Mid-Range Game 56: Day of Reckoning

[Kasimir he/him]

Spoiler

 

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Nominally at least all the Corrupted Epics would be Epics which would make the elim Epic/village Epic ratio much higher than the elim Regular/village Regular ratio of 0. In practice it doesn't have to work like that and I wouldn't clear anyone for not being an Epic but I can't see the Corrupted Epics not having Epics. And multiple Epics seems more likely than one stupidly overpowered High Epic + minions, though I guess a blackout would be a good place to throw in something like that.

Hmm, okay, in that sense, yeah. I think I misread you - my thoughts were more along the lines that on the assumption we're going with the square-root or 20% rule, we're looking at anywhere between 4-5 Elims on standard distro assumptions (which yes, I will absolutely grant may not hold in a blackout game like this.) Even if all the Elims are Epics, it seems to me that given numbers, in a pool of Epics, the moment we discard any assumption that all Villagers are categorically non-Epic (I'll say more about this later), we should be more or less committed to a significant, non-zero number of Village Epics.

Which basically brings us back to no rolelynching, which I'm cool with so

3 hours ago, Illwei said:

I'll get to more later, but specifically coming from exp (sorry vapor) who was on the team with me where I bussed (sorry vapor >>) vapor (sorry) and then won the game. So specifically was looking for an answer from exp around that.

I just think it's an odd thing for exp to say, it being one of the first things he's said that was a read of sorts. 

There is a part of me that wonders if people commenting on epics being bad, moreso shading those they "think are epics" is an elim slip in a way, not realizing that the epics aren't just evil. 

Alright, yeah, I can see where this is coming from. I went back to look at the previous interaction, and I feel that v!Illwei would absolutely side-eye Exp for it at least a little - it's no different from what caused v!Kas to feel alarm about e!Araris in MR52. So I guess I want to watch this play out more.

People commenting on Epics being bad is, in my current view, a major IKYK I sort of want to at least say something about. Again, akan datang.

3 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

STINK

Illwei

Sharing is caring, my dude Whassup?

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Hi Kas  

1. Do you have an opinion on whether the exchange in question is e/e or not? I ask because I specifically don't.

Yeah, this. It's basically what JNV said, and I agreed. Also agree with not actually wanting to kill them (hense the line in my opening post)

2. It's one of my favorite ways to use D1 votes, new players or otherwise. 

3. So true. I'm interested in the first, second, third, sixth, and any that may extend beyond eight

I already have 6, thank you  (7 if you count this game). I think that'll suffice for the time being.

4. I want to sheep these reads :).

5. That list doesn't really look the same anymore, but I had/still have Stick there for... basically the opposite read that Illwei gave. I liked how Stick was interacting with the thread and how specific they were in some of the small questions they had. Adding to the saga of me disagreeing with Illwei, woo

Yeah, context is important. It's harder for me to see that because I'm clouded by my TMI, but hey, at least I'm self aware

6. May our next one be... in the upcoming LG xD I doubt I'll ever seriously elim read you based on what I've seen, you're just too villagery... but hey, fake self-condemning Seeker scans delivered via Tineye message happen, so we'll see.

This so much xD

7. This is like, rule one of GMing. Besides running the game I guess.

No I didn't forget Karn was playing, what are you talking about

Remind me to run a game next year after the AG

I mean. The rest of the list was sincere, that was a joke inspired by the 2-3 other people also making a similar joke :P.

I love that you still reference this :P.

8. I mean. That's kind of why I liked it.

9. Also Striker is village thank you have a nice day

Yeah multi-quoting has issues. I have no idea how I'm going to coherently respond to everything. I've taken the liberty of adding bolded numbers, so you can just tag each numbered comment of mine to the correct bolded number.

Hi Mat, who I see wants to also be acknowledged as a multi-quoter

1. No real opinion right now. I think the oddity to me is that the natural read of Devo is just as RP voting for Ash, so it's not clear to me why Archer wanted to immediately turn this into a role issue. I also don't know whether Archer's move would be something I'd read as being Evil - as I said during a clash with Cham in AG8, there's odd and Evil odd. I feel like this is more an Archer thing than an alignment thing at the moment. We did get some discussion out of it, and I think some of that ties in to you, Devo, Exp, Illwei, TUA, and Archer, so that's nice. Happy to hear more thoughts on this.

2. Yes, but that's also where Thaid's reaction strikes me as a bit off. It's true that Thaid might not be aware that the votes are to kill, but Thaid...also kind of voted for Archer, and again, General Rules and Etiquette. It's true that Thaid later claimed to not realise that the votes are meant to kill, but at the same time - I'd expect some reaction from a new player on realising that there's a vote on them? Non-reaction is something I'd peg more to an experienced player or Araris; people who realise that too much reaction D1 gets you killed. It's true that we're handling Thaid with kid gloves at the moment but it also just reads a bit coached to me because it's a bit inconsistent with the amount of newness/lostness that Thaid is currently putting out.

Anyway, in general, I agree as well with D1 votes to get reaction, but I specifically approved of doing it to feel Thaid out - I think the more experienced a player is, the less likely you are to get much of a reaction, from a scale of utter greenhorn to Araris Valerian So there's that too.

3. When I'm less tired, I'll do a full Fight Club parody for you

4., 6.: I'm squinting at you in unease again. Must you really make me go back to shuffle squatting? >>

Spoiler

5. I need to relook Stick. She hasn't really popped to me one way or another, so I'm a bit more with Illwei than you on this. When I have the time :|

7. I can neither confirm nor deny quietly enjoying player suffering or paranoia when GMing.

8., 9.: Why?

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Idk. That idea about alignments lying to us got stuck in my head, particularly with Archer's claim. Can't really ask if a Vanilla/Roleless TUA is an Epic or not. So why not have the villagers be all Epics and the Elims be all not?

Answer: it would fall apart almost immediately because people claim, and enough people claim we hit a Tineye critical mass. But it's fun to think about, and I like people thinking.

Also, an Elim claiming they're a Reckoner would make my life a lot easier.

But why would an Elim claiming they're a Reckoner make your life easier? This game isn't on the face of it solvable by claims, unless you have information that states otherwise. An Elim who flips Reckoner (but Corrupted Epic-aligned) is a different story.

I'm hesitant or nervous about GM write-ups giving us less information than usual because that suggests that we can't trust the write-up, which also weakens the value proposition of the lynch. I am not going to even bother opening the no lynch can of worms - it's just that normally if you do weaken the lynch, Village needs some other method of getting information fairly reliably, or things become too weak since we're already the uninformed majority.

Not saying Archer is lying, just saying this doesn't bode well.

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Well, in Mat's blackout with Allomancers v Feruchemists, it never got to the point where the village all having identical roles different from the elims was enough for them to solve things. I think we are paranoid enough to allow our illustrious GM some liberties with the distro.

Basically my thoughts in a nutshell. It's too early to make too many distro claims off the bat, and this is a blackout game. If we can't even make distro assumptions in Tyrian, what more something like this where we don't have full sight of the rules, let alone distro? I think we can work out some possibilities but we really need the D1 flip in order to get a clearer sense of what's what. For instance, one thought off the top of my head is that Archer's claim becomes a bit of a bold lie if alignment is really obscured in the write-up (fog of war? ) because the moment the C1 flip happens, we'll immediately know. Perhaps it's a special Smoking case, or perhaps it's closer to how Wilson and I handled these things in MR10. I don't know, so we'll have to wait for more information. Sometimes you just don't have enough to make an inference at the current juncture and it's not a bad thing to acknowledge the limits of our best efforts.

Multiquotes within the spoiler box because I don't want to wallpost shamelessly unlike Fifth so my sin be hidden.

B. Thoughts/Comments

Spoiler

This is me going back to the entire Village Epics debate. First, if we take Archer's claim as prima facie plausible, and specifically that it is plausible Archer is not Evil, then we're already weakly committed to the idea that we can't draw a neat Epic/non-Epic line in terms of roles and alignment correspondence. Which I think is fairly intuitively compelling, because the idea that TJ would give the Reckoners only non-Epics, and Epics only Epics is a bit strong. (I could see him finagling that a bit like Mat with a bit of a reskin, but again - the dark fog of our ignorance, and all that. Wait and see.)

The more I look at everything that has been said so far, the more I think we have to distinguish between two levels of what's going on:

• Elim perception
• Actual gamestate

I think it's fairly safe to say that where the actual gamestate is concerned, it's a bit too strong to assume all Epics are Evil. I think we also need an idea of the base rate of Epic occurrence to be able to make a claim about whether a given Epic is more likely to be Village or not - in absence of that, we do this the classic way, with reads, and analysis, and all that good stuff. Roleclearing can be a mixed bag anyway - just ask Elan and a certain Meerkat that. So I don't think this is a particularly objectionable claim. 

But I think a decent amount of the discussion doesn't actually hinge on what the correct idea of the actual gamestate is. (Someone correct me if you feel you were in fact arguing about the actual gamestate.)

I think the Devo-Archer-Illwei everyone discussion has been about what Elims would perceive the safe thing to say would be. In other words: would a Villager be more likely to think or adopt the perspective that Epics are likely to be Evil (and potentially, Regulars safe?)

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.

But let's at least try to map out some of the thoughts that have been surfaced so far. In my view, the only correct treatment of a IKYK you cannot run from is at some point to collapse the probability distribution in the way that best minimises the blowback to your team. I don't think it's going to be really possible to a priori this IKYK but I think if we can map the contours, it's at least a way of preparing for the IKYK collapse.

These are rough categorisations and I've based them off general sympathy/synergy between the views espoused by the players.

A. Elims would want to stay far away from Epic claims or the view that Epics can be Good - it's not intuitive, and they might perceive this as drawing more Village suspicion

@Devotary of Spontaneity in my view fits into this box when she notes that Archer claiming Epic is a bold claim, and again partly with talk on relative prevalence rates.

My intuitive read of the situation is this, so I would add myself to this category. @Kasimir - I'm beginning to rethink my own position as the mapping I'm doing is making me aware this is more complicated than I expect it to be.

B. People who claim Epics are Evil are sus

@Illwei falls into this category when she notes this might be an Elim slip. I think we can somewhat slot @Archer here because Archer was trying to work out if Devo doubling down in Cat A was an Elim, or just Village - since he claims to be an Epic, he presumably also doesn't think that Epics should be Evil automatically.

Weak connection/synergy/resonance to @Matrim's Dice and @Experience because they both immediately push back against the idea Epics have to be Evil and support the idea of Village-sided Epics.

C. Epics are Evil

Experience does show up here a bit when he questions Archer on claiming Epic, IMO. @Karnatheon shows up as well with his new vote on Archer. Weak connection/synergy/resonance to @The Unknown Aon here because he immediately claimed Regular.

---

Be interested in asking @Ashbringer and @Amanuensis where they stand on this entire issue - Aman because I'm in full TA mode, and Ash because you'd think Ash having claimed to agree with Devo would fall into Cat A, but it's clear that he just kind of doesn't and is a bit noncommittal.

I'm in an odd position because I'm starting to feel that I need to reassess the reads I've issued so far based off that exchange as well. But when I have more bandwidth I guess. Overcommitment can go to Braize >>

On a general game level, in response to Archer trying to work out why this is blackout - I still don't want to do too much guessing but I did notice on re-reading that the rules do state that:

Quote

• This is a blackout game. No more information will be given at this stage, other than what you see so far. Information will be revealed as and when events occur in the game.

So I think we can assume there will be events that might change how cycles unfold. No real idea though, so I don't want to focus too much on it because I don't think there's anything we can really do about it at this juncture so it's a distraction.

C. Very Basic Proto-Reads List:

Spoiler

I call this a proto-reads list because I'm tired and kind of preoccupied so I can't do this the right way, but intend to come back and do one later on/when I can.

I'm actually currently a bit more negative on Experience due to Experience showing up in two of the categories that mildly conflict with each other. I'm still negative on Thaid for reasons explained. I have some reignited paranoia of Mat and have not yet decided which way to go. I continue to have a negative gut response to Araris. Not happy with how I can't seem to pin down anything where Stick is concerned.

TJ Cricket Meme is me @ Archer. 

Should have more thoughts about Ash but I don't which probably suggests to me something something "my decision to persist with analysis under current conditions."

Light positive on Devo that I'm currently rethinking. Disturbed by light positive on Illwei. Also need to rethink. Slight good vibes off Aman which I can't explain.

Alright, heads-up that the effort/attention I can pay to this game is going to drop further due to some RL work stuff being dropped on my head. I do have Mordred RP I will drop and I do intend to keep up my job as the Village Renegade/Instigator but everything in this game is just going to be best effort basis and probably not much in-depth engagement. Not going to be sorry because I'm just tired.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Ashbringer he/him]

You overestimate my brain. I mean someone claiming Elim and Reckoner would be very helpful for me 

As for where I stand on V!Epics… this is a blackout, and Archer’s claim is very bold for a lie. Not that Archer isn’t in the group of people I’d think could bluff that, but it’s still a long shot. Plus, why not just claim a non-Epic role with the same effect? I want to wait and see what the village could have under its power that isn’t Epics, and if some weirdity happens with flips.

I’d go Group A for now. Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not, but the distinction doesn’t make much mechanical difference. But Archer’s on thin ice. Metaphorically. I’m sure polar bears do alright on ice.

Edit: Hi Aman! Hi Illwei!
Also Archer, want to join the A-Train on Mat? Mostly a joke but I am curious. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by Ashbringer

[Kasimir he/him]

5 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Also Archer, want to join the A-Train on Mat? Mostly a joke but I am curious. 

I was just gonna make an A-Team joke myself

Though I did make a train meme that never saw action in AG8:

Spoiler

Better late than never? Appropos for D1 anyway.

[Amanuensis he/him]

10 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Be interested in asking @Ashbringer and @Amanuensis where they stand on this entire issue - Aman because I'm in full TA mode...

TA mode?

I believe Archer is a Village Epic, though I don't necessarily believe what he's revealed about his role. Probably won't think more about it until we have more info from the exe (or a lack of info, which is info in a way). I also believe The Unknown Aon is a Regular Villager, but that's it for my reads on people involved with the discussion. Other things have caught my attention more.

10 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Slight good vibes off Aman which I can't explain.

Very curious about this if you ever figure out why.

9 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Edit: Hi Aman! Hi Illwei!
Also Archer, want to join the A-Train on Mat? Mostly a joke but I am curious.

Hi Ash!

NGL, when I made that vote count, I was tempted to @ Archer myself to ask if he'd join us  

Edited February 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

7 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

TA mode?

I believe Archer is a Village Epic, though I don't necessarily believe what he's revealed about his role. Probably won't think more about it until we have more info from the exe (or a lack of info, which is info in a way). I also believe The Unknown Aon is a Regular Villager, but that's it for my reads on people involved with the discussion. Other things have caught my attention more.

Very curious about this if you ever figure out why.

Yeah - TA as in teaching assistant, since I used to be a grad student before this job. I've been joking that recent OOG PM stuff has basically been me switching on TA mode again, where you try to get the students to discuss stuff in class, or just flood their essays with comments  Part of that seems to be leaking into the game. Some of that does involve me identifying students I want to hear from and calling on them, generating discussion questions. Not to say it's the same dynamic here but I do feel like I'm switching on that part of me again for the first time in quite a while.

Oh? Mat?

I'll mention it if I figure out why - I don't really like raw gut reads, but I also think my proto-reads list has to be refined anyway, I just need to be able to have the time and attention to work things out. The fact I have bad feelings or paranoia about so many suggests to me that exhaustion might be clouding my own clarity. We'll see. Best effort basis. Off the top of my head, I think it's because you're currently reminding me of MR38 you, and in both cases, you were Village. 

Edited to add: Honestly that's probably the source of my Araris unease - he's giving me LG78 / MR52 vibes and he was Evil there.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Kasimir

[|TJ| he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

NGL, when I made that vote count, I was tempted to @ Archer myself to ask if he'd join us  

I feel like everyone who wants an A-Train would very much appreciate this.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Yeah - TA as in teaching assistant, since I used to be a grad student before this job. I've been joking that recent OOG PM stuff has basically been me switching on TA mode again, where you try to get the students to discuss stuff in class, or just flood their essays with comments  Part of that seems to be leaking into the game. Some of that does involve me identifying students I want to hear from and calling on them, generating discussion questions. Not to say it's the same dynamic here but I do feel like I'm switching on that part of me again for the first time in quite a while.

Oh? Mat?

I'll mention it if I figure out why - I don't really like raw gut reads, but I also think my proto-reads list has to be refined anyway, I just need to be able to have the time and attention to work things out. The fact I have bad feelings or paranoia about so many suggests to me that exhaustion might be clouding my own clarity. We'll see. Best effort basis. Off the top of my head, I think it's because you're currently reminding me of MR38 you, and in both cases, you were Village. 

Teaching Assistant, duh. I should have got that one

Mat has stood out to me a few times, yeah. I'm trying to figure out if the reason I didn't understand why people sused Coral Swan on our last game's D1 is only because I had Elim TMI (Mat was Coral, right?). As of right now, he's my preferred exe, though I'd also be cool with Dannnex for lesser reasons.

Fair enough.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

Teaching Assistant, duh. I should have got that one

I can neither confirm nor deny having to keep going (recently at colleagues): "Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Anyone?" and reflecting on how I've become my undergrad Introduction to Personal Identity lecturer  

3 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

As of right now, he's my preferred exe, though I'd also be cool with Dannnex for lesser reasons.

Why? (Btw - I know you wanted a chill game, so if this is pushing you too much into territory you're uncomfortable with, let me know and I'll stop pressing. At this point it's more me trying to understand where you're coming from.) 

Yeah he was Coral Swan.

[Stick. she/her]

10 hours ago, Archer said:

If the elims want to kill me, go right ahead, but I was treating my role as basically an over-glorified vanilla. There's not much practical use for it besides keeping everyone honest in PMs and checking actions. I was going to have to reveal it eventually anyway if I was told something important.

If we're dealing with v!Archer, then the elims are probably picking apart your claim right now. So I suppose we should as well. The more I think about this the more I'm convinced that v!Archer does not gain much for the village from false-claiming this way, so you're either a 1.villager telling the truth or 2.an elim telling the truth or 3.an elim lying. In terms of usefulness of use, I'm not too sold on the second possibility because why would an elim talk to the dead? I have already confirmed with TJ that the elim team does not have any hidden secondary wincons/alternative ways to win other than reaching parity. Perhaps it would be useful if they wanna communicate with a dead teammate. Hm. Not impossible. And again, how useful really is this role to villagers anyway because the dead people can maybe just straight-up lie, as you said? @|TJ| is the dead doc spoilered? Perhaps TJ just threw this role in just to troll. On to possibility 3 - this role is not strictly provable because dead people are dead. Uh, unless. (TJ, does this game have zombie mechanics? xD) so maybe e!Archer can safely get away with claiming this. I'm afraid I don't know Archer's playhistory well enough to know whether they are likely to pull a gambit like this as an elim. Thoughts, anyone? Also I didn't mention possibility 4 but I guess we can't discount it - Archer being a neutral. Any questions I asked TJ regarding neutrals were given a PAFO, so I guess it remains a possibility. For the moment I think I'm going with v!Archer, if only because it's a bold move to be making C1 specially when he wasn't in any danger/pressure to do so.

8 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

question, what is an elim?

Unsure of whether this is genuine confusion or you playing the newbie card  

6 hours ago, Experience said:

hmm.

people PM me if you can, I want to talk to ya'll.

Something is off about this and I can't put my finger on it. 

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I think it's interesting I have a different gut reaction to this than I do to Archer asking Devo if she's saying she isn't an Epic. I feel as though Exp's question seems to come from a "Epics = Elims = Bad" perspective which seems a tad more Village to me, especially since the context of this exchange has Experience reacting to Archer being seemingly thrown about Devo seemingly not being an Epic; I do think that Elims might be a bit more likely to want to steer clear of association with Epics in the first place.

tbh that bit reads more elim than village to me - the elim team knows it's own role composition but not the village's. It's obvious from the elim faction name that they're all Epics (although I suppose it's possible that some of them are only epics in flavour but vanilla in practice?), whereas the village faction name is more ambiguous. 

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I'm confused why/how you forgot about that vote when I don't on a quick glance see you referring to it at any other point

I acknowledged his apathy comment in my first post and thus knew he'd voted, but given all the other votes flying around I forgot who it was on  

4 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Do you have an opinion on whether the exchange in question is e/e or not? I ask because I specifically don't.

Agreed.

4 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Also, an Elim claiming they're a Reckoner would make my life a lot easier

Wait hold on lemme simplify that:

Quote

Also, an Elim claiming they're a Reckoner would make my life a lot easier

 Indeed.

2 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

I'll gladly respond to direct questions though.

Why the Mat vote?

Thoughts on players so far: reading archer village for above reasons, gut-reading illwei village but I feel like that's mostly because she's voting on me and I tend to trust people who I feel arent trying to pocket me xD While Tani hasn't given me much reason to village read her (and thus not much reason to take my vote off her), I think I'll go for Experience for today. I'm also side-eyeing Thaidakar but wouldnt wanna exe them just yet because it's their first game and the benefit of the doubt is warranted, at least tentatively. Regarding Mat, I seem to find myself mindmelding/agreeing with a lot of what they say, so naturally I am paranoid xD Not opposed to that exe. Mental note to look closer at Araris, Devo, and Ash (though im leaning slight village on ash because of tone). Will also add Kas to the village pile for now.

I think I am caught up on the three extra pages now. I have been ninjad at least 5 times. xD

EDIT: i am now viewing the ninjas - feel free to ignore my question about mat, aman, since kas as beaten me to it lol

EDIT2: Tani

Edited February 11, 2022 by _Stick_

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Why? (Btw - I know you wanted a chill game, so if this is pushing you too much into territory you're uncomfortable with, let me know and I'll stop pressing. At this point it's more me trying to understand where you're coming from.) 

Oh, don't worry about pushing me  I'm going to be relaxed no matter what y'all do, the main thing I'm focusing on is how I play and reply to peeps. Shorter, more concise posts, less involvement and no leading. Perfectly happy to receive questions, though I may not answer them fully.

9 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Why the Mat vote?

Because I believe he's an Epic-- and not the village kind of Epic.

If you want my specific reasons, I'm keeping it between Blink and me for now.

[Kasimir he/him]

5 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

And again, how useful really is this role to villagers anyway because the dead people can maybe just straight-up lie, as you said? @|TJ| is the dead doc spoilered? Perhaps TJ just threw this role in just to troll. On to possibility 3 - this role is not strictly provable because dead people are dead. Uh, unless. (TJ, does this game have zombie mechanics? xD) so maybe e!Archer can safely get away with claiming this. I'm afraid I don't know Archer's playhistory well enough to know whether they are likely to pull a gambit like this as an elim. Thoughts, anyone?

I'm largely in agreement with Aman and I kind of reached that conclusion at the end of my categorisation myself - I think it's nice to sort of do the groupings just to look for clusters (this is just me), but it's not going to be itself helpful without a flip. As I said, I also think that it's a bit hard to lie about because at the end of this cycle, we'll see the flip for ourselves. No particular read on Archer on my part because Archer is absolutely into boldness and wild gambits as an Elim so I'm not giving him a pass for it. But again, with the caveat I think my reads list is too awash with paranoia right now to be helpful - I think I'm just tired and will take the lesson from the AG8 dead doc about not persisting with analysis under very non-ideal conditions. I've done my best, and I've marked out my limitations for revisiting after work, exam prep, and - at some point - at least a nap.

Dead people can lie, this is true, but it's fundamentally an informational role. Obscured write-ups are a pain for the Village, but off the top of my head, some ways I could see the mechanic working involve something like Shard game Return mechanics (so like LG29 - I think?) or MR50's hospital, where role might be revealed but not alignment, and the dead go to a temporary holding doc until they pass on or are resurrected. Probably plenty more ways this can be done that I can't think about, but gaining information is always power in the right hands, especially in a blackout game, and especially with restricted communications (and thus fewer clandestine channels of info flow) one way or another.

Consider: if it's done like a hospital doc, they may flip - it'll just be a delayed flip, in which case collecting the info isn't actually bad. We'll know what to do with it afterwards.

All these are just possibilities I'm throwing out, but I return to the same fact we just don't know enough, and we have to PAFO.

I'm leaning - not necessarily Village but I certainly think Archer is being truthful because it's one hell of a whack thing to lie about, I just don't have a strong read on whether this is V!Archer or E!Archer right now. The issue with the E!Archer thing at the moment is I'm not seeing what the pay-off is. You could argue he gets the pay-off in trust, but that feels kind of weird as a way to earn trust. Maybe that's just me. ...God above am I talking myself into Village!Archer :|

tldr; I've learned a healthy respect for infocomms roles across my SE playhistory, and without knowing enough about this game, I'm reluctant to simply count them out like this. After all, everyone knows Tineyes are functionally useless except for their sweet PMs. Everything else needs more info before we can go back to it.

17 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Something is off about this and I can't put my finger on it. 

I'll be honest that I disliked that and I think it's for the same reasons I disliked Ellie so I'm kind of just frowning at myself since Ellie was Village :|

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. 

20 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

tbh that bit reads more elim than village to me - the elim team knows it's own role composition but not the village's. It's obvious from the elim faction name that they're all Epics (although I suppose it's possible that some of them are only epics in flavour but vanilla in practice?), whereas the village faction name is more ambiguous. 

I feel like that's why the Elim team wouldn't necessarily want to make spicy predictions - precisely because they don't know Village composition. Reckoner allies could be anything from tensor users to actual Epics (as seen from Archer's claim.) But as I pointed out in my longpost, I'm starting to revise my position on that because I think it's fundamentally at the mercy of distro (which we can't assume), risk appetite, separate player tendencies, and just which layer of the IKYK is correct. This is why I prefer to side-step the issue by grouping players together by position resonance rather than putting my foot down on what I think the correct layer is. Too many balls in the air for me to quite feel confident at this stage.

One thing I didn't want to say but will just say at this point because the Elims will be working this out and I generally always work from an assumption of Elim competence, and Aman partly alluded to this, and that's that as much as Archer and everyone involved got side-eyed for roleclaiming, 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. Less you probably because of the delayed response. That's as good as a tacit Epic claim, given how Devo and I were like "uhhhh" about it. Obviously some Villagers will be deliberately masking their own responses to sow uncertainty and to avoid outing themselves as Epics potentially with roles but that's going to be one hell of a mess to tangle out: who is a Villager who simply decided not to give a response that would make a target of them?

I recognise I'm asking a lot of questions here. I don't have answers to most of them. Just gonna throw in the towel for the moment until I can charge up a bit.

17 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Oh, don't worry about pushing me  I'm going to be relaxed no matter what y'all do, the main thing I'm focusing on is how I play and reply to peeps. Shorter, more concise posts, less involvement and no leading. Perfectly happy to receive questions, though I may not answer them fully.

Good to hear  I need to start laying down that Mordred RP myself. I'm happy I'm not feeling that - pressure, or that urge to drive myself into destruction, so that's good too on my part  The real question is if I can hold on to that non-attachment if and when the first ML shows up. But that's on me.

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

No particular read on Archer on my part because Archer is absolutely into boldness and wild gambits as an Elim so I'm not giving him a pass for it.

Since it's a popular enough topic, I might as well say a lil more about why I straight up am village reading Archer. Even knowing that he has a history of being a bold, gambit happy elim, I'd be extremely surprised if that were the case here.

An elim claiming to be a village Epic without knowing whether or not village Epics really exist is insanely risky. Maybe not in the short term, but after enough flips without seeing another one, it'd undoubtedly come back to bite him.

Based on tone and direction alone, Archer's approach reads like a Villager with minimal information sharing what little he does know with hopes of gathering more info. I'd probably do the same thing in his shoes.

[---]

Wow, what a downer Kas. Who says we need to have any MLs? :P.  speedrun time. 

47 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Regarding Mat, I seem to find myself mindmelding/agreeing with a lot of what they say, so naturally I am paranoid xD Not opposed to that exe.

Can you talk about this more? How do those two things go together? 

Specifically going to elaborate so I don't have to make another post: I get being paranoid of someone who seems to have the same thoughts as you, but specifically in your case where you hadn't really made many posts before that, and also just outright saying "not opposed" doesn't sit well with me when I feel like there should definitely be some opposition from you if you're village. Mindmeld paranoia isn't ever the kind you see people kill over. 

Regardless, I was able to come around on Stick in a timely manner in the AG. If you're village I trust I'll find you. 

Stick's paragraph involving archer and neutrals is pinging off the walls. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Ash, are you not sleeping

@Illwei I'm a pessimist smh you should know better given I basically bet on Ash 1v13ing the Village. And I'm not really in this game to — look I'll do my best but my immediate personal wincon is not driving myself into another cycle of destruction. It's reasonable that I worry about what whether I'll keep falling to the same hamartia as I always do. 

@Amanuensis Fair point. Feel a little better about both of you. 

N.B. Will justify later. Mobile woes. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Ashbringer he/him]

See, if you try and move people's minds they stop melding. Or they break a little.

I'd also like to hear more from @Archer, because everyone's talking about you without actually tagging you. (Yes, you haven't been on the Shard in 8 hours, but still thought I'd let you know and get rid of plausible deniability ).

Hmm. Rollover's a bit early and I have things to do, but I should have some time tomorrow. I hope. For now, I'm alright with the A-Train. Although I would be curious if Araris stays and Archer joins 

Can anyone make a group PM

Edit: Oh hi Kas  I'm confused and bored and for once have a chance of accomplishing something

... but yeah I need sleep

Edited February 11, 2022 by Ashbringer

[---]

1

Spoiler

Experience is Village
Araris is Village
Archer is Village
Mat is Village

Stick is an Elim

2

Spoiler

Mat isn't teamed with Thaidikar
Danex isn't teamed with Thaidikar
Stick isn't teamed with Thaidikar
Experience isn't teamed with Araris
Experience isn't teamed with Archer
Ashbringer isn't teamed with Striker
Kasimir is not teamed with Ash
Kasimir is not teamed with Stick

3

Spoiler

Leaning village on ash for prodding striker when striker was viewing the thread. In reality it's pretty NAI but I like it nonetheless. 

Initial obligatory suspicion on Kas for trying to initiate "normalcy" in his play via "shuffle squat" with mat

Stick is an Elim because her posts, despite interacting with people, don't seem to have any sort of thoughts behind them. A kind of idle banter that isn't idle banter at first glance but still is. Speaking without saying anything.

Regardless of if Archer's point on Mat is true, (I think it's not), I think the perspective he used in explaining his bizarre read comes from a good perspective.

You can't read into Stink wanting PMs, but it makes me wonder. If Stink is an elim I'd guess about how many elims had checked in by then, because I would assume maybe a team of 5, which is people to talk to a bit.

I don't know why I didn't call this one earlier, but Mat is village. this is basically almost completely off of the post where he said "I want to look back and see how many of the IllweiTakes were right" or whatnot. I really like the nonchalance of how he said that and just. the casualness. Like "Oh illwei is making her reads trackable, let's see how accurate she really is" or something. 

The next person who mentions PMs unironically ends up on my kill list

 

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Illwei said:

I don't know why I didn't call this one earlier, but Mat is village. this is basically almost completely off of the post where he said "I want to look back and see how many of the IllweiTakes were right" or whatnot. I really like the nonchalance of how he said that and just. the casualness. Like "Oh illwei is making her reads trackable, let's see how accurate she really is" or something. 

The next person who mentions PMs unironically ends up on my kill list

If anyone can make a PM with Illwei and me in it, that'd be grand.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Ashbringer he/him]

I feel like most of what I’ve done is NAI but looks village, honestly. Oh look, I voted. Cool. That might be village for me, but I’m consistently hitting all the low bars. (Actually, I think that’s just an Ash thing. When was the last time I voted early? Idk.)

At least I’m here though, eh? 

… okay going to sleep bye

[---]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

I feel like most of what I’ve done is NAI but looks village, honestly. Oh look, I voted. Cool. That might be village for me, but I’m consistently hitting all the low bars. (Actually, I think that’s just an Ash thing. When was the last time I voted early? Idk.)

At least I’m here though, eh? 

… okay going to sleep bye

wow this is a really towny post this might sound ironic but it's not this is a really towny post ash what prompted this

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, Illwei said:

wow this is a really towny post this might sound ironic but it's not this is a really towny post ash what prompted this

Dang, I was trying to bait a vote or something from you, but you didn't even respond to me

[Kasimir he/him]

10 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Dang, I was trying to bait a vote or something from you, but you didn't even respond to me

You called?

Spoiler

 

[|TJ| he/him]

2 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

 @|TJ| is the dead doc spoilered?

Uhhh, DAFO?

[Stick. she/her]

1 hour ago, Illwei said:

Can you talk about this more? How do those two things go together? 

Specifically going to elaborate so I don't have to make another post: I get being paranoid of someone who seems to have the same thoughts as you, but specifically in your case where you hadn't really made many posts before that, and also just outright saying "not opposed" doesn't sit well with me when I feel like there should definitely be some opposition from you if you're village. Mindmeld paranoia isn't ever the kind you see people kill over. 

If I actively wanted him dead, I would’ve just voted on him  As it stands, I am not suspicious enough to cast a vote there but have no reason to push against the exe, if that makes sense? C1s I am simply not opposed to any exe candidate unless I have specific reason to not exe them (i.e. reason to believe they’re village). Think Devo talked about this in the AG as well. 

[Amanuensis he/him]

9 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

If I actively wanted him dead, I would’ve just voted on him  As it stands, I am not suspicious enough to cast a vote there but have no reason to push against the exe, if that makes sense? C1s I am simply not opposed to any exe candidate unless I have specific reason to not exe them (i.e. reason to believe they’re village). Think Devo talked about this in the AG as well. 

This may not be what Illwei was getting at, but I too was confused by your Mat stance. Just to clarify, you're mind-melding / agreeing with Mat, but not reading him as Village due to paranoia, right?

Follow-up question if Yes: do you believe E!Mat would be able to say things V!Stick thinks?

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

If I actively wanted him dead, I would’ve just voted on him  As it stands, I am not suspicious enough to cast a vote there but have no reason to push against the exe, if that makes sense? C1s I am simply not opposed to any exe candidate unless I have specific reason to not exe them (i.e. reason to believe they’re village). Think Devo talked about this in the AG as well. 

Isn't there a transitivity problem here?

If you have mindmeld paranoia, ex hypothesi you believe you share the same views/reads as the player. But if you're Village, I feel like what Illwei is driving at is that this should give you prima facie reason to think they're Village, i.e. specific reason not to exe them. Because if not, then you're also lightly committed to the idea that an exe on you is...unobjectionable? - given you both share the same views/reads. At the very least, I think we can make the point that since you have prima facie reason - on the assumption that you are Village - to think that your reads and views were derived in a pure (i.e. untainted by motivated reasoning) way, then you should at least have light commitment to either the stance that your reads and views are mistaken (in which case you probably have more problems than just Mat) or the stance that you should be revising your read of him upwards.

If you're thinking of the Cham-Swan-Axl fracas D1, it was probably Kas pretending to be Araris. His voting philosophy is pretty uniquely identifying.

...And I think I got ninjaed, w00ts.