Mid-Range Game 57: Helvegen

[Mat he/him]

Sorry for not being around yesterday- Invitational track meets take a long time and I was tired afterwards  Here now though.

Kinda just want to do the bucket list thing, but I'll add in the reasons why. Note that these will be spit-fire as I've read the entire thread once through and should redo that and respond to things, that will come later. Buckets include only people with posts, and aren't ordered within themselves.

Good Bucket:

Spoiler

Archer- Gut, mainly from PMs. I like PMs :P.

Illwei- this post, mainly the edit

Striker- I read his first post as straight village, it has two bold takes that leave no room for interpretation

Orlok- Fang takes are (I believe) posted at a time when they are the opposite of the main thread view. Should revisit this one but I'm also just paranoid from last game :P.

Bort- Good posts in general, I sympathize with a lot of his takes and he seems to be trying to figure stuff out, and is handling the votes on him well.

TJ- Gut, I'm fighting the urge to paranoid TJ even though the last time I tunneled on him I was right :P.

JNV- I liked their singular post but really I didn't have a reason to vote them in the first place

Bad Bucket:

Spoiler

Thaid- ignoring the thread somewhat and bad vibes in PMs

xino- Gut, don't ask me to explain this it's a bad read :P.

Stick- I agree that it's e indicative for Stick to reply to a bunch of random little things early on. Totally trying to pocket me in PMs too smh  

Araris- One post in which he votes me without explaining why, so :P.

Feel best on Thaid at the moment. I don't mind Stick but I guess it depends on the VC in 24 hours.

[Kasimir he/him]

Hi guys.

GM reminder to put your votes in red and bold them like this:

Wyrm

As stated in the rules  

I missed @Orlok Tsubodai's Stick vote the first time until someone in thread flagged it, and I nearly missed @xinoehp512's Stick vote - I sometimes just skim posts for votecounts so if it doesn't jump out at me, I can miss them. This is especially key for TJ voters because this guy has a really short name and TJ has been a GM nightmare to not miss.

tldr; there's no point @ing me to log a changed vote if your vote is gonna be hiding better than Altair in a haystack, alright?

Spoiler

Votes have been logged but please do note this going forwards. Thank you!

6 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

is even possible to have two roles lol

Uh. What.

How- In what world

Why is this even a question :joy:

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Sorry for not being around yesterday- Invitational track meets take a long time and I was tired afterwards  Here now though.

Kinda just want to do the bucket list thing, but I'll add in the reasons why. Note that these will be spit-fire as I've read the entire thread once through and should redo that and respond to things, that will come later. Buckets include only people with posts, and aren't ordered within themselves.

Good Bucket:

  Reveal hidden contents

Archer- Gut, mainly from PMs. I like PMs :P.

Illwei- this post, mainly the edit

Striker- I read his first post as straight village, it has two bold takes that leave no room for interpretation

Orlok- Fang takes are (I believe) posted at a time when they are the opposite of the main thread view. Should revisit this one but I'm also just paranoid from last game :P.

Bort- Good posts in general, I sympathize with a lot of his takes and he seems to be trying to figure stuff out, and is handling the votes on him well.

TJ- Gut, I'm fighting the urge to paranoid TJ even though the last time I tunneled on him I was right :P.

JNV- I liked their singular post but really I didn't have a reason to vote them in the first place

Bad Bucket:

  Reveal hidden contents

Thaid- ignoring the thread somewhat and bad vibes in PMs

xino- Gut, don't ask me to explain this it's a bad read :P.

Stick- I agree that it's e indicative for Stick to reply to a bunch of random little things early on. Totally trying to pocket me in PMs too smh  

Araris- One post in which he votes me without explaining why, so :P.

Feel best on Thaid at the moment. I don't mind Stick but I guess it depends on the VC in 24 hours.

any particular reasons for the vote? sorry I haven't been on though, I've had a lot to catch up on throughout the shard.

ima do TJ Stick.

[Mat he/him]

7 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

any particular reasons for the vote? sorry I haven't been on though, I've had a lot to catch up on throughout the shard.

ima do TJ Stick.

Yes, you're somewhat avoiding the thread and I got bad vibes in PMs :P. Specifically on your thoughts on using the Fang.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Yes, you're somewhat avoiding the thread and I got bad vibes in PMs :P. Specifically on your thoughts on using the Fang.

*shrugs* I'm a little suspicious of Archer and Bort though.

[Stick. she/her]

22 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I agree that it's e indicative for Stick to reply to a bunch of random little things early on. Totally trying to pocket me in PMs too smh

I genuinely don't understand why people keep citing this line of logic. I like quoting and commenting on small things and do it most games. I would ask everyone to skim through the D1 of LG74 and you'll see that I post similarly there. Was I an elim that game? Yes. But only an honorary one.  

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I missed @Orlok Tsubodai's Stick vote the first time until someone in thread flagged it, and I nearly missed @xinoehp512's Stick vote

tbh this is probably a sign from the SE gods themselves - I am a bad exe target.  

19 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Uh. What.

How- In what world

Why is this even a question :joy:

xDD

15 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

any particular reasons for the vote? sorry I haven't been on though, I've had a lot to catch up on throughout the shard.

ima do TJ Stick.

This is so ironic what xD Lemme ask you: any particular reasons for the vote?

Also this is weirdly past selfpres. You receive one vote and immediately jump on a bandwagon?

Edited March 26, 2022 by _Stick_
grammar

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

I genuinely don't understand why people keep citing this line of logic. I like quoting and commenting on small things and do it most games. I would ask everyone to skim through the D1 of LG74 and you'll see that I post similarly there. Was I an elim that game? Yes. But only an honorary one.  

tbh this is probably a sign from the SE gods themself - I am a bad exe target.  

xDD

This is so ironic what xD Lemme ask you: any particular reasons for the vote?

Also this is weirdly past selfpres. You receive one vote and immediately jump on a bandwagon?

*shrugs* I don't really have reasons for it. I just decided to try and be more active on here.

Also @Kasimir you're the gm, why're you voting and doing reads? I'm just a bit confused.

[---]

Xino is probably village.

[Mat he/him]

8 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

*shrugs* I'm a little suspicious of Archer and Bort though.

Can you try to explain why, for both of these reads? As well as your Stick vote, basically what Stick said

3 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

I genuinely don't understand why people keep citing this line of logic. I like quoting and commenting on small things and do it most games. I would ask everyone to skim through the D1 of LG74 and you'll see that I post similarly there. Was I an elim that game? Yes. But only an honorary one.  

I mean, it's a weak read and I wouldn't have made it myself, so /shrug. I'm voting Thaid, who as you've pointed out just made a weird self pres onto you.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

Also @Kasimir you're the gm, why're you voting and doing reads? I'm just a bit confused.

Am I not allowed to?

Do you see a rule that prevents me from doing so? :eyes:

(1. I'm joking, and I'm a troll; if you check the reads, they're basically on everyone in the spec doc and so aren't game relevant,

2. Orlok and Xino have been giving me some grief with regard to being able to pick up on their votes, so I've been reminding everyone on vote formatting so I don't go more kayana trying to identify if I've missed anyone's votes - Wyrm isn't playing this game, or I sure hope he isn't! So he's a useful way of demonstrating how the vote should be formatted so I can catch it easily.)

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

Can you try to explain why, for both of these reads? As well as your Stick vote, basically what Stick said

I mean, it's a weak read and I wouldn't have made it myself, so /shrug. I'm voting Thaid, who as you've pointed out just made a weird self pres onto you.

I was kind of going on my gut with those reads. Though I do actually think Stick might actually be a little sus for some of the reasons people have said.

Just now, Kasimir said:

Am I not allowed to?

Do you see a rule that prevents me from doing so? :eyes:

(1. I'm joking, and I'm a troll; if you check the reads, they're basically on everyone in the spec doc and so aren't game relevant,

2. Orlok and Xino have been giving me some grief with regard to being able to pick up on their votes, so I've been reminding everyone on vote formatting so I don't go more kayana trying to identify if I've missed anyone's votes - Wyrm isn't playing this game, or I sure hope he isn't! So he's a useful way of demonstrating how the vote should be formatted so I can catch it easily.)

oh, lol. 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Bort xino

Just a gut feeling.

Good

Spoiler

Bort, Illwei, Mat, Orlok, TJ, JNV

Bad

Spoiler

xino, Archer, Thaid, TUN

I've left Araris, Stick, and Aman out because I don't remember anything they've said. I know this doesn't make sense for Stick as they've talked a lot, but brain gonna brain

[Kasimir he/him]

Reminder! You have 24 hours remaining in the cycle!

Go forth and hunt down the Shadow!

May the Light prevail!

[|TJ| he/him]

2 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

I never said I observed anything - those were your words  The point of the question was to get an answer out of you  As elims, people just tend to just say things sometimes with no real thought/justification behind them so asking people to expand on/clarify their thoughts is always a good village strat imo. Also offers opportunities to develop/refine reads. 

Mmmrghh, I'm not convinced by this because the main reason this got flagged as suspicious to me because I don't recall you doing this as village, so I found it to be elim-indicative to you. And I see you did link LG74 here, but commenting on each thing, I've always felt there was a motive there, and it's different to the question you asked... which I did not find a point in asking and was performative. You say the point was to gauge an answer because elims say random stuff, but this thing, you haven't done as village before, which is why I find your reasoning weak :P. 

34 minutes ago, Illwei said:

Xino is probably village.

You want people to ask you reasoning so... why?

Also, we should probably do a yellow/purple yes/no voting thing for Fanging. I was thinking if it would be better if elims did not know for certain that Fanging was happening. But I don't think there'd be a difference as they choose someone to die with out without the knowledge that Fanging would occur.

Good - Mat, Bort, Orlok
Mlerp - Striker, JNV, Araris, Illwei
Bad - Stick, xino, Archer, Thaid

[StrikerEZ he/him]

7 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Mlerp

big fan of this word

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Just now, StrikerEZ said:

big fan of this word

Mlerp, best word in the universe.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Alain sat on a rocky outcrop overlooking Helgen, pondering the day's events as he took a midday meal. Discussion was rife among the townsfolk, but Alain hadn't really heard himself mentioned. Some of that was surely deliberate; he wasn't known for bandying words, and always got the impression that he intimidated people a bit. Others, like that oddly named fellow Xino, didn't even seem to think he existed. The fact that someone had been murdered didn't change the fact that folk still needed lumber and game, so Alain wasn't about to stop his work, even if it meant he wasn't around town much.

Besides, there were far fewer... distractions out here. There was something about Helgen these days that made it hard to think straight. Maybe it was just being near people he'd grown up with all his life, knowing that some of them wanted him dead. Knowing that some of them, he'd need to kill.

---

Moving from Mat to Striker, I know he's sick and also got voted out D1 in the QF (which is why I voted Mat earlier), but there are too many names in that good list for my liking.  Both Mat and Striker have argued for a D1 Fang, which I firmly believe is in the elims' favor (it guarantees that they have an extra person to scheme with, versus us exing an elim, and we'll have 0-1 votes from the Fanged player to work with).

[Stick. she/her]

Some reads:

Village

• Mat (initial misinterpretation of rules; thought progression from there on out seems very natural)
• Striker (gut read; just tone I guess - should probably revisit)
• illwei (mainly the paragraph outlining why using the Fang after some elims have died is a bad idea - only slight vill here tho cuz I wouldn't put it past them to fake this for village cred)
• Bort (Just cuz I don't think an elim would phrase a sentence this way: 

  23 hours ago, Bort said:

  just so we don't lose it by accidentally lynching a darkfriend on day 1

  Bolded mine. Writing this, I think an elim should recognise that just this might be enough to get them exed)

Elim

• Xino (reasons previously given)
• Archer (I think there's a good chance xino/archer are e/e - they've got just the right amount of back-and-forth in-thread and Archer has sussed xino in our PM as well, but says he doesnt want to exe them just yet as they are a returning player. Which is understandable, but I think this is worth considering)
• Thaid (their vote on me and reaction to Mat's vote on them)

Null

• Orlok
• Araris
• JNV
• TJ
• Aman
• TUN

Edited March 26, 2022 by _Stick_
spelling

[Mat he/him]

22 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Both Mat and Striker have argued for a D1 Fang, which I firmly believe is in the elims' favor (it guarantees that they have an extra person to scheme with, versus us exing an elim, and we'll have 0-1 votes from the Fanged player to work with).

An elim dying D1 is never in the elims’ favor, even if they get to stay in the elim doc. They get to stay in the elim doc if we don’t Fang, but they also still count for parity. I think it’s weird people keep comparing it to us exeing an elim because if we exe an elim today the Fang doesn’t take effect. It only activates if we misexe.

To me the only way this makes sense is if you’re arguing against using the Fang at all. I’d rather get a red flip as soon as possible, preferably through the exe but through the Fang as an insurance policy.

[xinoehp512 he/him]

3 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

I would have assumed this was the case had your list been in the order of the playerlist or the order of posts this cycle. But it seems arbitrary so I assumed it was in order of strongest reads to weakest, hence Novel and Aman at the very end. And why did you omit Araris from the list when you've made sure to include everyone else, even the nonposters?

 I can't believe I've done this.

Araris goes in the Bad Bucket for now.

3 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

can you give me a specific reason?

Probably the confrontational tone.

3 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

If this was your line of thought, why'd you include all three of us in the sus list? If you thought e!TJ was accusing me and Striker in order to make people not trust us, shouldn't this mean you're committing to TJ/Striker and TJ/me being not e/e?

Look, I only put about five seconds of thought into each of these.  If I tried to force myself to go any more in depth it never would have gotten done at all.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

An elim dying D1 is never in the elims’ favor, even if they get to stay in the elim doc. They get to stay in the elim doc if we don’t Fang, but they also still count for parity. I think it’s weird people keep comparing it to us exeing an elim because if we exe an elim today the Fang doesn’t take effect. It only activates if we misexe.

To me the only way this makes sense is if you’re arguing against using the Fang at all. I’d rather get a red flip as soon as possible, preferably through the exe but through the Fang as an insurance policy.

I’m arguing for using the Fang on D2 or D3 if we are still able to. Which was what I had in mind when I was thinking about the concept; using it to stop a sweep where the village is clueless. And your second statement doesn’t make sense. Parity doesn’t matter until the game ends, so it certainly isn’t relevant on D1 or even D2.

I would also argue that exing an elim D1 often hurts the village, because of how uninformed the village is when voting (note I’m definitely not saying we still shouldn’t try). Using the Fang D1 isn’t quite the same, but it’s close, and it comes with the additional disadvantage of not having any discussion relevant to the removed player.

[Archer he/him]

6 hours ago, Bort said:

If we activate the Fang today, we guarantee ourselves at least one elim down, even if we do mislynch a villager during the exe. That is, after all, the point of the game, so why not use the mechanic we have to help with that before we lose the chance to?

I still think you're more focused on losing the Fang to an elim exe than to losing our Elders, which implies a hidden agenda. 

48 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Moving from Mat to Striker, I know he's sick and also got voted out D1 in the QF (which is why I voted Mat earlier), but there are too many names in that good list for my liking. Both Mat and Striker have argued for a D1 Fang, which I firmly believe is in the elims' favor (it guarantees that they have an extra person to scheme with, versus us exing an elim, and we'll have 0-1 votes from the Fanged player to work with).

I hadn't clocked that exing an elim means they don't get to stay in the elim doc, whereas fanging one does. Good point. That makes Bort's language look worse to me. Giving you a pass, Araris, on knowing the quirks of the elim rules well because you came up with the mechanic. 

But I don't like your switch from Mat to Striker here. Striker is has a reputation for being catchable by their reads lists, but it's weird that you talked about Mat and Striker being similarly suspicious while making the move from one to another. I also think the trade off of a guaranteed extra advisor vs extended thread control from having an extra vote/voice isn't all that significant. When evil, I usually dump by best ideas in the doc C1 and then it's mostly a matter of executing them, which doesn't require my continued presence. Having a strong opinion that one approach is better than the other seems odd. 

4 hours ago, xinoehp512 said:

Being quick to accuse.  Although, looking back, it seems I misread your comments to Striker so the only person you really accused was Stick. I don't think that counts as aggressive, so you've been promoted to the Good Bucket.

Is this what you liked, @Illwei? 

1 hour ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

Also @Kasimir you're the gm, why're you voting and doing reads? I'm just a bit confused.

This implies you didn't read the reads lists, which would be villagey because elims like checking for their own names, or had a shallow comprehension of them, which would be scummy because you might have just checked for your own name.

28 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Village

• Mat (initial misinterpretation of rules; thought progression from there on out seems very natural)
• Striker (gut read; just tone I guess - should probably revisit)
• illwei (mainly the paragraph outlining why using the Fang after some elims have died is a bad idea - only slight vill here tho cuz I wouldn't put it past them to fake this for village cred)
• Bort (Just cuz I don't think an elim would phrase a sentence this way:  Bolded mine. Writing this, I think an elim should recognise that just this might be enough to get them exed)

Elim

• Archer (I think there's a good chance xino/archer are e/e - they've got just the right amount of back-and-forth in-thread and Archer has sussed xino in our PM as well, but says he doesnt want to exe them just yet as they are a returning player. Which is understandable, but I think this is worth considering)
• Thaid (their vote on me and reaction to Mat's vote on them)

So, misread the rules, should revisit, misread the rules is your village tier, plus Bort. Yeah, that's at the back of my mind too, but I'm trying to commit more to reads this game. 

I'll repeat my stance on Xino publicly: having a complete pass for any reason makes the game unfun, even if it means you survive longer. But Xino usually plays pinch hitter and I can't remember the last time they joined at the beginning of a game, so I'm giving them a lot of leeway today. 

Based on their prior playstyle, I wouldn't put too much stock into Thaid's quick self pres. 

6 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I would also argue that exing an elim D1 often hurts the village, because of how uninformed the village is when voting (note I’m definitely not saying we still shouldn’t try). Using the Fang D1 isn’t quite the same, but it’s close, and it comes with the additional disadvantage of not having any discussion relevant to the removed player.

I'm sensing a lot of unresolved disappointment about the outcome of the QF... 

I'm banking on elim competence and assuming their designated sacrifice will be playing a low info game that we can't afford to hunt down because CCing often mixes, or they're doing intentionally misleading interactions that the IKYK will make it hard to analyze unless we end up going like a week without fanging. Our early game wagons are usually three or four people, and swayable by one or two key votes. Self pres and your designated sacrifice's vote means you can get away with a lot of vote influence that won't look too suspicious in retrospect. 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

10 minutes ago, Archer said:

I'm banking on elim competence and assuming their designated sacrifice will be playing a low info game that we can't afford to hunt down because CCing often mixes, or they're doing intentionally misleading interactions that the IKYK will make it hard to analyze unless we end up going like a week without fanging. Our early game wagons are usually three or four people, and swayable by one or two key votes. Self pres and your designated sacrifice's vote means you can get away with a lot of vote influence that won't look too suspicious in retrospect. 

I'm not sure you've made an argument against me here. Maybe one in favor of consolidating votes a bit toward the end, given a likely larger elim team, but I would push for that anyway, to avoid a mess like the D1 and D2 of the last MR.

18 minutes ago, Archer said:

I'm sensing a lot of unresolved disappointment about the outcome of the QF... 

Nope, you've got me all wrong. My soul (or whatever occupies that missing space) is elim through and through.

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Nope, you've got me all wrong. My soul (or whatever occupies that missing space) is elim through and through.

This explains a great deal as my soul is Brown Ajah Village :|

[Stick. she/her]

Vote Count:
JNV(0): Mat
Stick(4): TJ, Orlok, Xino, Thaid
Mat(0): Araris
Bort(1): Archer, Striker
TJ(0): Thaid
Xino(2): Stick, Striker
Aman(1): Bort
Thaid(1): Mat
Striker(1): Araris

Cleaner VC:
Stick(4): TJ, Orlok, Xino, Thaid
Xino(2): Stick, Striker
Bort(1): Archer
Aman(1): Bort
Thaid(1): Mat
Striker(1): Araris

This is prone to errors so please let me know if I've missed any votes/retractions

1 hour ago, Archer said:

Based on their prior playstyle, I wouldn't put too much stock into Thaid's quick self pres.

Yeahhh that honestly makes me pause too. @Matrim's Dice you mentioned Thaid sounding off in PMs - could you elaborate on that?