion he/him]

Since I really don't have much to go on at this point in the way of who is what kill role (because there's at least one non-elim kill, I'll bet), I'll just vote Renegade and trust Maill's list that he's conversion. I really need a better target though, so any ideas?

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, little wilson said:

You honestly think an intelligent Dula is going to be contacting people they haven't scanned to let them know their role? No. They're not. That's not to say that someone other than me doesn't know their identity. One other person does (because both the Dula and I have a very strong village read on said person).

Now, you can be skeptical all you want, and try to cast doubt on my being scanned, but no matter what you say, you're not going to get the Dula to contact you to tell you that they scanned me.

Also, the Dula scanned Magestar during the night. He came up as not an eliminator.

I have no desire for the Dula to contact me, and I didn't express one, so don't misinterpret me. I'm only saying that so far, all we have is one person (you) saying that you've been Scanned. 

The language you're using makes it sound like we have good reason to believe you on this...which we don't. As I said above, when it's just one person claiming to be Scanned, without any other public references, there is no incentive to believe them. No one can confirm or refute your story right now.

@Elenion: Based on the role claims I've gotten, Mailliw's list is almost completely false. \o/

Edited August 3, 2016 by Guest
Missed a couple posts to reply to

[Elenion he/him]

3 minutes ago, Kipper said:

@Elenion: Based on the role claims I've gotten, Mailliw's list is almost completely false. \o/

Well dang. Renegade.

[Amanuensis he/him]

"Oh Bother"

A short essay about our local anthropomorphic teddy bear,

by Amanuensis.

Who exactly is Araris Valerian? Some may know him as a singulares of Princeps Gaius Septimus. Others as loving fan of Winnie the Pooh. I, for one, do not know much of the man, having never read Codex Alera, nor talked with him in any private messages. He also is a bit of a lurker, posting only now and again, likely only to keep the inactivity filter from getting him, if his lack of contribution is any sign. To be fair, he has informed us that he is on vacation, and thus unable to participate as much as he might otherwise, but this isn't exactly unusual for him. If I'm not mistaken, he frequently isn't involved in discussion, and even more rarely, is ever the focus of discussion.

Before I begin, what prompted me making this post? First, it was the sheer lack of discussion occurring right now. I'm in the middle of co-GMing a game, and yet am stepping up to be the one to try to generate discussion. Second, there's the fact that we're still as leadless as we were last Day Turn, and it's got to start somewhere. Third, that I think we've already talked Len to death, and unless the majority actually wants to kill him, it's a waste of time for us to keep discussing him. Fourth, that Araris has said a few things that don't sit right with me, so I'd like to see other people's opinions on it.

Exhibit A, his first post of the game.

Quote

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, the only thing I have right now is a minor comment about something Aman mentioned. He talked about the mechanics for both tied lynches, and for filtering inactive players. But he never mentioned that we could use the lynch to kill 2 people intentionally, 1 person that has been implicated by discussion, and another that, for whatever reason, we don't want to focus the lynch on but still want to kill. Maybe it isn't so relevant to inactives, since we do have a filter, but we can deal with Pirate or other claims with extra lives by using a double lynch.

Emphasis mine.

For the first line of bolded text, allow me to reference posts of my own.

Quote

 

 

 

 

 

This rule is a double-edged sword if I've ever seen one. Anyone who knows me knows how often I like to instigate ties, either to find out who's got certain powers allied with them, or to prolong the death of myself or someone I trust / a teammate. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sad about this ruling, as it strips me of one of my staple tactics, but there is some good to it, at least. If there are several players we think are suspicious enough to warrant being lynched, we'll be able to remove them simultaneously, and thus gain more information quicker. However, depending on the results, this could mean twice as many village casualties as usual, and therefore I would recommend we do this sparingly. I can think of several instances where I was certain of someone's guilt, but the death of another player, or interactions that occurred thereafter, ended up convincing me the opposite was true. Personally, while I know that players need to die for the game to progress healthily, I seldom like to condemn a player to death unless I have a real reason to believe they are evil, so I think in most scenarios I'm going to advocate that we avoid ties as much as possible.

Emphasis mine.

Above is the very first paragraph of my very first post, in which I say, in more words, the exact same thing Araris said I never mentioned. Granted, I do soon say we should use ties sparingly / avoid them as much as possible, but that is a lot different than ignoring the possibility.

As for the second bolded line in Araris' first post, this is what I have to say.

Though I do not know much of Araris, I do remember one thing. One of the biggest things he's been vocal about in past games is how against he is lynching someone just because they have a certain role. Yet in this game, on D1, he seems to disregard that thought process entirely, and advocates we can use double lynch to deal with players who claim extra lives. So, I can't help but wonder. Why is Araris suggesting this?

Village!Araris might be suggesting it because extra-lives are considered "smart" for Eliminators to claim, as they can only be proven via a lynch. Except, wait. Why would an Eliminator claim that, given that in a lost of recent games, we've all been acknowledging the fact and even lynching the players who claimed it. I'm a great, recent example of this. In LG22 I had an extra-life role (and claimed it). At some point, we narrowed down the evil Conversion role to either me or a player who claimed Viewer (scanner). Now, up until that point, I had pretty much done nothing to accrue suspicion, whereas the results the Viewer gave us were obviously false, as they provided absolutely no new information. And what happened? The villagers decided to lynch me to prove if I had the extra life or not simply because it was "safer," despite there being a much better argument to lynching the Viewer first. The result: the evil Conversion role gets another night to claim a villager as a teammate, and shortly thereafter the eliminator faction kills me. Two things that nearly cost the villagers the game, as a result of the "it's safer to lynch people with extra lives" mindset.

Now, is everyone in this game aware of such a scenario occurring? No. But a lot of the players who were in that game were in this one (including Araris), and some of those who weren't have been reading past games to get familiar with how they play out and our community. Chances are a few of these players are eliminators. Knowing that the general consensus is already to prove extra life claims, that means eliminators are less likely to claim them unless they actually have that power. So, while its good to strip eliminators with extra lives of their protection, I think that that is a TERRIBLE reason to lynch someone. If there's someone who is suspicious enough to lynch, lynch them. Don't lynch them to prove their role, which is exactly what Araris seems to be suggesting here

Eliminator!Araris, however, might have no reservations about such a concept. If his teammates all vowed not to claim extra lives (without actually having them) it would keep them from unnecessary risk. Meanwhile the village effectively strips itself of all if its protection, making their job of killing us much easier. Normally I would assume that a player suggesting this was just trying to expand thoughts, but when it comes to Araris, it's a direct contradiction to his usual stance on the subject of lynching people just because they have a certain role. This suggests to me that following that line of thinking would benefit him in some way. And I see it benefiting the eliminators far more than not.

Onward, to Exhibit B, C and D, his third, fourth and fifth posts (second was just him voting for the shortened turn).

Quote

 

 

 

 

Well, I guess I need to speak up a little bit, so that people can get a read on me. (I need to catch up to Mailliw's fatality rate, haha)

Anyways, I find it odd that so many players are willing to vote on Emerald. I find this particularly off for @little wilson, who usually seems to think things through a little more than that. Now, after I post this I am going to go reread Day 1, but there is rarely anything that is worth such an immediate bandwagon. (Okay, I actually went through some of Emerald's more recent posts, and while I found them unhelpful, I didn't see them as suspicious either)

I'm gonna vote on Elbereth right now, because it seems to me like her post set the direction for our secondary lynch today.

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

@little wilson Okay, thanks for the explanation, that makes sense, although it doesn't do much to explain the two other votes on Emerald, since I doubt those people had similar PMs.

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

All I can say is that I was worried about how quickly Emerald had gathered votes without any discussion, since I was working under the assumption we were going to lynch 2 people. Elbereth was the first person to mention Elbereth, and hadn't placed a vote of her own, as I remember. And I felt like I needed to vote on someone, since I had been kind of absent cycle 1. That being said, I probably won't be online again until this evening, and most days in the next week or so I will only be on twice a day, since I am on vacation!

For someone who has been barely viewing the thread / paying attention the game, he's talking A LOT about Emerald, a player who has taken a considerable amount of flak (and from Wilson, no less). What I find odd is that he's saying so many players are willing to vote for Emerald when I'm pretty sure I haven't seen more than three (maybe four) votes on him at a time. However, in both lynch discussions, Elenion received just as many votes (if not more) and yet he doesn't discuss that. He describes Emerald's posts as "unhelpful" but not "suspicious" but is perfectly willing to vote for a player (Elbereth) just because she had an evil gut read on him (she never voted for him) as well as cast doubt onto Wilson, who I am personally leaning as village. Wilson made several good points about Emerald, in my opinion, and the main reason why I haven't voted for him is because I don't want to give him a chance to prove me wrong in case it really is because he's been gone so long.

That being said, you're providing me a great opportunity to gain a lead to another eliminator if I'm right now if I'm right about you. Now, if you are evil, you could be defending Emerald just to tie yourself to them in case either of you die, as a means to soft clear yourself or soft confirm him as evil, but given how little you've been paying attention, I am more inclined to believe it's because you two are teammates, and while you can't dedicate as much time as you need to be able to right now to help much, you want to still try to discourage people from lynching him and make some key villagers (if I'm right about Wilson) look bad in the process.

While I might not be willing to lynch Emerald right now, I have no qualms about you (other than the fact that you're on vacation right now), and that's mainly because you just one LG23 and because you're joking about catching up to Mailliw's fatality rate, so I don't see much harm in giving you what you want.

@Araris Valerian, I would love a defense from you. I think it'll be a lot more telling than anything else you've posted so far. I also really want people's opinions on what I've said here. If you agree with me, feel free to vote for him, but first explain why. If you disagree, explain and then write up a similar post about a player you actually are suspicious of and why. I personally think we've been having way too many players sitting back and observing. It's D3 now. Surely everyone has to have some ideas and theories by now.

 

EDIT: Was Ninja'd a lot while writing this. Catching up now.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Amanuensis

[Elenion he/him]

We might employ a plan of killing Araris for information and if he turns out evil then killing Emerald. But my suspicious on Araris don't run as deep as Aman's, so if he explains himself adequately I'll rescind my vote.

[little wilson she/her]

5 minutes ago, Kipper said:

The language you're using makes it sound like we have good reason to believe you on this...which we don't. As I said above, when it's just one person claiming to be Scanned, without any other public references, there is no incentive to believe them. No one can confirm or refute your story right now.

Um. I have no reason to lie about this, because I have virtually nothing to gain based on the nature of Dulas (only seeing eliminator alignment and not neutral or neutral-evil), and if I am telling the truth, I actually have quite a bit to lose, since if there are multiple eliminator factions, they'll already know that I'm not on their team so they don't have to worry about attacking me and hitting someone who could've potentially been helping them by killing. You make it seem like I'm trying to push the idea of my being village based on this scan. I'm not. The only reason I even mentioned the scan publicly was because Lopen tried to cast doubt on a number of people for what I thought was a ridiculous reason, so I contested it by mentioning that not only had I actually posted, but I'd also been checked by a Dula, so clearly his theory about the eliminators not posting to avoid being checked doesn't quite hold water since some Dulas might still just check those who haven't posted (because I know that my Dula wasn't sure about my post and if it would be allowed under the circumstances of the vote Joe had called for. But he decided to take a risk anyway to check me).

Please note that I'm not saying that I particularly trust my Dula or expect you to trust the Dula. Not at all. But to trust that someone approached me, claimed Dula, and scanned me as a non-eliminator? I think that's reasonable. Does that mean you're believing a scan actually happened? No. Because that's something else. There's a chance that my Dula could be evil and lying about being a Dula and saying that they scanned me to get me to trust them. Do I think that's what happening? No. But I haven't written off the possibility. The only claim I am making is that someone claimed Dula and that they scanned me and then claimed to scan Magestar. If they are a Dula, and they are village, we can trust the results--which again, isn't even saying terribly much since Magestar or I could be Neutral-Evil and therefore working against the village.

Stop trying to spin my words into saying something that I'm not. You expressed skepticism over a claim. I debated the validity of that skepticism, particularly the way you were implying that the Dula prove that he exists and that he scanned me (which I still take issue with. I mean what were you expecting? Two or three others to come forward and be like "Yeah, I had a Dula contact me saying they scanned Wilson"? Would that actually make you trust the Dula? Probably not. And even if it did convince you that the Dula was real, you'd then likely be worried about the Dula's safety because they've just revealed themselves to a couple of people who are unknowns. Not exactly the best course of action for an alignment scanner...)

You know what? Kipper. I already didn't trust you based on my PM with you. I think you're phishing for information in a way that is detrimental to the village, and therefore it's highly likely that you're either Neutral Evil or just plan Evil. Either way, I don't care if  you die.

[Emerald101 he/him]

11 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

That being said, you're providing me a great opportunity to gain a lead to another eliminator if I'm right now if I'm right about you. Now, if you are evil, you could be defending Emerald just to tie yourself to them in case either of you die, as a means to soft clear yourself or soft confirm him as evil, but given how little you've been paying attention, I am more inclined to believe it's because you two are teammates, and while you can't dedicate as much time as you need to be able to right now to help much, you want to still try to discourage people from lynching him and make some key villagers (if I'm right about Wilson) look bad in the process.

Have you been keeping tabs on his activity? He could very well be feigning that he's not paying attention (I doubt he's lying about being on vacation, because IRL stuff doesn't usually get lied about. He could be exaggerating how much that affects his ability to participate.) and then linking himself to me in players' minds as a way to soft confim me as evil or his as good (like you mentioned).

I'm getting very curious about this PM Wilson and Araris have had. Any chance one of you will explain what went down?

[little wilson she/her]

2 minutes ago, Emerald101 said:

I'm getting very curious about this PM Wilson and Araris have had. Any chance one of you will explain what went down?

I'm not in a PM with Araris.

[Emerald101 he/him]

I must've misread something. Disregard what I said there then.

[Arrae]

Well, regardless of who suggests it, I think that lynching a player to prove that they have an extra life is a terrible idea. If they lied -- and you don't have to be an eliminator to do that, you could be a player who fears being killed early because of your reputation -- then they're dead. If they didn't lie, they're missing and extra life. Now we know that they are a Pirate or Pirate equivalent. So what?

I agree with Amanuensis. That vote on Elbereth was pretty weird -- players set the agendas for discussion all the time by discussing how roles should be used, or who they're suspicious of. That's not an eliminator-only thing. Araris.

 

[jaimeleecee she/her]

Great argument Aman, I am certainly willing to buy into your theory right now since we have nothing else. Also I was one of those who voted for Emerald, and I explained myself (albeit not that thoroughly) so it frustrated me at the time that Araris continued to question people's reasoning, even though he never commented on mine and I think Wilsons was very clear from the start.  I didn't think too much about it at the time, because I wasn't thinking of it as a defense of Emerald but an accusation of those of us who voted. 

[Emerald101 he/him]

45 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

@Araris Valerian, I would love a defense from you. I think it'll be a lot more telling than anything else you've posted so far.

I'm going to second this. Aman made some good points, but given the little there is to go off of,  I want a little more info before I make a descision. I'm leaning toward Araris being evil at the moment considering how he advocated role-confirm lynches, but I'm hesitant to lynch him because the current mood appears to favor lynching me as well if he turns out evil - potentially playing right into his hands.

Edit: also, I think the point was to start discussion, not form a bandwagon.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Emerald101
edited quote for relevancy

[Amanuensis he/him]

Yeah, rather than a bandwagon, I'd really love it if players did some more thinking for themselves

[STINK he/him]

You guys do know that Elb isn't good, right?

[Alvron he/him]

2 minutes ago, STINK said:

You guys do know that Elb isn't good, right?

Isn't good is different than being evil.

[STINK he/him]

Well, she's certainly not neutral-neutral. Or neutral-good. Or neutral-neutral-good. Etc

[Arrae]

Hey, I am thinking. Aman posted stuff I thought about but was too lazy to formalize into words. 

[Emerald101 he/him]

1 minute ago, STINK said:

Well, she's certainly not neutral-neutral. Or neutral-good. Or neutral-neutral-good. Etc

And the reasoning behind your accusation is. . . 

[STINK he/him]

A Neutral cannot stand for someone standing against the true ideals of Neutral!

[Elenion he/him]

5 minutes ago, STINK said:

A Neutral cannot stand for someone standing against the true ideals of Neutral!

So you're saying she's Neutral-Evil?

[STINK he/him]

Or just straight up evil. Who knows?

[little wilson she/her]

Where are you getting your evidence, Stink?