Long Game 68: Studies of Ashyn

[Straw he/him]

2 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I'll stick a vote on Straw. As far as I can see, Straw is usually never a player to sit back and watch, and yet we haven't seen any reads or signs of activity. 

Another thing is that their one query-type post from D2 was pointed toward Illwei. I'm beginning to think that Gears' death was an attempt to get a mislynch on Illwei (or Lotus perhaps? Those two were Gears' two main talking points D2-N2), and it's a correlation I think is worth pursuing. (That, and I trust Devotary to a point.)

@Straw, anything to contribute?

 

I'm going to (hopefully) be doing some college prep stuff for the next few hours, so I may not post here for a while, but I'll try to update my analysis block before tomorrow's rollover.

Writing up analysis right now, please be patient. I've admittedly been less active than usual, largely since I'm currently on vacation and also feeling a bit more burned out than usual. Also would dispute your thing about me being "never a player to sit back and watch". I've been more active recently, but not always.

Not sure about Gears/Illwei connection. I do have Illwei as an elim lean, but not due to Gears' suspicion. Confirmed good != confirmed right. Can't see an elim team trying that.

Analysis to come very soon. Only have a few people left.

[Elandera she/her]

16 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

So some diseases give powers at expenses (e.g. roleblockers cannot PM), other powers do not have disadvantages (like double vote). Illwei used a double vote to save themselves at the expense on Mist on D1. Powers/Diseases spread by some unknown mechanism. Kas claimed he got the double vote power, Pyro claimed he got his cancel-vote-but-self-vote-is-reassigned role by the spread. Lotus claimed she got the same role via the spread. There is a role that heals diseases but takes away the powers as well. I was healed of my role-block in this way. Sart and Matrim are claimed role-blockers as well. 

Thank you for this summary!

2 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'd also like to ask the 5 people I don't have here, @Sart, @Elandera, @Straw, @Illwei, and @Frozen Mint to get involved in the discussion a bit more, since I currently don't have much of a read on any of you

I do need to participate more. I'm mostly trying to get my feet under me at the moment. The mechanics seem interesting, for sure.

First thoughts @Kasimir and @Devotary of Spontaneity, from what I see, I think I side with Devo on this one. I think it's more plausible to have deduced from available information and come up with the conclusion that it was an optional double vote. Kas, it seems you're suggesting the only way she'd be able to pin it down is if she were teammates with either you or Illwei, and in that case, she'd basically just outed two of the teams with a question that wouldn't need to be answered.

There is the possibility that there's a third person with that particular ability, but I think that would be way too much double vote potential for a relatively small player list, especially with all the other seeming vote manipulations out there in the world.

[---]

15 minutes ago, Elandera said:

There is the possibility that there's a third person with that particular ability, but I think that would be way too much double vote potential for a relatively small player list, especially with all the other seeming vote manipulations out there in the world.

according to Kas he is in communication with a third person with the same ability. I don't know.

EDIT: also I was reading back through and noticed that Lotus asked in the beginning if I could have taken off my vote from her-did she forget that according to her, she was the one who took the vote off of me? 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Illwei
formatting makes more sense this way

[Ashbringer he/him]

Kas has evidently been PM'ing with everyone, which makes him an information hub. I'd just like to note that down.

[Straw he/him]

Sorry about my lack of thread activity.

Reads at the moment:

Village:

TJ Shade - Strongest village read, can't see anything very suspicious. Generally helpful.

Kasimir - Quote gimmick makes it more difficult to read their earlier posts. Seems to legitimately have village interests in mind with information openness. Has apparently been PMing. Not sure if I like that. I would prefer to have more openness in the thread.

Matrim's Dice - Has regularly put out analysis that seems to be coming from a good mindset. Specifically hasn't been holding back on giving reads, which I like. They get additional points from me due to their willingness to claim.

Null:

Ashbringer - Lots of posts, very little I feel strongly about. Suspicions are very similar to mine, which is interesting. Gut village read, possibly due to the previous point.

Devotary of Spontaneity - Very few analyzable posts. Not sure what's going on with them/Kas. Will have to reread.

Frozen Mint - Very few analyzable posts.

Teft/Elandera - No analyzable posts.

Vapor - Very few analyzable posts.

Sart - Not very many posts. Village points for vote encouragement, elim points for lack of interaction and jumping on Mint with reasoning I dislike.

Lahilt - Very few analyzable posts. Still getting an off feel from them. I think their vote on Pyro was odd.

Elim:

StrikerEZ - As Matrim said, Striker gives me QF46 vibes in this game (lurking at edges). Otherwise, my read of him is just gut. Probably my weakest elim read.

Araris Valerian - He's objected to Illwei suspicion in ways that I find quite odd (claimed votes on Illwei due to meta, said Illwei vote worse than rand, specifically picked out Illwei from Matrim's reads on D1). Interestingly, voted on Mint due to Illwei connection. Generally odd amount of Illwei connection.

Illwei - I still think his posts are odd, and he has a kind of nervous energy around him that I very much dislike. I find their D2 reads particularly odd, as they listed no elim reads whatsoever.

Lotus - Initially completely null reads. Not sure if deliberate null-ness or if they were legitimately feeling that. Lots of filler posts. Ash-Mat-TJ is something of a jump. The more I look through their posts, the more I feel like the filler is deliberate. Vote manipulation is strange as well.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Aye, that is very similar  Straw, for now.

[Sart he/him]

Right then. Devotary of Spontaneity. Kasimir makes the perfect case for your guilt, and I see every reason to suspect you. The Freudian slip of saying "target pool" rather than "suspect pool" is particularly damning for me. @Devotary of Spontaneity who do you suspect currently? I see plenty of rule speculation, but no actually player analysis. Who are you planning on voting on?

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

10 minutes ago, Sart said:

Right then. Devotary of Spontaneity. Kasimir makes the perfect case for your guilt, and I see every reason to suspect you. The Freudian slip of saying "target pool" rather than "suspect pool" is particularly damning for me. @Devotary of Spontaneity who do you suspect currently? I see plenty of rule speculation, but no actually player analysis. Who are you planning on voting on?

Is it that I left a tie last cycle instead of voting as I've done several times in recent games? Is it guessing the most logical option for a vote addition ability that happened to be correct? Is it Silber and Gears didn't have publicly known roles and weren't driving vote discussion -> the elims are choosing low information kills -> elims who would choose this strategy are themselves peripheral and would thus be kill targets if they were village -> Devotary doesn't contribute much to discussion in this (or any) game -> I'm an elim and responsible for the elim kill selection? Apparently it's for saying kill target instead of killer suspect pool.

I don't know who I'm going to vote for. Voting at the end of cycles isn't just for fun. I do more rule speculation instead of player analysis because I'm much worse at the latter, as has been the case in every single game you've played with me. The reasons I had for suspecting Lotus are still there. Lingering suspicion of Ash, but that's just from cycle 1 and I haven't done enough work to update that. Illwei-Araris is still possible. Three village roleblockers sounds like too many. I'd guess one of those three is evil, and that it's more likely to be you or Matrim than TJ. On that note, who did you roleblock last night? Matrim's claim hit a dead end because Striker didn't submit an action supposedly, but any claim is better than none.

[Straw he/him]

37 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Three village roleblockers sounds like too many. I'd guess one of those three is evil, and that it's more likely to be you or Matrim than TJ. On that note, who did you roleblock last night? Matrim's claim hit a dead end because Striker didn't submit an action supposedly, but any claim is better than none.

I meant to bring this up earlier, but I really dislike this. Betting on the distribution is usually not a good idea, and I also dislike arguments that at least one person in a small pool is evil. It's a cheap way to make reads, and is often inaccurate. It's very easy for an elim to say something like that, sit back, and watch the village tear itself apart.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

So, I've been sitting back for a bit, and I'm not quite sure how to feel about Devotary right now. While her explanation does make sense, it seems like something that would be relatively easy to come up with after the accusation from Kas. And I don't like how she claims that there must be an elim hiding in a group of people that have all of the same abilities. Even in a normal game I think making alignment guesses based on role distribution is a bad idea, but this game especially seems like a bad time to do that. Powers and abilities were not assigned at the beginning of the game and have spread throughout the player base, so we have even less reason to assume that at least one of a large group of people with all the same power should be an elim. For now, I think I will be voting on Devotary.

[Straw he/him]

I would be greatly reassured if @Devotary of Spontaneity would at least deign to give a few reads. Their reluctance to respond is odd.

I will also note that I am concerned about the arrangement of votes so far this turn. As of now, we sit at:

Devotary of Spontaneity (4): Kasimir, TJ Shade, Sart, StrikerEZ
Matrim's Dice (1): Araris Valerian
Lotus (1): Straw

I don't quite feel like Devotary should be quite this far ahead at this point. Putting pressure on her is well and good, but it would be nice to put pressure on others. I've seen a distinct lack of content from many players this turn, and I think it'd be good to get more pressure on them.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

21 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

And I don't like how she claims that there must be an elim hiding in a group of people that have all of the same abilities. Even in a normal game I think making alignment guesses based on role distribution is a bad idea, but this game especially seems like a bad time to do that. Powers and abilities were not assigned at the beginning of the game and have spread throughout the player base, so we have even less reason to assume that at least one of a large group of people with all the same power should be an elim.

Three village roleblockers is already a lot, but in this case it's also three village roleblockers who haven't been targeted for a kill in two nights despite them all having outed roles. Since there hasn't been a major push to vote for any of those three since they 'confirmed' their roles, it's less likely that the elims are expecting that we'll eventually kill all of them ourselves. Matrim and TJ had their roleblocks since the beginning, and Sart attempted to take an action N1 since he knew he was roleblocked and nobody to my knowledge claimed to have gotten a disease at the beginning of N1 so I'm assuming he also had this role since the beginning.

Edit: Straw, I did give reads, in the same post as the one you quoted to say you disagree with my guessing one of the three roleblockers was evil. If you want village reads, I would say TJ is the least likely roleblocker to be evil and I don't think Kas is evil either.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Devotary of Spontaneity

[---]

I'm going to put a vote on Lotus for now, though it probably won't matter with as many vote manips we have and Lotus being one of them, so I'll probably end up changing it tomorrow maybe

[Mat he/him]

I also have arrived to vote Lotus, as she is still my strongest elim suspicion. I agree that the amount of votes less then halfway through the cycle is a bit striking. It's odd how quickly those piled up.

It's been asked many times before, and I'll ask it again: @Sart, who did you attempt to roleblock last cycle? Was this successful?

[Ashbringer he/him]

... you know, I almost put a vote on Lotus after Straw’s, but I figured that would look weird. Then I saw Straw and Devotary’s posts about how quickly this lynch came up and with no challenger, so I scrolled down and almost put a vote on Lotus again. Turns out Illwei and Mat had a similar idea...

Well, I don’t like this, but it’s better than having no reads or votes out there. @Lotus, I’ll give you a chance to defend yourself here. Matrim, Illwei, what exactly about Lotus do you suspect?

I’m rethinking my village read on Devotary as well. She did object to my bad plan, but I feel like that’s an easy way to earn Village credit. And she is acting seemingly different than previous games I’ve seen.

So my vote will likely end on one of these two.

[+Lotus she/her]

2 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

@Lotus, I’ll give you a chance to defend yourself here.

I don’t know how to defend myself. It’s true I have been posting a lot of ‘filler’, but  I guess I just find that fun and a good way to engage with other players.

And yes, I’ve been being cautious and not voting till I’m sure what to do, but a lot of that is just me trying to be less tunneling like I feel like I’ve done in earlier games.

I still do suspect Ash, TJ and Mat, but I’m trying not to focus on them and look at everyone with a wary eye.

[Mat he/him]

39 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Matrim, Illwei, what exactly about Lotus do you suspect?

Basically the same thing I suspected you for earlier, that is posting filler things, not committing to votes, etc, along with sort of fitting the elim profile Kas mentioned. (Assuming I'm remembering that right). The difference between you and Devotary, who have/is now being suspected for those things, is that you both responded, which I take as good cred. You started posting reads- the majority of which I agree with, iirc. Devotary defended themselves multiple times, and while they may not be generally agreed with, they are there, fighting against the peripheral elim profile. That's something I think is good. Additionally, I don't find Kas's reason for voting Devotary as golden as people have made it seem. It's a good point, sure, but not an invaluable one. 

[Sart he/him]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I also have arrived to vote Lotus, as she is still my strongest elim suspicion. I agree that the amount of votes less then halfway through the cycle is a bit striking. It's odd how quickly those piled up.

It's been asked many times before, and I'll ask it again: @Sart, who did you attempt to roleblock last cycle? Was this successful?

Eh. It's about time I revealed my trump card anyways. My research finally bore fruit, and I gained access to an action scan. I used that instead of my roleblock. And guess who I saw kill poor Dr. Gears? One @Devotary of Spontaneity.

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, Sart said:

Eh. It's about time I revealed my trump card anyways. My research finally bore fruit, and I gained access to an action scan. I used that instead of my roleblock. And guess who I saw kill poor Dr. Gears? One @Devotary of Spontaneity.

...Oh. Okay.  

Lotus, Devotary. With that reveal voting Lotus is useless.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

That makes a lot more sense why I thought Sart’s accusation of Devotary felt so hardcore. Makes me feel more comfortable lynching Devotary (and if we found out she’s actually village, then we lynch Sart and should have the manpower to ensure a lynch on him).

[+Lotus she/her]

Oh @Sart That’s why devotary’s lynch felt odd! 

Hope you are not tricking us though....

Devotary

[Straw he/him]

Lotus. Devotary.

It's 11:55 right now so thoughts about this development will come in the morning. I guess Sart would be basically confirmed good due to this?

I'd still like to see pressure on Lotus and the other low posters, but it's kind of unfeasible to do that with voting at the moment, given there's no way we don't vote out Devotary.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Well. Devotary it is.

Lotus, you're not free from suspicion yet. But this info trade will probably be a much better source of information.

[---]

Well, I guess Lotus, Devotary.

39 minutes ago, Lotus said:

Oh @Sart That’s why devotary’s lynch felt odd! 

What does this mean? and even if he was tricking us we'd just lynch him next cycle. 

also technically this could be a play where elim!sart throws elim!Devotary under the bus when people already are going to kill devotary to try and solidify sart as village couldn't it?

Edited August 10, 2020 by Illwei
did i use the exclamation mark things right? ̶i̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶f̶a̶n̶f̶i̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

40 minutes ago, Sart said:

My research finally bore fruit, and I gained access to an action scan.

Pretty sure that would be an action tracker, not a scan, since it didn't reveal what action I took. I got access to an aura scan(Transportation) at the beginning of D2 that lets me tell whether a particular player is from Ashyn, and Gears was not. Symptoms are a deathly fever and, unfortunately, death three cycles after infection(so I would die N4 untreated). Silber dying means there's probably not a chance to save me or patient zero anyway, but I did hope to accomplish something before dying.