Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Gears]

The Fifth iso [but actually the third iso] [Future Gears here, it's really late at night but the iso isn't done, I'll just post it now and edit it to completion or just do it in the night turn if I survive.]

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D1

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Hey y'all! I, uh, completely forgot this was starting today and not tomorrow. So. Let me catch up on the six pages of thread (not bad at all for 24 hours ) and I'll try to throw a post together, though given it's midnight here, it might be more likely that I take a few mental notes and put something lengthier up tomorrow. Looking forward to jumping back into the games with you guys! And please send me a PM if I've not played a game with you at some point, as I'd like to get to know people better given that I've not been around here as a player in forever.  

(thank you for everyone tagging me telling me to post, mea culpa there)

Exists

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On 2/26/2021 at 10:44 AM, Matrim's Dice said:

I'm here! Didn't miss too much, it looks like  

I agree with Reading's guess for the size of the team, though with the amount of roles there are and how helpful they are for the elims (such as the Smoker) I'd lean more on six elims regardless of if they have a Thug or not.

I'll post some RP later, but I'll be around.

Hey Mat! I...have already forgotten why I quoted this, so maybe midnight!Fifth shouldn't be posting now. Ah well.  I think it was your point on elim team size, which I generally agree with - six elims with power roles or a thug is what I'd lean towards. When I played SE (and presumably when Kas was around as well) there was the Meta Rule of 20% being a good size for Team Evil, which I've always agreed with, but it seems tougher nowadays since elim teams are closer to 25%; with this ruleset, though, I agree that six makes a lot more sense. [There is of course the thought that the village underestimating the elim team is awfully helpful for the night killers, but that's paranoia.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:10 AM, Quintessential said:

Okay thanks lol good to know.

In that case I might almost lean towards 7 Spiked, since the AG was a role madness game. More players (well one more anyway) and probably some vanilla spiked means the team might need to be bigger. Right?

Not necessarily; see my points to Mat above. Kas is also a consummate troll, so picking out his role distributions isn't something I'm going to try to do too much, but seven seems tilted a little too heavily in favour of Team Evil unless the village received a lot of Seeking and terminal Seeking power, which we have no evidence of yet. If three people die tonight, though, I might come around to your stance  [As above]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:11 AM, The Young Pyromancer said:

Can confirm this is not role madness, at least if a certain someone is telling the truth.

I see PM safety has taken as long of a hiatus as I have  Also, welcome back, Pyro, as I hear you are returning as well. [Perhaps so.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:13 AM, StrikerEZ said:

Variel watched as the crowd began to disperse. In a way, he was a bit disappointed. He had the perfect opportunity to begin a story, where so many people could hear his story. Granted, that could be considered disrespectful to poor Bart...but Variel had learned that man's story once. Variel figured the man wouldn't mind his death being used as a way to tell his story, even if the names were changed a bit. So, Variel began a story about no one in particular and to no one in particular as he was walking away from the scene of the crime.

"Some time ago," Variel began, "a child was disowned by his parents. Through no fault of his own, for sure, but it was a particularly misty day when Haller found himself on the streets. Haller kept trying to find his parents again, but to no avail. Eventually, he learned his parents had died, so he gave up. One day, a kind man found Haller and took him in, began to show him what it means to be truly loved by someone. I think it's beautiful that we can find true family even in the worst of situations."

~

So, some quick thoughts: I recommend Lurchers protecting themselves until they learn of someone they think it's more valuable to protect. I would recommend Coinshots using their kills as often as possible. You might be wrong about someone, but even knowing that someone is village will give us information on other people. Seekers: if you find someone that's village, go ahead and PM them (assuming they're still open). That's someone you know for sure that you can trust.

As for the elims, I'm betting we have no less than 6, and probably have 7. 25% is just too nice of a number, and 8 perfect cycles in order for an elim team of 6 players to win is a long time to go without losing any elims. Even if 7 perfect cycles is a shorter amount of time to win, I feel an elim team deserves the win if they manage to not lose any elims for that long.

Anyway, I've been ninja'd like 4 times by now, but I don't risk seeing the posts for fear of losing this one. 

Also, Gears. Something already feels off about his role analysis to me. Feels way too forced, honestly. May as well get some discussion going while I can. I probably won't be back on for another...5-6 hours or so. But felt like I should go ahead and say something to start off the game.

Will echo Striker's point on Coinshots. The Elims knowing you exist is a small price to pay for the information that comes from vigkills, and even hitting a few villagers is okay if their deaths yield information. I would be careful with the roleclaiming, though, as has been pointed out by others; even if the Seeker finds a villager, they don't need to form trust circles, especially with the Smoking mechanic for this game making it easier for villagers to slip in there anyway. (Elim Seekers starting these is also an enormous danger, as unlikely as that is, because they can pocket as many villagers as they want and kill them at their leisure. And it can be really hard to tell them from village Seekers. #AG4flashbacks) As regards your point on elim team size, see above. Seven mislynches sounds like a lot until you realise that with seven elims to lynch, it's only a 50% mislynch success rate for the Elims to win assuming vigkills aren't factored in. That's not too hard of a threshold to reach, and so I'd think six people with power roles or a thug continues to make the most sense. [Murder is good. Good point about mix's, paranoia retracts claws.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:25 AM, Matrim's Dice said:

A 6 person team would be ~21%, which is about standard if a bit low. That would be balanced out pretty well by the Smoker they almost certainly have, the Thug they might, and any other roles (such as a vote manip or something)

Though @StrikerEZ's point about how long it'd take them to win is good, though it's also slightly contradictory since he just asked the Coinshots to kill as much as possible. (A request, I might add, I disagree with unless you're Alv, who is not in this game  Coinshots: be careful about it, and smart. It might be worth waiting for an alignment scan to come up Spiked, though since that might not actually happen it's up for debate.)

Other thing I disagree with about Striker's post: His vote on Gears, who posts analysis like that every game and has done so without fail for a very long time. I detected no difference and it looks to me like another vote on Gears for something entirely NAI which is a... trend.

I generally agree with his Lurcher point (though if there's someone generally trusted and more likely to be killed that's a situation I'd protect them instead of yourself) and I do agree with Seekers PMing village scans.

StrikerEZ, for the vote, the coinshot point, and in a really weird way, the Seeker point. The paranoid side of me wonders if it's set up for an elim to PM a villager claiming to be a Seeker who scanned them. But the one thing I don't want is a repeat of the last LG where I voted Striker immediately after his first post, so this is pretty tentative and I'm watching to see if there will be more or if it's more of a general difference in playstyles.

If you want to PM me I'll respond though I... probably won't PM you.

Edit: Ninja'd by Pyro :P. Which I point out because of his vote and also his point, which changes my opinion on Seeker claims.

Coinshots should certainly be careful if we get closer to parity, but generally speaking they're the best resource the village has, especially around C2/3 when we're trying to crystallise information and reads. Killing a few pivotally suspicious players to get a good feel for the remaining pool of suspects is typically worth it from a purely utilitarian standpoint.  And if someone is Seeked (Sought?) as evil, we should just lynch them. No sense relying on the Coinshot and letting possible elim Lurchers get in the way, as long as we don't let it kill discussion too much. [Good points. Sidenote: They always have good points.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:47 AM, Quintessential said:

Well, given that the last time you elim-read me I was the villager who guessed the entire elim team, and the time before that I was the villager that neutral!you ended up pocketing... really, it's when you vil-read me that you should be worried  

I feel like I'm gonna be sad reading these threads and missing half the references until I get caught up on recent SE history. It seems like a fun time.  [It really is.]

Alright, midnight!Fifth is turning into 1AM!Fifth and we're only a page in, so I think I'll call it a night and catch up on the rest tomorrow. If you want me to prioritise me talking to / about you, please PM me. (And thank you to the kind soul who has already done so. ) As a final point, I will read / do RP as time permits - it makes me sad I can't participate reflexively as I used to, but college is annoying like that >> 

Commentary in bold. Mostly just paranoia and acknowledging that Fifth always has a good point. 

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So sorry for the walls of text y'all (except not at all)  [It's fine in thread, just a bit difficult to copy to an iso]

  On 2/26/2021 at 11:59 AM, Flyingbooks said:

Striker's post does seem suspicious to me, but it seems almost too suspicious to be made by an elim. As an elim, if you want to suggest a bad plan it shouldn't be discovered in minutes, but his post had enough bad ideas and fallacious reasoning that he should've known that at least one would be caught instantly.

 

Lasalen ran through the feather-filled storeroom trying to grab hold of at least one duck. At last, after being run into a corner by an especially angry dye-covered duck, they found one that was standing still. Almost too still. When they got close, they found its mouth in a vial of a mixture that they had predicted would cause temporary paralysis. They had wanted to test their formulas on the ducks, but not like this! There were no control subjects and by now all of them had probably eaten or drunk at least two different things. Well, at least they could take this one duck and put it in the testing room. As Lasalen walked through the door into the main building, another duck followed. They put down the paralyzed duck, all of their attention focused on the escapee. It ran through the small hallway, then turned at the door to the room where they had put the poisons and volatile materials. It was as if these ducks were looking for trouble.

(Note: I'm doing these multiquotes a page at a time to preserve my sanity, so a lot of what I say might be outdated, as I won't have read past whatever I'm responding to. )

This comment from Books stuck out to me because I don't really like these defences, from experience; it's true that eliminators try to avoid immediately obvious suspicion, but thinking like this leads to the inverted process of clearing people for saying suspicious things, which has always struck me as utterly backwards. Part of the village's job is appearing village and taking enough care not to mislead your fellow villagers by accident, and while mistakes can and do often happen, it's my experience that comments like Striker's should rightfully be regarded as mildly suspicious and not used as an argument against his death. As obvious as such misleading comments may appear, they're often useful as a smokescreen for more subtle manipulation, and can ironically lead to mild trust if the conversation around it plays out correctly (as we're seeing here). So I guess this makes me somewhat suspicious of both Striker and Books. [Good points, which is as always terrifying.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 0:01 PM, Quintessential said:

But... why would a villager post anything that they know has bad ideas or fallacious reasoning? Except as a reaction test, and I don't think that's what that was  just because something doesn't seem like an elim thing to do doesn't mean that it is a villager thing to do. 

Yep, agreed completely. Again, posting suspicious and misleading comments is a Bad Thing no matter which alignment it's coming from  [Concur here.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 0:17 PM, Flyingbooks said:

• Voting on Gears because the analysis felt too forced even though it was most likely pre-written
• Suggesting very frequent coinshot kills. That's extremely unlikely to work out well this early in the game
• Suggesting that Seekers immediately trust people who register as villagers. He said that he forgot about copperclouds, but it still seems fishy to me

Probably not. He's right at the boundary of suspicious and TWTBAW for me, so I just really don't know what to think about him.

Hmm. More hedging / equivocation from Books on Striker. I find this early focus a little interesting (though I suppose there's not much else to discuss), and it's something I would expect to see out of an elim!Books regardless of Striker's alignment. I've already stated my disagreements with the Coinshot take as well, which is one point of Striker's I'm happy to echo. [Murder is good!]

  On 2/26/2021 at 0:30 PM, Gears said:

Most of it was [about 80%]. I wrote some last night but didn't finish it, and then I got the PM and finished it up, along with some touch-up to get 1600 words exactly. The RP was pre-written though.

While I do appreciate the general populace's defense of me, I'm a bit concerned at the sudden flurry of knives thrown at Striker. Their 'bad points' are as follows: Voting on me for a strange reason [understandable, my syntax is always strange. I put a lot of effort into strange syntax. Perhaps they noted the overly fluffy nature of it that I designed to purposely get it to 1600 words?], encouraging Coinshots [which seems fine. Murder is good. I see no problem with this], and forgetting about Smokers [which I do note, because if they had read my analysis as they apparently did to note my syntax, they would have seen the Smoker bit, yes? And the part where I reminded the Seeker about Smokers?]

Current opinion of Striker: Nothing to sway me either way except perhaps malicious framing, but they did that as a villager in LG73 [and I killed them for it...], so I don't think that's a tell. Vaguely positive opinion of Stick and Books for good points, which technically is NAI, but I like it anyways.

Stop ninja'ing me! Your top sneaky ways are too much for my shoddy perception!

I like this post from Gears, who gets the Striker situation mostly correct, I feel (that the post was suspicious and some of the reactions were as well). I disagree with him on Books, but otherwise this post is rock-solid, and I wish I'd looked at LG73 more to understand it a bit better.  Probably my first village read from everyone so far. [Paranoia claws at the spine]

  On 2/26/2021 at 0:33 PM, StrikerEZ said:

I mean...yes, I know. But it shouldn't be too hard to figure out if someone is actually a vanilla villager or not. And you're more likely than not to scan someone correctly than incorrectly. There's probably...2, maybe 3 smokers in the game. Your odds of hitting anyone that's been smoked are only 3/14. Obviously the odds increase as players die, but smokers are just as likely to die as anyone else in the game.

I mean...they were two separate thoughts. My guesses for the elim team don't take into account roles. And even accounting for roles, it's not like a coinshot's kills are only going to affect the village negatively. They can hit elims too. And I'm not advocating for coinshots to kill randomly. I'm saying that if they have suspicions, no matter how small they are, they should go for them. It's how I've operated any time I've had a kill or a scan or something like that. Waiting around for the right opportunity to use a kill helps no one because you could be dead by the time you were planning to use it, and the village (assuming coinshots would only be village) would lose out on their kill.

I mean...it could just be that I made my post in a rush and was mostly just trying to get discussion out there and get people talking. Which, look: I succeeded. 

Eh, agree to disagree. I don't think it's useless to avoid killing N1. The elims aren't going to avoid it, so why should we? Even if the odds of hitting an elim are low, they're not 0. There's still a 21-25% chance (slightly higher because someone should be dead by the end of today) that you'll hit an elim. And coinshots should be going for people they think could be an elim. People that have been doing stuff in thread that people can get reads off of when they flip. No matter what, any coinshot kill gives information to the village, which is the most valuable resource the village gets in a game.

Also, I meant to quote more of Mat's big post from last page in response to me, but I was rushing and forgot to. I have to go now, but someone remind me to go back and respond to some of his points from that post later. Don't want to risk this post by going back a page. 

Gonna have to disagree pretty strongly with the first paragraph; again, Smokers will always appear copperclouded, and can maintain consistent protection on whomever they want, so an elim Smoker could dress up a good portion of their team as vanillager very consistently. The comment on odds also doesn't take into consideration that unless scan targets are chosen at complete random (which seems like a not-great idea), the people you want to Seek are going to be the most likely to be Smoked, doubly so if they're evil. And offensive Smoking is still a thing even if everybody forgot about it after AG2.  [Why must you always have good points?]

Your case for Coinshots as terminal Seekers is a good one.  

Hmm. Getting weird tonal feelings from the third and fourth paragraphs that I can't put a finger on. My best explanation is that it seems like retroactive framing, where Striker realised his comments were rightfully attracting suspicion and tried to make it seem as good as possible after the fact? I might just be letting my general suspicion of him cloud my judgment, though, and it's way too early in the game to be tunnelling >> [They do that.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 0:43 PM, Flyingbooks said:

If there's an elim Smoker (which I think is pretty likely), they'lll scan as a normal villager for the entire game, plus they'll also protect some of their fellow elims as well. They have a zero percent chance of dying to an elim kill because they're elims plus if people trusted their scans of them they probably wouldn't be coinshot-killed or executed either, so they'd die at a much lower rate than any other role. If somebody registers as an elim or as a non-vanilla villager then the scan should be trusted, but all vanilla villager scans should be taken with a grain of salt because they could likely be elims.

Agreed with Books 100% here despite my suspicion of him. More generally, I think Striker / Books is unlikely to be elim / elim unless they teamed up early and decided in the doc to confuse the storms out of me with their posts  [They were right.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:09 PM, Quintessential said:

Striker

Illwei

This is purely gut. Like, completely 100%. But I can't remember v!Illwei ever joking that I was elim (like "oh, isn't it too bad you rolled elim this game" or "Quinn please stop bussing me" or stuff like that), whereas she did it in the MR and she just did it to me now in PMs. 

Hmm. Not familiar enough with the current meta to comment on this, and this is a pretty standard D1 vote when there's not much to go on, but would you mind laying this out a bit more for those of us who haven't been around the past year or so? I'm generally not a huge fan of meta lynches, so I'd need a bit more before I went after Illwei on PM comments, and find it a bit odd that you're doing so yourself.

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:24 PM, _Stick_ said:

The timestamps say you posted 5 minutes after the thread started, so this checks out

Wait so...you agree?  

jk I getchu 

You assume it's gonna be a villager 

I think this is a dangerous assumption to make because I'm p sure I've been falsely lynched in the past just for being a smoker lol sometimes the GMs be sneaky and straight up do not give the elim team any Smokers at all.

mmmmMMMmmm

FlyingBooks

Because of your hesitation to provide a firm stance on Striker plus the stuff about the smokers just seems like an elim planting a seed of suspicion for later against seekers coming up with vanilla village. Apologies if that seems like a stretch or too nit-picky, but it's D1 and I gotta do what I gotta do  Might change vote if someone more suspicious appears

 

Glad to see I'm not the only person noticing this stuff on Books, which puts Stick in my village camp along with Gears for now (doubly so for her comment on Smoker distros. People's collective amnesia of AG2 is very dangerous and I'm glad she's speaking against it ). Also, welcome back! It's been so long for us both  [People reading me as village gets my paranoia screaming. Along with any agreement in general. It usually means that we messed up somewhere along the line and we're now very, very wrong, as evidenced by the Books flip.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:28 PM, Dannex said:

I would be very surprised if the Elims don't have a smoker, it seems like a very Elim-oriented role. How would a Vill smoker even use the role? Copperclouding other players seems like it would be generally a bad idea for a Vill smoker, am I wrong?

Village Smokers can be some of the most useful people around. Not only do they shield against elim vote-manip (which, if we have Smokers, is almost guaranteed), but they also protect from Elim Seekers, and Kas is totally enough of a troll that I'm not ruling one of those out. In other words, they exist for a reason and killing people for being a Smoker is both unfair and wrongheaded (I feel like a broken record at this point, but AG2, AG2, AG2 ). [Why must we agree? Why must you have such good points?]

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:30 PM, Illwei said:

Or because the Elim smokers claim Vanilla Villager? :P.

Btw kinda unrelated, if anyone claims Vanilla Villager I will have no hesitation in killing you :P.

I'm not doing a good enough job? ;-;

Honestly my thought? the only reason I can see village smokers being useful is in some sorta balance that I'm too tired to speculate about rn :P.

 

my dog has been howling at the top of the stairs for the past hour I both am incredibly annoyed at him and feeling bad for him.
this is the now-toothless dog.

Okay, Quinn's take on Illwei was weird but I can get behind suspicion of her for this comment. Killing vanillagers or Smokers for their role is, as I've stated above, a bad idea both on a meta level and a strategic one, and I'm not really happy with everyone pushing it both explicitly and implicitly. Re: a distro in which village Smokers are useful, any distro in which the Elims have access to emotional Allomancy, Seekers, or Mistborn, which is...nearly half the roles? So yeah, they're very helpful  

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:36 PM, Dannex said:

Isn't the vote-manip cancelling a passive attribute? Like, as long as the coppercloud is active, all vote manip is cancelled no matter who is in the coppercloud? Or does the smoker have to actually target the vote-manipers?

If we have a Vill smoker, I think you should keep your personal coppercloud up the whole time, but don't extend it to any other players, unless you are 100% sure they are Village.

Hmm. Not too bad a take; I'm a little more agnostic about proactive Smoking from villagers. Having a wider spread of protection against emotional allomancy and malicious Seekers isn't a bad idea, but interference with village Seeking is a bit more of an issue - ideally, it'd be used on those already Sought, though that would require a good deal of trust in PMs from several power roles  [Why do we agree? Why do I always agree?]

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:42 PM, Flyingbooks said:

• I don't have a firm stance on Striker because I'm confused by his first post, which felt on the very edge TWTBAW to me, though I am leaning a bit towards him being village
• I'm not trying to plant suspicion against seekers at all. I never even said a single thing about the allignment of seekers. Maybe you're thinking of Smokers? In that case, I'm not suggesting that all Smokers are elims. I just think that we should assume that there's at least one elim smoker because it's better to be too cautious than careless

Hmm. Not a bad defence from Books, actually, and I do like his point on assuming the worst when it comes to elim Smokers. Still don't trust him one bit, though  

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:42 PM, Shard of Reading said:

Personally, I disagree with this, because I'd rather have a seeker be able to confirm a villager instead of avoiding vote manip. Because if you are voting on a elim, the odds that you specifically going to be vote maniped is rather slim.

Again, not a huge fan of this attitude towards Smoking; security from vote manip is more important than most people acknowledge, especially when Elims start messing with the lynch votes just to sow confusion, and beyond that, relying on our Seekers to do all the analysis work for us, and catch the Elims, is a bad idea. They're a helpful asset and can catch and clear a few people, but our game plan should not be make-or-break around the Seekers finding Team Evil while we just get out of their way as much as possible. (I also think that it makes for a pretty boring game even when it works, so /shrug)

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:53 PM, Quintessential said:

Sorry, Illwei, but as the elim Rioter I can personally guarantee that that's not going to happen  

*sigh* I hate getting suspicious of half the players from D1 but the banter between you and Illwei is making my paranoia levels go way higher than they need to >> [Finally, a point of contention.]

  On 2/26/2021 at 1:57 PM, Mailliw73 said:

Startled, Marll shot up awake. Something had happened, he could feel it. Had he heard something? He wasn't sure, but there was something left of his old instincts and they hadn't failed him yet. The old cobbler hadn't always been the storytelling cobbler of Fallion's Tears. He had always been a gambler though. he found something thrilling, exhilarating about the chance. You stood on the edge of a triumph or a tragedy and you never knew which was which until the dice settled and the pips showed your fate. It was a rush that Marll had felt in few other circumstances, but it was the thrill that he lived for. There was a joy, an excitement that made one feel truly alive and Marll loved being alive. The instincts that had pulled him through both failure and conquest alerted him now that there was something on edge in town.

Marll quickly put himself through the motions of getting ready. As quickly as he could at least. His joints hadn't taken well to life and his fingers hadn't taken well to cobbling, but he'd lived longer than plenty of skaa did anyways. Smelling a tinge of smoke and hearing distant shouts, Marll paced to the tavern. He ordered his regular potatoes and gravy for breakfast, but he held off on the ale; he still had a headache from his mug (or three) the night before and the tension in the air told him he'd need what clarity he could muster. Marll pulled out a coin and flipped it, muttering, "Ruler, I ask first. Spires, I wait till someone mentions it." The spires of Kredik Shaw glinted as the coin landed in his hand. Grunting, he sat to eat and primed his ears to listen to the mutters and gossip going around the room. A storm was building, he knew it. He'd felt the tension in the room before, when he was younger and storms were what he enjoyed most. Those days were past, but with Kast dead, there weren't likely to be many left in town ready to handle the mess that was going to follow here soon. Death begets death. Marll knew that all too well. Oh did he know that. But enough of the past, the present was busy enough. 

Koloss were destructive, Marll knew, but the destruction of a people under paranoia's fervent grip could be just as complete. This town would fall to that insidious parasite if he didn't step up and help them get away from it early. "A people, long ago, longer than the Lord Ruler, found themselves in a tempest. This tempest was not one of winds or of debris, but one of words. The storm raged in their hearts as they harbored their petty grievances and boiled their discontent long past steaming. When one tea kettle finally erupted over, they all exploded promptly after, one then another, then all. Anger followed bitterness followed by rage and people under the influence of rage do things more akin to beasts than even a storm. Blood and ashes silhouetted the emotions inside and the skeletons outside. The tempest tossed, the steam spewed, and the town itself wept. That's why it's called Fallion's Tears, you know, and now we begin anew, figures going in circles."

Marll felt himself tugged into this new story again and he cried inside because his eyes had already seen the end and emptied themselves through the night. 
——

Wow three pages already, geez. I’ll post more tonight when I have more time, but a few thoughts for now. 

quick train on Striker. I’d be interested in the person who put the third vote on him, but I’m on mobile and not going to check that right now. 

Thanks Quinn for bringing up distribution. I agree with her! Guessing distribution is how the village got completely sidetracked from the elims in Kas’s first game and I know he is big on that. So I’m not going to assume much about the distribution and recommend not using that for major suspicions. 

Smokers can definitely be useful to the village. Like has been mentioned, they prevent elim vote manip from moving their votes, and also prevent elim seekers from finding their roles. 

Clarification on Smokers. They choose to turn off their copper cloud or to extend it to someone else as their action. Anyone covered by the copper cloud is immune from vote manipulation and will show up as a vanilla villager to a Seeker. 

Happy to see someone else speaking the common sense of the ages.  And welcome back to you as well! Don't think we've played together since your initial return in MR31 or thereabouts, so this should be fun  

Alright, that's two more pages I've responded to and... *sighs* four more to go. These might start getting shorter. I promise to put down a vote once I've caught up to everything Right now I'm leaning towards suspicion of Books, Dannex, and someone in the whole Quinn/Illwei/SoR group, and am just confused as Braize about Striker. Gears, Stick and Maill seem to be talking the most sense so far, but I've got more left to do  [

Commentary in bold

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On 2/26/2021 at 2:42 PM, Shard of Reading said:

Yeah.... Let's not use those acronyms. 

Agreed. One of them used to be in the SE Lexicon and was withdrawn for good reason.  

  On 2/26/2021 at 5:00 PM, StrikerEZ said:

I mean...it can't be every game, can it? 

What's that?

People have probably already said this by not, but I'll say it anyway: role analysis is not a good idea. Kas is a relatively troll-y GM. He could've given the village a bunch of Smokers. Or given them all to the elims. Or there are no Smokers at all. A lot of the old timers talk about a game where they went after all of the Smokers/Soothers (can't remember which one it was) because the village assumed at least one of them must've been an elim. None of them were. So, knowing Kas is from that era, I feel like that is something he would be down for doing. Now, obviously I'm not going to assume he did. But making the assumption that he didn't do it either is a bad idea.

Hey, total AG2 amnesia isn't a thing after all! Hooray!  And you're completely correct on Kas being a troll willing to do anything with the roles, so excellent point here. (Honestly maybe I should just read further on before reiterating the same points other people have already made but multiquoting is an addiction >>) [I feel like I should read AG2...]

  On 2/26/2021 at 5:57 PM, Quintessential said:

Honestly? It basically is every game at this point.

Stuff:

Current VC in case anyone was curious:

Reading (1): Araris
Gears (1): Striker
Striker (2): Pyro, Matrim
Stick (1): Illwei
Illwei (1): Quinn
Quinn (1): Dannex

My current reads of the people who've posted (not any any particular order within a category--so, just because I list Dannex above Pyro in mild village doesn't mean I think Dannex is more village than Pyro, for example):

Matrim: village for the sort-of-mindmeld thing with Striker (I read Striker's post, thought it sus, and then continued and realized that Matrim and Pyro had seen it too) as well as for his elim read of me, curiously enough XD because village!Matrim has a history of misreading village!me over little stuff like D1 votes and D1 fake-claims and D1... well, basically everything in D1 lol. 
Dannex: mild village for his response to my (fake) elim!Rioter claim. That felt like village!Dannex to me--I can remember him bringing up that specific thing in previous games when he was village. 
Pyro: mild village for the sort-of-mindmeld thing with Striker (only mild because unlike with Mat I have no meta to go off of for Pyro)
Striker: null village. Yes, I know I voted him, and I still think his post was odd (shouldn't he know by now how D1!Gears operates?) but I also think his responses to the votes on him seemed villagery, and tbh Stick and Books are... probably right that elim!Striker might have been more careful with what he said? Yeah.
Books: null elim for pure hard gut and I have no idea why. Just... feels elim. dunno, you can just ignore this one I think XD it'll probably change.
Illwei: mild elim for gut and for following some of the same... I guess I'd call them patterns? That she had in the only other elim game I played with her, but not in most of the village games I've played with her (take this with a grain of salt, though, because the elim game was the most recent one so it's fresher in my mind than all the others). Examples of this: joking about me being elim (which is the first thing I noticed, and what I voted her for), voting me and then unvoting me and voting someone else in the same post (which I probably only noticed because it was me both this game and last game, but I don't think I've ever seen e!her (edit: v!her, mistype oof) do that), more or less ignoring the major discussion going on (Striker/Mat), and so on.
Stick, Araris, Gears, TJ, Reading, STINK, Random Bystander, Maill, Elan: null
All 13 other players haven't posted yet, so there's no way I could have a read on them in the first place.

So yeah, that's a thing I put together. Enjoy? oof

 

Thanks for the reads - I actually find this type of thing quite helpful. Interesting take on Mat. I'll confess that I remember very little of what he posted other than the initial thing against Striker, but agree that it seemed in line with a general village mentality. Not really a fan of the Dannex or Pyro reads (leaning elim and null respectively there) but your opinion on Striker is what I think I'm slowly coming around to, minus the IKYK-y logic that he's acting too suspicious to be evil, which I've already laid out my problems with.  After his first post he's been making mostly solid points and helping the conversation advance, so even if I disagree with his opinions on a few things, I don't really feel a need to lynch him, and you seem to be saying much the same. As for Illwei: I guess I trust your logic over my own, since you know her playstyle a lot better, but I hope you understand if I find it difficult to vote on her for those reasons even if they're setting off red flags for you, because I couldn't justify them to myself. (That probably doesn't make sense but whatever ) Point is, I'm not going to condemn Illwei unless I find her more suspicious than everyone else from non-meta stuff.  [Why must you make good points?]

  On 2/26/2021 at 6:57 PM, Quintessential said:

Great now I'm reading Maill mild elim too... this post basically... like... : P idk but A. it feels off to me--like, it feels kind of like Books voting Gears in C5 of the MR. My reasons for voting Illwei are more or less exclusive to me? if that makes sense? and Maill just adopting them without at least explicitly mentioning that they were originally mine feels weird. 

Also (edit: this was supposed to be "And B." in case that wasn't clear : P) this plus the fact that Maill is actually talking to me in PMs makes me feel like he's trying to pocket meeee XDDDDDDD

 

Maill in PMs from the get-go, from my limited experience with him, is less of a pocketing thing and more of a Maill thing, though I've only played with him when one of us was evil, or in a faction game, so I'm not really sure what a personal village-village interaction with him looks like. Hopefully I can use this game to find out  

  On 2/26/2021 at 7:04 PM, StrikerEZ said:

Anyway, Gears. Meant to do this earlier. I didn’t even realize that I’ve got a trend of voting him for D1. Also didn’t realize that the analysis thing would’ve been prewritten.

I think right now I’m looking at Quinn, Illwei, and Books in terms of suspicions so far. Not sure who I’m going to vote for yet, but we still have like 36 hours or something like that, so I’ve got time to decide.

I know concurrence on reads shouldn't be a major point of informing my own reads but Striker agreeing with almost all my suspicions makes me like his thought process better. 

  On 2/26/2021 at 7:53 PM, STINK said:

honestly ngl before bed I was gearing up to vote Gears for his D1 shenanigans as well but like unless I'm really blind he didn't do the thing again where he claims elim so like yeah cant blame ya I also have that trend

Stink is making a Stink post.  Do you have thoughts on any of the Striker / Books stuff? 

  On 2/26/2021 at 9:04 PM, Ashbringer said:

I be around now. Probably won’t post anything meaningful tonight because I need my sleep and still have ice packs wrapped around my head, but I’ll be free enough tomorrow.

...that’s a lot of votes thrown around though...

Oof, hope you get better from whatever happened. I will note briefly that votes getting thrown around is what I'd consider normal, healthy D1 behaviour, since the only people with any real clue of what's going on are the elims, so I tend to be fine with people that drop early votes and switch them around a lot  

Edit: through page 5. Going to try to speedrun the last three pages so I can actually participate in conversations and maybe respond to some of y'alls responses as well.

Once again, commentary in bold.

Quote

Y'all are literally posting faster than I can multiquote >> What is modern SE? cries in obsolete playstyle

I want to agree with the sentiment if not the statement [as I am an aspect of the modern age]. Why must people post so much?

Quote

Okay. So. I just lost a two-hour multiquote when I was switching between tabs of this thread because people were posting so much. I am not happy so here is a snappish tl;dr without the quoting

- voting for Shard of Reading [They do elaborate later, but this currently has no public reasoning]

- I agree with araris that we shouldn't be killing people that are active D1 if we can help it (or returning players, which is why the quinn vote on maill is weird to me)

- Quinn and Illwei are getting too frustrated with each other; Quinn has good points that Illwei isn't answering but is also tunnelling [Why do you always have good points?]

- five or six of y'all post too much to reasonably keep up with and the others barely post at all  [Even your meta points are good.]

- village reads: Stick, Maill, Quinn*, Araris, Elandera 

- speaking of which I'm glad @Elandera is having fun with her new playstyle  

- elim reads: Dannex, SoR, Illwei, Books, Experience [I forgot Danex was in this game]

- no storming clue what to make of Striker or Ventyl [As always]

- still sad I lost all my specific analysis and half-witty replies [I too lament the passing of witty words]

- I'm kinda burnt out on the thread please chill with me in PM if you want to talk in the next few hours

  On 2/27/2021 at 3:18 PM, The Unknown Order said:

If it was all newbies I think Kas would step in. That's a little over the top.

AG2  [I should really read that...]

Commentary in bold, as always.

Quote

On 2/27/2021 at 3:30 PM, Quintessential said:

sighhh ik I definitely debated just unvoting but... heh yeah I shoulda just done that probably : P I... yeah okay Maill it occurred to me as I was posting that vote that Maill's a returning player but at that point it was too late so I just left it : P 

I think me tunneling D1 is basically a tradition at this point : P (Dannex in QF50, Matrim in LG73, TUO in MR48...)

Why the asterisk? I assume that read is conditional/less certain but some specifics would be nice :P.

(you don't have to respond now if you don't feel like it ig but I'm gonna forget to say stuff later if I don't do it now)

The asterisk is because I'm reading you as good for reasons I don't think are solid (a combination of tone / quantity of content / Stick's comment about how Elim!Quinn probably wouldn't say some of the things you said), so I'm leaving the asterisk there as a note to myself that I should look back into that trust read if I have the time  

  On 2/27/2021 at 4:15 PM, StrikerEZ said:

 Glad to know both of us are very confusing and chaotic. Makes sense considering we’re brothers. 

Also, just want to say that everything Illwei is doing does feel elim-y to me still. I will be keeping my vote on her. I watched the last MR, and while this isn’t the only reason I’m voting on her, her current post style and almost...defensiveness for awhile there feels very similar to how she played in that game. Plus what she’s posted in this game already is enough to make me elim-read her. 

EDIT: to clarify: the things she’s doing in this game are the reason why I’m voting for her. The stuff with the last game is just the cherry on top to add context.

Your last statement there is quite vague; I understand the meta reasoning, I guess, but what has she "posted in this game" that specifically merits suspicion from a non-meta angle? From what you've said here I have no clear idea why you're voting for Illwei  [Just an aside for Quinn, if they ever read this: You need to break your tinfoil addiction. There are several excellent rehab clinics you can go to

  On 2/27/2021 at 4:26 PM, Mailliw73 said:

Yeah, why does Quinn have the asterisk?

Fair, I'll be honest, I only skim Fifth's. At least in this game but that's because there's a new page like every time I reload this. Like 4 or 5 posts each from Illwei and Quinn every time. 

See above.  

Yeah, I don't blame you. A lot of the multiquoting is documentation for myself as to what I thought about certain players at certain times, so I don't blame you if you don't find it terribly edifying. 

  On 2/27/2021 at 4:32 PM, Ashbringer said:

Generally Elim teams are never all one "group". Some newer players (either just-joined new or only-a-few-games new) and some more experienced players. I wouldn't be surprised if for this game it's also split between newer, mid-gen, and the much older players.

That being said, I really don't like trying to out-meta the Elim team distribution. It works, but 1) it's really sucky for someone to get voted out for being experienced or inexperienced in lieu of actual evidence, (especially because experienced players also get more often fear-killed); and 2) I could definitely see some GMs making a small team with a lot of the experienced players or a large team without them (especially Kas with the former ).

So, pretty much any experience level can be an Elim. Basing suspicions on experience isn't the best without more things to be suspicious of, though.

 

That that being said, both the voters and the Elim kills usually have a unspoken rule of not killing new players or returning experienced players for the first 2-3 cycles. But this game has so many of both that that may prove difficult... and D1 votes are usually guided by these and other meta-reasons anyways.

Aaaand this topic is a page old already. Oh well.

+1 to basically all of this, and don't worry about stuff being a page old. With the current speed of the thread I'm happy to keep up in any way I can  

  On 2/27/2021 at 4:46 PM, Matrim's Dice said:

Miscellaneous:

-I see Illwei as village. They’re always defensive, their tone seems how I think their village tone is. They were a lot more panicked when elim, trust me :P. Not loving this exe.

-I also tentatively see Quinn as village.

-I have developed a gut against Maill, so that exists :P. And my trust of Stick has dissolved into paranoid trust.

-Tani I think could be evil

-Still think Striker is evil, so there :P.

-Biplet seems good 

This...is the oddest combination of reads I've seen today but I'll allow it  Interested in your takes on Maill and Tani, if you want to elaborate on either of those. I'd been seeing them as village and null respectively, so I'm curious what's making you take almost the opposite view.

  On 2/27/2021 at 5:22 PM, Gears said:

[Future Gears here, I was rereading this post and realised that my tone was very snappish, and for that, I apologise. I do not mean to offend. I'm not even upset right now, so I don't know why the tone is so miffed here. Also, I was ninja'd a lot, so if any points have been rendered obsolete, ignore them]

OK, I've been trying to do a post-by-post, but it was eaten three times, so I concede. General opinions: Negative opinion of Books in hindsight, Illwei and Quinn both seem reasonably fine, Quinn's reasons are terrible [joking about being elim? Changing votes mid-post? The second one's happened before MR48], Maia's reasons are just about them arguing which happens a lot so means nothing, Striker's and Biplet's reasoning is that Illwei is frustrated about terrible reasoning which is also not very good reasoning. Illwei PoV: You're just being your regular self, and someone keeps saying you're elim-y because of ridiculous meta reasons, and then someone else who hasn't even played with you before cites those same meta reasons to vote for you, and then someone votes you for being frustrated about being voted on, and everything is locked between you and Quinn for some reason even though there's no reason for that. Why is anyone even voting Illwei? Defensiveness? Quinn, you're paranoid and tunneling. Give me a genuine reason for elim!Illwei that doesn't boil down to MR48. One cannot extrapolate a meta from a single data point. 

The only person I can remember being suspicious of is Flyingbooks for their Striker points [yes, this is an opinion change from earlier, them formulating an opinion after Stick's questioning was odd. Also, I'm voting D1? Wow. Maybe this is the Twilight Zone game]. Illwei and Quinn are being their standard selves [and if either of you are elim, I'll kill you later, but nothing so far has made me suspect you]. Let's let go of the meta reasons for now and consider what has happened here. It doesn't have to be a thunderdome. [And Fifth, my opinion change to match yours was concerning to me as well. People agreeing with me makes me nervous.] Quinn accused Illwei based on meta reasoning that does not hold water. Maia, unused to the chaos demon, voted on them as well. Quinn and Illwei have been arguing about tunneling and meta reasoning. They do that a lot. It's perfectly normal. 

Other points in the post-by-post that died a horrible, painful death: Striker is noted but not particularly suspicious, Stick seems fine, Ventyl claims seem fine as well, Maia is noted, Tani is noted but new, Order's earlier comments felt wrong for some reason, positive opinion of Fifth [though agreement makes me paranoid], the Game Master is always evil, 

*ninja'd by a million people*

Well thanks. I do think that people tend to frame things around the first votes, but that's mostly because there's far more discussion around the people being voted on than about anything else. We do have a tendency to trap ourselves in unnecessary cages. Let's try and avoid that. Why is it between Quinn and Illwei? Because they're arguing? Can two villagers not argue? I want everyone currently voting to lay out their reasons for voting in full detail and any other suspicions you currently possess. I'm voting Books because of their immediate formulation of an opinion on Striker after being pressed by Stick and their rejection of perfectly sound points. Other possible candidates: .....I don't really know. 

Illwei, are you OK? 

And Quinn just retracted, I'm sure a lot of my points are invalidated by that, so I'm going to hit post before another million ninjas make me commit seppuku.

Feel you on the deleted multiquotes and ninja'ing, you're not the only one struggling with that.  You take an interesting and strong stand on Illwei's shrekking, and I agree with most of it, but would qualify it by saying that Illwei has done nothing to earn trust so far, I just think the logic or lack thereof behind her shrekking makes her a bad lynch target for someone so active, and discussion becoming a whirlpool around her is unproductive in a 28-player game. [Stop agreeing with me. It makes me nervous.]

It is kind of interesting how our reads have basically converged. I'd be happy to join you on Books, as I was suspicious of him earlier for basically the same reasons, but Shard is less active than he is and still drew my ire earlier, so I'm going with him for now. I would like to commend you for this post, though, as it made me laugh.  [What part specifically made you laugh?]

If more people could vote in the next hour or so, so that I actually have the opportunity to see who's getting shrekked instead of finding out when I wake up, that'd also be great  

Again, bolded commentary

Conclusion as of D1: Fifth is, as always, excellent at analysis, which is ultimately NAI but my instincts want to trust them to the ends of the earth, which is terrifying. [Stop agreeing with me.]

N1

Spoiler

Quote

On 2/28/2021 at 11:13 AM, TJ Shade said:

Hi Wyrm! Definitely checked your account's past display names to check if it was Kas trolling again. 

Also, three Soothers.... It does make Reading look bad... Gotta check the vote timings to see if the orders were sent before the players went to sleep, to see if it was village Soothers wanting to prevent a tie or elim Soother wanting to create one. Leaning towards the latter, because I think Reading was in the lead when everyone tuned out.

It scared me for a good second too.  That said, welcome back to @Wyrmhero! It's really been a while and I hope you can stick around and GM a few times :>

Quoting this mainly to respond to your amalgamation of puns and actual points which you made last cycle, which is the only thing I'm going to bother looking at other than votes from yesterday after I left the thread because if I try to multiquote everything I will go insane. >> You seemed to come out of last cycle with more up-front suspicion of Striker than I, essentially because it seems you saw his original post as incontrovertibly bad and subsequent ones as simple efforts at damage control. Given that my stance on Striker has thus far been the equivalent of an enormous shrug, I' m not opposed to your take, but I wonder what you think of it now that Books (who you and I also suspected) has flipped village. Also, now that you've presumably got more time, I'd like to hear your points against TUO and Tani; both of them have kind of slid under my radar, which is perhaps reason enough to give them a second look, but they seem like normal new / adjusting players to me, so I'm curious why they stuck out in your read enough to give them a mention. [<insert comment about the repetition of concurrence>]

Re: your "Fifth very good at appearing village" comment, it occurs to me that the newer players haven't actually been in a game with me where I'm village yet, since my three most recent appearances (LG60, MR38a/b, QF45) I was evil every time. I swear I can be nice, guys, 2020 GM RNG just wasn't feeling in the mood  (which makes up for 2018 GM RNG, I suppose, which made me village every game >>) ["Trust me," you say as blood drips from the knife in your hand. Yes, Fifth, of course we'll trust you.]

  On 2/28/2021 at 11:58 AM, Ashbringer said:

A Rioter could also have canceled their own vote, which is sometimes beneficial for Elims to do. But I think multiple soothers is more likely here.

With the way vote counts are done, there's really no incentive against Elims messing with their votes just to sew chaos, so this is a good point. I will say that if the Elims did this, though (which I'm currently assuming is the case), they've conveniently exposed that they have vote manip. (Remember how I was saying those Smokers would come in handy? ) Rioting is weird in this case, though, as I'd assume if it had been used, the vote totals would have gone *up* in some places, not down, so... /shrug [I actually speculate that the elims have no Rioters what with the information we have.]

  On 2/28/2021 at 0:36 PM, Gears said:

Roko the Basilisk stood before the limp corpse of Lesalan the Alchemist, lamenting the heady pulse of the mob. Lessie had just been a way out of the thunderdome they had found themselves in, a method of escape. It had always hated being trapped, being cornered, being desperate, so it had crafted its own keys to the prison of suspicion, and locked itself into a cell of its own making. And they had agreed, they had followed its lead, they had torn the Alchemist limb from limb. There was a reason why it hated people agreeing with it. It was nearly always wrong, and they should know that. At least the death proved the existence of Regular Villagers, who didn't feel the achepulseneed for metalmetalmetalburning in the blood. And the mob pile-ons were notable as well. All in all, not... well, not a terrible trade, though it did feel the weight of failure as a tearing wound, knowing that its ability to discern friend from foe was hampered. It was not adequate.

For a moment, it contemplated keeping, clinging to the past and trying again, but... no. This wasn't worth it. There was no point in iterating over this specific person again and again and again just for this one gamble. Sure, it had killed people and kept people for less, but there were far more important things to do. For one thing, the fog of metalmetalmetalburning that had settled over the crowd. A distinct Soothing of tolerance, of mercy, of patience. It did not like being under the thumb of someone else. Blood stained its hands, and some had gotten into the grooves between joints, reducing the range of motion slightly. A minor annoyance, but intolerable for one that was trying to seem human, natural, alive. There was much to be done. This gamble had failed, but many more were to come. This hand was lost, but not the game.

---

Kas appears to have transformed into a slightly higher resolution version of Wyrm. Wonderful. 

Vote manip changes: -1 on Books, -2 on Reading. Possible Rioter iterations: Net -1 [vote gets cancelled, someone gets moved to someone else OR not voting, changes vote to null vote [basically mock Soother] OR self-target OR targets same person as Soother OR targets Smoker], net -2 [vote gets cancelled, changes vote to null vote], net 0 [not voting, moves someone to someone else] Soother just -1 a vote. So the 2 Soothers, 1 Rioter works fine and isn't too unreasonable. 1 Soother and 1 Rioter is also plausible [though it would mean that they were voting on someone that they were removing votes from instead of just retracting and being public with it, so if this is the case, suspicion] I will say that the 3 Soothers flat is the simplest scenario, but one should never dismiss other cases out of hand.

TJ, the vote count was tied for a significant time, especially when people were going to sleep. Perhaps village vote manip-ers wanted to stop ties. I'm not rejecting elim!Reading with vote manip to save possibility, but one must consider the village's bloodthirstiness and thus distate for ties.

All votes last cycle [final votes italicised] [this is based on my spreadsheet, so if I'm wrong, yell at me]:

• Araris votes Reading
• Striker votes Gears
• Pyro votes Striker for forgetting Smokers
• Matrim votes Striker for murder, Gears, forgetting Smokers
• Quinn votes Striker for the Gears point
• Illwei votes Stick for "mmmmmm"
• Quinn retracts Striker and votes Illwei for joking about elim!Quinn
• Stick votes Books for hedging on Striker
• Danex votes Quinn for joking about being elim
• Stick retracts Books to avoid tunnelling
• Maia votes Illwei for their 'changing votes in one post' shtick and arguing with Quinn
• Striker retracts Gears for pre-written
• Bard votes Pyro for hopping on Striker quickly
• Striker votes Illwei for 'joking' about people PM claiming
• XP votes Stick for retracting Books
• Tani votes Matrim
• Tani retracts Matrim and votes Quinn
• Illwei retracts Stick
• Illwei votes TJ
• Quinn retracts Illwei and votes Maia because the argument was meta-ish and Maia is too nice
• Fifth votes Reading [I'm sure they have a reason, but alas, the multiquote was devoured]
• Quinn retracts Maia because they are returning
• Bip votes Illwei for the argument with Quinn
• Quinn votes Illwei because the thoughts seem to be verified by an external source 
• Illwei votes Illwei
• Quinn retracts Illwei because of their self-vote
• Gears votes Books for Striker points
• Bip retracts Illwei because of confusion
• Quinn votes Books because of Gears's reasoning
• Tani retracts Quinn and votes Reading
• Ventyl votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Stick votes Books for earlier reasoning
• Tani retracts Reading because voting isn't mandatory
• Striker retracts Illwei and votes Books for Gears's reasoning
• Ash votes Reading
• Illwei retracts Illwei and votes Reading
• Bard retracts Pyro and votes Books to avoid ties [@Kasimir, did you miss their vote change here?]
• Ash retracts Reading and votes Books to avoid ties
• Devotary votes Books
• Books votes Reading out of self-pres
• TJ votes Books

Immediate thought: There were a lot of votes flung on at the end. Also, so many people followed me on Books because my reasoning was apparently good. People noted: Everyone who didn't really have reasoning, id est Ventyl, Striker, Bard, Ash, Devotary, TJ [from the Books voters] and Araris [somewhat, not really, they do this a lot], Fifth [just say the reasoning that was eaten in the multiquote, I just don't understand it], Illwei. 

I might do more analysis later, but I'm a tad bit busy [tests coming up], so expect nothing.

For those that didn't see it, Striker's post is as follows:

 

All hail the glorious Wyrmimir  [Considering that Kas is Kairos and Wyrm is Anansi, I propose the name "Kairansi", which has the lovely perk of containing "Kairan", which means "God of everything and life". Alternate name: "Ozymandias", a name which never fails to conjure a sense of both might and mockery clenched in the same iron fist.]

Some clarification on the SoR vote: the posts they had made at the time seemed weird and disjoint from what was going on (the ones at the beginning of the turn), which I thought might be an attempt to lie low on the edge of suspicion, and then he made the post about how Smokers ought to power off their copperclouds to let Seekers scan them, which I strongly disagreed with and saw as helping the Eliminators. He was also less active than Books or Illwei, the alternatives at the time, and I agreed rather strongly with Araris' point that it would be more fair to let vocal players survive D1. Tl;dr he wasn't my top suspicion, but situationally he made the most sense because I had no solid case against anyone else (y'know, because it was D1 ) [I just realised that Reading is in fact still alive. I completely forgot about them. Whatever happened to your suspicion of them?]

The Books avalanche and the vote manip should probably be considered separately - my view is that even if SoR is evil, only one of those phenomena were generated by Team Evil. Either of them would have sufficed to save an Elim!SoR, and I don't think the elims would have tipped their hand so heavily to save a member this early on. So either the last-minute swing of votes (Bard, Ash, Devotary, TJ) was half-or-more evil, or the heavy vote manipulation was done by an elim or two, but not both. Sorry if that made no sense to anyone but myself.  Right now I have almost universally null reads on the wagon of Books voters, so I'm of the view that evil!SoR would mean the elims sending in vote manip actions early in the turn to make sure he survived and then getting pleasantly surprised by the mostly-village tumble onto Books last-minute. Ash and Devotary probably look the worst off the last-minute voting, in this elaborate world I've constructed, and I'm going to stop analysing here because I'm just rambling at this point  

  On 2/28/2021 at 0:58 PM, Matrim's Dice said:

Back now. Pleased my gut rang true on Books in the end, but slightly annoyed they dissed me with their last breath  

Can someone remind me why Reading was a candidate? I completely missed that. 

I also don't necessarily think Reading is evil for the manip- as Gears mentioned, villagers preventing ties is a possibility, or just a village Soother who thought Books was a better choice. Though with the number of votes changed, I do think an elim vote manipper was active- the chance of them having one is high, and there was a lot of manip. The question comes whether they were sowing chaos or trying to save a teammate. I'll probably have a preference between those two options once I remember what Reading was being voted on for in the first place  

Good job confusing me with the pfp change, Kas  It worked.

Pretty much full agreement with the third paragraph here. Village manipulation to cement a result is definitely possible, and if that's the case it was probably done by someone who either hopped on the Books wagon last-minute, or saw the trend and wanted to continue. Or maybe just a newer player eager to use their manip abilities, which I can't blame them for because I did the same with a Soother role in my first game  [In my defense, it was tied when I Soothed the vote off Reading.]

  On 2/28/2021 at 0:59 PM, _Stick_ said:

 

I don't think this makes Reading look bad at all - it's pretty NAI for Reading I think. If I were an elim with vote manips and I had the opportunity to mess up some votes here and there to make a villager look bad while also simultaneously lynching another villager, I would definitely do it. Also, the soothes used on Reading's votes could may as well just be villagers attempting to save Reading, so I think this is mostly just NAI as far as Reading's alignment is concerned. HOwever I still think Reading is village.

Off the top of my head, people active near end-of-turn were Ash, TJ, Books, Bard, Mat, STINK, Devotary, Quinn and myself. Since the votes were already kinda really close before though, the vote manip orders could've just been placed prior to the votes cast near end-of-turn. In fact that would seem to be more likely, because if the vote manip peeps were actually active during end-of-turn, I don't think they would have gone ahead with these manips, seeing as the votes on Books did largely outnumber Reading's. So there was little point in the manips.

 

And here Stick is taking basically the opposite view.  I would agree with you if people only used manip when it was necessary, but oftentimes it's the exact opposite, which is why I'd maintain that the village manipulator(s) were probably more likely to be on towards the end of the turn. [Realisation: Everyone's addicted to metal. Quinn, I think we need to expand 'Tinfoil Addicts Anonymous' to a simple 'Metal Addicts Anonymous'.]

  On 2/28/2021 at 1:39 PM, Quintessential said:

Null: STINK, Daisy, Windrunner, Randby, Fifth, Reading, Elandera, TUO, Burnt, Pyro, Bard

...

All of the nulls either haven't left an impression on me to this point or haven't posted much or at all. Nothing much to say here. I believe I had a couple of them at something other than null before, but tbh at this point the reasons are small enough that I'm considering them null now.

Ouch, I see someone doesn't bother reading my multiquotes unless I tag them  More seriously, I hope to put my own opinions out a bit more soon to leave an actual impression, and should have a reads list later tonight or tomorrow. I just am not spending the 6+ hours on the game that I did yesterday trying to catch up, so forgive me if this post and a few shorter ones later in the cycle are all that I manage for tonight. :P 

Once again, bold.

Quote

Y'all. Please. Forget PM safety, how about thread safety? There aren't enough Lurchers to cover every soul that claims a role >> Besides that, anyone sewing chaos by claiming a role publicly is getting suspicion from me from now on. If you want to confuse the storms out of me kindly have the courtesy to shoot me a PM and do it there instead >>

  On 2/28/2021 at 4:45 PM, Araris Valerian said:

Arenta put a new sign outside her office, which read, "Rent fees increase for everyone by 10% per mention of specific Allmonatic abilities. Those fools causing trouble don't need any help from us."

Then she wandered off to the tavern to see who was wasting money on drinks instead of covering their debts.

+1 to this 

Agreement as always which worries me as always.

Conclusion as of N1: No change. 

D2

Spoiler

Quote

  On 3/1/2021 at 10:55 AM, Ashbringer said:

... Derrick pleads the Fifth.

I judge that you die :P 

(more serious post incoming after I put my brain back together after my Hebrew class :P)

Banter

Quote

I have been super busy with classes hooray but I owe the world a post instead of using my 5-10 minute breaks to just PM people or jump in Discord and chat about random things so here we go. Don't expect a lot of multiquoting though because my brain is too tired :P (narrator: he then proceeded to multiquote)

  On 3/1/2021 at 4:19 PM, StrikerEZ said:

Like Quinn and Elandera said: I highly doubt the elims have a coinshot. Mistborn? Maybe. But I highly doubt they have a coinshot. And even if they do, I highly doubt the Ventyl kill would be from the elims. If we're going to assume that the Rando kill is indicative of the elim profile (granted, it's one kill, so we can't make too many assumptions), then it seems they would prefer to go after more low-profile players. Killing Ventyl doesn't fit that MO for our team, following this profile of who the elims might be at least. Plus, literally speaking, Ventyl surviving would cause doubt about his alignment. Keeping Ventyl alive would leave a villager to focus discussion away from the elims. 

Also, I'm going to vote on Stick. They've been giving me some odd vibes throughout the game and I don't like how she went about trying to plant the idea that it wasn't a village coinshot that did the kill. Feels almost like she's trying to make us really suspect that the coinshot, whoever they may be, is an elim. 

This post confuses the storms out of me so I guess we'll start with it. :P Assuming "Rando" is Random Bystander, Striker's argument is essentially that the elims were intending to go for low-profile targets (an assumption to begin with, given our sample size of one kill), and that an Elim team with an opportunity to kill Ventyl thus...wouldn't? I really don't understand the logic present in his hypotheticals, as elim teams are usually multiple people with varying opinions, so extrapolating the behaviour of one from a single kill to say that there's little chance of Ventyl being targeted just doesn't make sense to me. And to be clear, I agree that the Coinshot / Mistborn was likely village, mostly because I think any elim team had a strong incentive to avoid the IKYK trap that Ventyl was when he all but asked for protection, but Striker seems to be trying to push a sort of behavioural logic that doesn't apply. I'm not really suspicious (other than from my pre-existing suspicions of him) but it's something worth noting. [Striker does this.]

The Stick vote is a lot more suspicious (seriously, what is it with people this game dropping poorly explained votes on Stick and backing off immediately?), even if it was retracted, and the logic here is even vaguer: "odd vibes" plus a valid take on the Coinshot is a weird combination for voting. Given that Stick remains one of the few people left doing cogent analysis, that she's a returning player and it's only D2, and also that she's of my few village reads, I'm not really happy with this vote on her (or Illwei's yesterday), and the quick retractions in both instances make me think one or both votes were designed to see if people would take them up, rather than being founded in actual suspicion. 

  On 3/2/2021 at 7:35 AM, Tani said:

Is there a reasoning behind this?

Edit: PS I AM NOT SELF VOTING IM JUST QUOTING SOMEONE'S VOTE

A lot of people are voting for Striker and seem to have sound reasoning for doing so...

So yeah.

I mean, I'm reading Striker as mild elim, but I was under the distinct impression that none of the votes on Striker had terribly much reason, and just cited the "reasons" of other votes which were conspicuously absent (thinking @Quintessential's vote belongs to this category as well). So I'm left in this weird situation where I suspect Striker but don't like the reasons most people are voting for him? :P  

  On 3/2/2021 at 9:30 AM, StrikerEZ said:

So, I'm not gonna have much time to get on and defend myself today. And definitely won't be on for the last 8-9 hours or so. At best, I'll be around for a few hours before I go to sleep. I'm switching from Stick to Tani. It feels like they're overemphasizing their newness as a player, probably due to being coached by an elim team about doing that. If they flip elim, I'd look at some older players, because that was a pretty popular strategy when new players got elim. So like, Maill, stick, Araris, etc. Of the people voting me, I'm most suspicious of Tani and Maill. Mat and Quinn feel normal to me, even if they're sus of me (which, I mean, when does that never happen? :P), and Windrunner hasn't done much, so idk about them.

Tani(2): Illwei, Striker

Striker(5): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Quinn, Tani, Maill

Ashbringer(1): Young Bard

Huh. Switching from a returning player to a new one is a curious pivot, and I'm actually going to defend Tani; if anything, I get the feeling just as many elim teams would tell a newer member not to play up their newness because it attracts suspicion, and their actions have been consistent with a new player figuring things out and trying not to die or get killed. I don't trust Tani, but wouldn't say that any of the points raised against them have been AI either. Again, I'm very curious what Striker thinks about the practices of most eliminator teams, or whether he's just making these sweeping assertions with the idea of finding easy targets. [Alas, they were innocent.]

The swing onto Ash was weird both in who did it and how quickly it happened; if for no other reason than that, I'm happy voting Striker to keep Ash alive, who's another of my village reads from last cycle, as well as for the reasons above from his posts (inciting wagons for weird reasons based off assumptions about elim teams he's constructed in his head). When I get the time I will probably take a look at the votes from this cycle but I need to get dinner so I'll leave a reads list here and be done with it. :P 

(if you can't tell tired!Fifth is posting now :P)

Village: Stick (good analysis, helpful, put what seems like village thought into case against Ash even if I disagree with it); Mat (gut, tbh, and a sense he's being helpful); Stink (good PM vibes)

Slight Village: Quinn (weirdly bandwagon-y this cycle, though, and doing less raw analysis (not like I'm any better though)); Araris (liked him more before the Ash vote); Elandera (having fun, is nice in PMs, is being helpful inthread now too); Ashbringer; TJ (usual analytical self, need to look at Gears thing again); Bard (more active / helpful this cycle, better than C1 when I thought he might have been keeping his head low)

Null: Gears (too tired to read argument with TJ, will do later); Devotary; Experience; Maill (been getting weird vibes in PMs and the Illwei focus is just odd); TWS; Burnt (disappointed I have not received a PM); Biplet; Daisy; Pyro; Tani (don't buy the arguments against them)

Slight Elim: Shard of Reading (suspicion hasn't disappeared but the lynch train has :P); Illwei (connections to Striker + very active but somehow can't remember anything specific beyond arguments with Quinn + seems to be content to post filler and not give suspicions); TUO (did not like the weird IKYK stuff from last night, also belongs in active-but-nothing-terribly-firm); Striker; Dannex

I need food so this concludes my gloriously scattered post :P [It didn't feel especially scattered.]

Fortis Fortuna adiuvat

Conclusion as of D2: No change.

N2

Spoiler

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Glad you’re feeling better, Kas! :) 

To the rest of y’all: sorry for the radio silence. This week’s been very busy (writing this currently as I eat), and the weekend doesn’t look any easier, so I’ve been mainly responding to PMs during the Night turns, though I’m still reading the thread and trying to form what opinions I can. :P If you have specific questions, @‘ing me is going to be the easiest way I’ll see it if you want a public response. Otherwise, I’m still happy to talk in PMs even if I rarely start them :P 

Nothing much

Quote

On 3/5/2021 at 8:31 AM, STINK said:

@Fifth Scholar whatcha eating

Nothing now, though I was having eggs and cereal. Don't measure up to the delicious Scadrian waffles you're advertised as making, though ;) 

Food.

Conclusion as of N2: No change

 

And now responses to things in thread while I was writing this.

3 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

@Gears, are you a Soother? If so, what did you do D1/D2? And why did you remove a vote from Mailliw instead of voting for Quinn (or doing both)?

Affirmative. D1: Took Araris's vote off of Reading back when it was tied, never retracted the order. D2: Absolutely nothing. I was on mobile and didn't want to mess with colour codes.

44 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I'm not a fan of Gears Soothing a vote off Maill but then not making his opinion public by actually voting for Quinn, especially since people seem to have known Gears's role already. Gears' opposition to the Fallion Four's D2 decision to vote for Striker seems too honest to have known about it, i.e. be evil with any of those four, or at the very least would have opposed it in doc if Maill or Stick were evil with Gears.

1. No one knew my role except for Maia. I did recently claim to Casper [Illwei]. Then I decided to be remarkably candid for no particular reason. 2. See above, I didn't want to mess up the vote with typos and colour codes and other such mobile nonsense.

37 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I don't know how to iso people... I'm gonna try on Gears.

My heart glows with pride. I eagerly anticipate your results. As Cardinal Richelieu possibly said at a point ambiguously in the past, "Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." Find the rope with which to hang me, Bringer of Ash. Find the ink that signs my death warrant. Find the knife you will plunge between my ribs.

5 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Devotary. Gears. I'm going to be sad if you get exed since our PM has been so good, but you are so NAI that I just don't know what to do with you and the Devotary exe doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere. 

Perhaps you should be writing me eulogies, not the other way around. 'Twas an honour to converse with you in the hours before we were forced to part. You have been incredibly memorable.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

4 minutes ago, Gears said:

Perhaps you should be writing me eulogies, not the other way around. 'Twas an honour to converse with you in the hours before we were forced to part. You have been incredibly memorable.

Perhaps, though it still looks like I'm getting the axe to the neck instead of you. You have also been quite memorable and I salute you no matter what happens. 

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

I have done my readthrough of Gears, Illwei, Burnt and TJ, but have lost all my notes because I made the mistake once again of putting them in the text editor. Araris has a pretty good ISO of Gears, even though I disagree with the conclusions he draws, and Gears has a good ISO of Illwei, so for those two at least people can have some idea what I'm basing my reads on, but this post is basically a tl;dr of an hour and a half of combing through old posts. Conclusions: Gears soft village (sensible analysis, willing to take stances when necessary), Illwei null village (most of her content is NAI or what I would uncharitably term filler, but she's been doing work towards developing suspicions and thinking through things methodically, so that outweighs the strong negative gut feeling I retain), Burnt is village (I am going somewhat off my PM here in addition to the short but meaningful contributions she's made in-thread + our mindmeld on Maill). Maill I didn't ISO, but I still retain a firm belief that he will flip villager if he is shrekked today; Araris' comment that he's basically just using his normal playstyle and catching flak for it because it's out of step with the meta is how I essentially feel about it. However, I'm not voting for either of them, but for TJ Shade, who is definitely a viable lynch option with 10 hours left in the cycle and most of the Americans going to bed.  

Very condensed lynch case: pushed lynch on Striker fairly firmly while leaving enough ambiguity in his posts to back off if necessary, and hedged a lot on Stick for no apparent reason C1. At the end of this sequence he votes on Books instead with little explanation. Casts aspersions on the Soothers, at least one of whom is village and the other I am currently reading as mild village, and then doubles down on the Gears suspicion through D2. Does rightfully point out suspicion on Tari / Condensation, and has an Ashbringer vote which I liked at the time, so D3 is the largest argument against him being evil. Defends Dannex, who I'm still of the opinion is lurking evil. Really delayed reply to him about TWS, by the way, that I just had an enormous null read on them because I tended to like their contributions when they did materialise. (This cycle with the Maill vote not so much.) Finally, today he has voted Maill, offering no explanation as to why when he hasn't seriously addressed him before at all, and when the alternative is now Gears, whom he has previously expressed suspicion for which we have no evidence to indicate has gone away. Initially I was reading him as village just for being an active analyst, but looking back his conclusions have been largely vague and/or helpful to the Elims, or at least against key villagers. 

Some brief asides: I'd really like to see more from SoR and Dannex, and if village Mistborn draw Steel, they'd be good targets if they're not going to be voting / providing suspicions. I do see that SoR at least has re-emerged, and would encourage them to place a vote this cycle so I can get a read based off something other than my now-outdated C1 antipathy. Devotary's recent posts have confused me more than anything else and she'll probably get analysed sometime tomorrow. I'd like to hear a bit from Condensation, especially since I retained a gut feel against Tani, the previous occupant of that role. Stink has slipped entirely under my radar simply with PM vibes and I might have to re-examine that. Elandera has fallen off my radar completely but has also been expressing opinions so I don't know what's up with her, other than maintaining my cautious village read from C2ish. My problem this game is that I have a lot of elim feelings and suspicions but no good elim reads except on people who nobody else wants to go for, and my village reads are getting persecuted. So yes, this is kind of a protest vote against both leading wagons, but I'm unhappy with the hyperfocus on Maill, and especially unhappy that most of the blowback to it has fallen on the head of another person I trust  

[---]

11 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Illwei null village (most of her content is NAI or what I would uncharitably term filler, but she's been doing work towards developing suspicions and thinking through things methodically, so that outweighs the strong negative gut feeling I retain),

what

[Stick. she/her]

Okay! Finally done ISOing Devotary this honestly shouldn't have taken as long as it has

 

Day 1: First post talks about village smokers existing, and about how we mustn't be too quick to trust a self proclaimed Seeker. NAI

The Second post says that they think Ventyl's claim is likely village indicative, defends Striker, supports Striker's suggestion of the village coinshot using their role every cycle. They note down illwei's actions as NAI due to meta reasons, and say that the Reading exe doesn't make much sense. Of note that they continue defending Striker in across the cycle and in D2 as well.

The Third and last post of D1 notes that ties in the day are fine as long as they aren't near the end of turn, and throws a vote on Books because it would give more info than Reading. Note that this post was made 8 minutes before rollover. NAI probably - Devo always votes near the end-of-turn.

Night 1:The night post comments on the vote manip, and says that the last-minute votes on Books aren't necessarily suspicious because the votes weren't close at all when they voted. These last-minute Books voters include Striker, Ash, TJ, and Devotary themself.

Day 2: This post speculates that perhaps the reason the elims went for Randby instead of Ventyl was because they wouldn't expect a Lurcher to be protecting Randby, and in response to Maill saying that he sees a Striker-illwei e/e because of Striker’s vote taking pressure off Illwei,  argues that Bip’s and Quinn’s vote played a bigger part in taking the pressure off illwei. (All three of whom [quinn, bip, striker] we now know to be village). Also comments how Araris’ and Fifth’s actions are NAI.

In this post they defend Ash and say that Gears flipping evil shouldnt mean that illwei, quinn, and striker are villagers. Due to this post I can see elim!Devo being partners with elim!Gears attempting to plant some seeds for suspicion on Quinn and Striker (confirmed villagers) in the event that elim!Gears is exe'd.

In their last D2 post where they vote Pyro they say that village!Striker is most likely and it is worth noting that they weren’t exactly suspicious of Pyro but voted Pyro anyway cuz probability. I dont really know what to note about this lol.

Night 2: This post is of note because they say: 

Quote

I'm not really a fan of all the votes coming off Ash

But earlier in D2 had said:

Quote

Overall not feeling very enthusiastic about an Ash vote

So there’s that.

The rest of their N2 posts are mainly questions concerning the group PM and in this post they point out that people on the Pyro train couldn’t have been teammates of elim!Ash’s trying to save him because the train on Ash had dissolved before the pyro train began. The people on the Pyro train were Striker, Araris, TJ, illwei, and Devo. 

Overall what stands out to me is how they defended Striker so much - I would consider the possibility of a scan being involved, but Devo's defence for Striker began on D1 itself, so that is slightly suspicious. The Ash thing is definitely weird, and I can see the night post being a distancing attempt if Ash and Devo are elims together. Another thing is how a lot of their posts are NAI, which is always something that seems elim to me.

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Now the exe is between Mailliw and Gears, who are tied together significantly because of that Soothing and that, surprise, makes me nervous

Well Gears is the one with the Soothing so if anything, that should make the votes less tied  

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

@_Stick_, you've got Mailliw's claimed role. Anything we should know?

If Maill is an elim then I'm willing to bet he lied about his role, so there isn't much I can do with that  

6 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

@ SEEKER, I hope you're working behind the scenes, but if you've scanned Maill as Village (with a role, as Maill seems to have one) or Elim, we probably need to know. Particularly if you've got a Lurcher friend somehow.

At this point I'm starting to question whether we even have a village seeker lol

3 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I probably should know more about Stick but also have the anti sunk cost feel like she's village if Maill is evil and a village Maill means we should give up and look somewhere else

I agree with this 

Anyway I'd be willing to switch to Devotary - I'm fine with both a Gears and a Devo exe and to be honest I've now come to terms with a Maill exe as well. In my opinion we've done enough info exes to now move on from that, and I think we can always just exe Maill later if need be. But since a lot of us can't really move on without exe'ing Maill first, I dunno lol

[|TJ| he/him]

@Fifth Scholar, I'll reply to your accusations in full later, but you said you're very sure that Maill is village in your previous post and that you are say you are not happy with the focus on Maill this cycle. Why do you read him as village? Why do you believe he'll flip village? You've never given reasoning for that, if I recall correctly. I'm suspicious of Gears + Maill team, and while I would vote for Gears, Maill's flip would reveal more about Gears than the other way around. Maill's flip would also reveal more details about Illwei's alignment, and yours to an extent to which you've been defending him. It would also reveal Burnt and Devotary's motives on the Quinn vote last cycle. I firmly read Quinn as village, and believe the counter on Quinn was to protect Maill.

Edit:

5 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

If Maill is an elim then I'm willing to bet he lied about his role, so there isn't much I can do with that  

Maill claimed Thug to me, in an attempt to get me to claim too. I've heard he claimed something else to the Fallion's Four, so I assume he fake claimed to me.

Edited March 10, 2021 by TJ Shade

[Stick. she/her]

8 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Maill claimed Thug to me, in an attempt to get me to claim too. I've heard he claimed something else to the Fallion's Four, so I assume he fake claimed to me.

Maybe it's better to have this conversation in PMs 

[Mat he/him]

Alright, I'm tired and confused, but here goes something.

First: Props to the elims this game for having me running circles inside my tunnels I dig myself into- first Striker, now Maill (though we don't know what the end result of this will be-- this statement possibly will become redundant with a Maill evil flip) but the point being I've stuck myself to something I can't unsee and keep getting that lingering feeling I'm wrong. Really, it's that I have no clue what I'm doing this game and my reads just feel all over the place and more nonexistent than they should be.

But, I'm gonna try to condense something. Viewer ignorance advised, as this is a whole lot of grouping coming from a confused player. Massive reworks will be put to this when necessary.

Sorry if that sounded negative :D. Just a bit scattered rn 

The Way I Currently See It: There are two possibilities for Maill's flip. Village, or Elim. There are two major 'groups' of people I'd look to for either flip.

If Maill Flips Evil: The option I personally see likely to happen- I'm voting Maill- and as such these are my general suspicions.

• Gears: Saved Maill once already. The counter on him weirdens this (that's a word now) somewhat, though my tinfoily brain decided to see this as a bizarre distancing. So.
• Araris: Been lightly defending Maill throughout, pushing other things and I SWEAR there's something else and I'll properly say what later. Promise.
• Stick: Sorta same as Gears in the way that they seem to be distancing in a way while defending them. And gut.
• To a Lesser Extent: Devo, Burnt, Stink, Elan, Fifth- those who didn't vote Maill before. Very small extent as it is rather easy to be wrong as a villager. (Note strongly I'm assuming evil!Maill for this section- if he flips vil this would become Exhibit A for being wrong as a villager. Or rather Exhibit B, as Exhibit A is already inhabited by my Striker posts.) These are simply noted as not voting Maill, and honestly I'm just trying to grow the PoE for an e!Maill situation larger than 3 people.

If Maill Flips Village: I don't personally see this happening, but if it does my reads will be utterly destroyed for a second time and I will be confused again.

• Ash
• TJ
• Illwei
• TWS
• Tani/Connie
• Basically everyone else- just jotting down names here because I haven't considered this side really at all because I'm tunneling and my computer is auto shutting off in 60 seconds and I need to get this posted- so sorry for the lack of content here at the end but I just wanted to divide the player list roughly. Very roughly.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

5 minutes ago, Illwei said:

what

Most of your posts are like that  One-word replies, banter, :thonk: emojis, whatever. But when you actually bother posting about suspicions and analyse people you seem to have a village thought process and generally make good points. But my gut still doesn't like the filler you tend to post  

3 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

@Fifth Scholar, I'll reply to your accusations in full later, but you said you're very sure that Maill is village in your previous post and that you are say you are not happy with the focus on Maill this cycle. Why do you read him as village? Why do you believe he'll flip village? You've never given reasoning for that, if I recall correctly. I'm suspicious of Gears + Maill team, and while I would vote for Gears, Maill's flip would reveal more about Gears than the other way around. Maill's flip would also reveal more details about Illwei's alignment, and yours to an extent to which you've been defending him. It would also reveal Burnt and Devotary's motives on the Quinn vote last cycle. I firmly read Quinn as village, and believe the counter on Quinn was to protect Maill.

Basically my thoughts on Maill are that he's received a disproportionate amount of condemnation for his actions. Gears points out malicious framing and Quinn had gone after him for voting patterns, I think, but he's responded to both of those accusations in what I'd see as a village manner, and everyone else voting him just sort of jumped on out of gut feeling, particularly this cycle. The actions which he's accused of being evil for seem very standard with the kind of fast-and-loose style that he's famed for as a villager, especially the fake claims, and I just can't see any good reason for him to be evil; elim!Maill would have accepted his lynch and let one of his teammates claim a scan or let his whole team bus him. The fact that he's getting defended by a wide variety of people but still has enough traction as a lynch makes me think the elims are both attacking him and propping him up to cause confusion and incriminate people on his wagon once he flips village, and are also using him as a distraction for their own suspicious players. V/V lynches are common - we had one C2 - and the fact that Quinn was killed last cycle doesn't automatically bear on Maill's alignment. Normally I'd advocate getting rid of him to clear the air, but we have at most three mislynches left, and I'm not eager to burn one of them on a fun player who has almost no chance of being evil.

[Stick. she/her]

Here's my view of what the elim teams might look like depending on Maill's flip (inspired by Mat :P)

Village!Maill: Devo, TJ, Gears, Hael/Daisy, TWS, Maybe Ash

Elim!Maill: Burnt, Devo, Fifth, Ash, Hael/Daisy, Maybe Araris

yes I think Devo probably fits in both these situations it's my gut

I think Tani/Condensation, illwei, and Mat are probably all villagers either way. 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

defends Striker, supports Striker's suggestion of the village coinshot using their role every cycle. Of note that they continue defending Striker in across the cycle and in D2 as well.

Says that the last-minute votes on Books aren't necessarily suspicious because the votes weren't close at all when they voted. These last-minute Books voters include Striker, Ash, TJ, and Devotary themself.

In response to Maill saying that he sees a Striker-illwei e/e because of Striker’s vote taking pressure off Illwei,  argues that Bip’s and Quinn’s vote played a bigger part in taking the pressure off illwei. (All three of whom [quinn, bip, striker] we now know to be village).

They say that Gears flipping evil shouldnt mean that illwei, quinn, and striker are villagers. Due to this post I can see elim!Devo being partners with elim!Gears attempting to plant some seeds for suspicion on Quinn and Striker (confirmed villagers) in the event that elim!Gears is exe'd.

The Ash thing is definitely weird, and I can see the night post being a distancing attempt if Ash and Devo are elims together.

I didn't think the things Striker said D1 meant he deserved death. I mentioned why I didn't vote Striker D2, because I didn't think the vote patterns would make sense for an elim Striker.

There's functionally no difference between me voting Books D1 and me choosing not to vote. The only thing it does is make a permanent note of my opinions. It is true that my saying late votes are NAI is partially because I did so.

It is true that Illwei wasn't in mortal danger at the time Striker moved his vote. All three of Striker, Quinn, and Biplet being village means they couldn't have been trying to protect elim!Illwei.

This was in agreement with previous posts by Gears and Quinn; TJ says that Gears is TMI village reading Quinn, Illwei, and Striker, Gears and Quinn argue and I agree that an elim Gears might defend these three even if they weren't all villagers.

The votes disappearing from Ash was something pointing to elim!Ash compared to a previous null-positive view of Ash, but didn't make me read him as elim overall.

[Kasimir he/him]

Next batch of rule clarifications:

• Can a Tineye message be blocked?

No. Even if the Tineye is killed that same Night, their message will still be posted.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Blast it.

Derrick is out of time.

Looking back, Derrick can't find much for the original reasons around Marll's suspicion as it seemed mostly a joint gut.

As opposed to an unjointed gut.

Or an ungutted joint.

And Daux nearly killed Mailliw, if not for Philico and by extension extensions.

Derrick is out of time.

Derrick is out of time.

Derrick may not wake up in time.

Derrick cannot trust. Derrick must trust.

Derrick cannot trust Roko. Can Derrick trust Marll at his eye's word? The second line, the arranged three? There are only two... and... trust...

Trust no one...

Derrick does not trust Iste Confessor. Derrick does not trust Sunny. Derrick does trust Fleur. Derrick does trust Illwei. Derrick can trust no one!

Derrick.

Derrick trusts Marll... but can Derrick afford to trust Marll... Derrick does not need much, but the price is high...

Blast it.

Derrick wants to wash his hands.

Can Derrick afford?

Can Derrick afford to not take a side.

Can Derrick afford to pay the price.

Can Derrick pay Aralis.

No, Derrick doesn't pay Aralis. Derrick was evicted three years ago. Derrick sleeps in ash and dust and blood.

And tears.

Derrick doesn't need much.

Can Derrick afford to wash his hands of this?

Derrick is afraid.

No. Derrick will be resolute.

Derrick will be.

U.

N.

I.

T.

E.

D.

Mailliw

Gears

Derrick is nervous.

Derrick must trust Marll. He is one of a kind. One of two kinds.

Marll should say as much, Derrick thinks.

Derrick doesn't know.

But Derrick must believe.

And Derrick believes in Marll.

Derrick would rather unbelieve in Iste Confessor than Roko.

But Derrick... Derrick must believe.

Must unbelieve in Roko.

And if Derrick is wrong...

Then.

I am... sorry.

And Derrick will be. Quite. Sorry.

Derrick hopes he can wake up.

Derrick would assume he won't.

Commence the gambit.

 

How long does he have?

How long does he have?

How long does he have?

How long does he have?

How long does he have?

Not long enough...

[STINK he/him]

What's the VC looking like 

[Stick. she/her]

I wouldn't trust a vote count provided by me but:

Mailliw (4): Matrim, Illwei, TJ, Gears

Gears (4): Araris, Stick, Maill, Ash

TJ(1): Fifth

The vote change by Ash is odd, can see Ash/Maill as e/e definitely 100% 

[STINK he/him]

See the thing is I'm no Alv that likes ties so guess I gotta go through two people's posts huh since they're pretty locked in by now

[Stick. she/her]

The Gods of Luck and Chance can be really unreliable at times

[Kasimir he/him]

28 minutes ago, STINK said:

See the thing is I'm no Alv that likes ties so guess I gotta go through two people's posts huh since they're pretty locked in by now

TBH 150k+ cases and counting just fell onto my desk and I've been told to Taln them all and produce results ASAP so this is just Reason 150k + 1 that the write-up won't be pre-written  

[STINK he/him]

Well fret no more all 3 or 4 of us awake at this moment for I have come to a decision

Gears

Obligatory one PM's me and the other has not, but apparently both are doing PMs with other people so smh what have I done

I kinda know what Mailliw has been doing when I think of him like I can recall most of his posts content and vibes and stuff whereas Gears is just ISOing? Like that's all I get really and yeah 

You know what this is a PM vote no cares

[|TJ| he/him]

5 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Very condensed lynch case: pushed lynch on Striker fairly firmly while leaving enough ambiguity in his posts to back off if necessary, and hedged a lot on Stick for no apparent reason C1. At the end of this sequence he votes on Books instead with little explanation. Casts aspersions on the Soothers, at least one of whom is village and the other I am currently reading as mild village, and then doubles down on the Gears suspicion through D2. Does rightfully point out suspicion on Tari / Condensation, and has an Ashbringer vote which I liked at the time, so D3 is the largest argument against him being evil. Defends Dannex, who I'm still of the opinion is lurking evil. Really delayed reply to him about TWS, by the way, that I just had an enormous null read on them because I tended to like their contributions when they did materialise. (This cycle with the Maill vote not so much.) Finally, today he has voted Maill, offering no explanation as to why when he hasn't seriously addressed him before at all, and when the alternative is now Gears, whom he has previously expressed suspicion for which we have no evidence to indicate has gone away. Initially I was reading him as village just for being an active analyst, but looking back his conclusions have been largely vague and/or helpful to the Elims, or at least against key villagers. 

Okay, a bit free now. First off, my first post with game related content was 2 hrs before D1 rollover and that post was my thoughts of the previous 13 pages (, mainly whatever caught my eyes post-by-post, so:

Quote

pushed lynch on Striker fairly firmly while leaving enough ambiguity in his posts to back off if necessary

this is not correct. I was firmly suspicious of Striker TILL he made that sudden jump of strong elim reading me for (I feel I'm repeating things -.-) LG67 Ventyl stuff in D2. Not sure where you got that ambiguity stuff. If there was any, it was only because I was making comments post-by-post and noticed some were villagery but overall I still read him as elim till that point.

Quote

hedged a lot on Stick for no apparent reason C1.

again, this is false? Stick was one of my village reads in the first cycle. "Hedged a lot" is definitely a wrong narrative here.

Quote

At the end of this sequence he votes on Books instead with little explanation.

...Did you selectively read my posts? -.- Everyone is disregarding my Books vote reason.

Quote

Yeah, I hadn't completed my full read of the thread remember? Had only finished 9 pages, so I didn't want to vote based on incomplete information. Came back with 30 mins left to rollover and tried to finish reading the thread and by the time I was done, 4 mins were left. I didn't know the vote count when I voted but I basically saw Mat saying it's 6-4 (looking back Mat said it was 6-4 before Ash had voted, but I didn't grasp that as I was skimming) and hence voted. I didn't see Devotary's vote because I started typing up my post before she voted and did not refresh in between. But I don't think I would have refrained from voting even if I knew it was 8 votes because I've always voted. 

.

Quote

Defends Dannex, who I'm still of the opinion is lurking evil.

I didn't defend Dannex, I stated he's getting eliminated often when he's not around recently, so that would have happened again. I have forgotten his posts entirely and will need to look at them again.

Quote

Really delayed reply to him about TWS, by the way, that I just had an enormous null read on them because I tended to like their contributions when they did materialise.

What contributions? Post #1 is a vote without reasoning on Striker, Post #2 is a BRB and Post #3 is a vote without reasoning on Maill. What did you like about them?

Quote

Finally, today he has voted Maill, offering no explanation as to why when he hasn't seriously addressed him before at all, and when the alternative is now Gears, whom he has previously expressed suspicion for which we have no evidence to indicate has gone away.

There was a clear move at the end of the last cycle to save Maill, imo. It was 5-2 at one point, I think? I really didn't see a reason to shift to Quinn, and it looks suspiciously as an attempt to save Maill. And his consistent argument to prop me up for elimination for voting last (again not taking why into context) doesn't help me change my opinion about him either. You argue that it was v/v in D2 too, but 9-5 is vastly different for 6-5. I still maintain my elim read on Gears so I'm confused by this cycle's proceedings. It could be a plot to create a tie so both of them aren't eliminated, but I'm not sure. e/e trains usually allows the other train to get village cred.

So, to be clear, your village reason on Maill is almost entirely on meta, along with you disliking others' reasoning on him, that's it?

[Gears]

Roko the Basilisk witnessed the result of its gamble and reconsidered its options. There was no way out. It was, for all intents and purposes, dead. This gamble had failed, had backfired dramatically, had resulted in knives drawn on it instead. It still wanted "Derrick"'s analysis of itself, but alas, that didn't seem to exist yet and it would not live to see its completion. Hopefully, 'Derrick' would successfully decipher the orb and that decision wasn't just another accumulation of poor decisions, but alas, it would not live to see it. The sun edged closer to the horizon, bringing the inevitable with it. It could not save itself. That much was impossible. As such, it was dead, be it now or in the future. Marll would also die soon. In a close 2-candidate vote, one candidate will die, and the other will be torn apart soon after, if the Slaughtered One was innocent.

It took its knife off of Marll's throat and smiled broadly, sitting back in its chair and sipping its drink. "I release you, Marll. I expect a touching eulogy tonight in honour of our delightful conversations." It looked towards the mob that approached it. "Take this as evidence that I will not be tampering with the vote on this day." It had received a commission in Luthadel hours ago, and perhaps now it could actually partake in it without annihilating continuity. While the flesh would die here, the mind would persist. This was not the end. This would never be the end.

It glanced towards 'Derrick', watching him contemplate. "Do not apologise," it whispered softly, perhaps too quietly for 'Derrick' to hear, though it could not be certain. "You have nothing to apologise for. You've done well. You've done so well." If 'Derrick' could be preserved, could be kept, then this would all be worth it. And perhaps in death, free from the cage of the flesh in favour of chains of light, it could comprehend the writing on the wall.

Roko drained its glass and pantomimed tipping a hat it did not have to the mob that it had spent so long trying to save. "May fortune follow in your footsteps," he said calmly. "I welcome the end."

---

While I could tie the vote, that would be pointless and strictly disadvantageous to us. As such, I am dead. Therefore, I act in a way to reassure the general populace that the vote will not be tied because ties are a bloodless thing, and no one wants that. We are all very bloodthirsty things. Sidenote: The saying "May fortune follow in your footsteps" does not quite mean what it seems to imply. I leave it to you to puzzle out, one final mystery for you. Those who know already, please don't reveal it to them. It's so much more fun when they are confused. Maia, I still don't suspect you. Truly a shame. I will be sporadically online from this point forward, so if a train miraculously summons itself to save me, don't expect me to see it until it's probably too late. Ret'urcye mhi.

[Stick. she/her]

uhhh

what's all this den

[Mat he/him]

Why is this happening

You all realize that I'm going to vote Maill until he's dead right

My reads are too dependent on his flip. We agreed to use his flip. I really don't understand this. Gears, you're not dead if you try to vote manip, there's another Soother somewhere that you don't know what they're gonna do. A tie wouldn't actually be that bad, honestly, so your lack of self pres is just confusing.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Matrim's Dice
I forgot ties don't kill anyone

[STINK he/him]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

You all realize that I'm going to vote Maill until he's dead right

My reads are too dependent on his flip. We agreed to use his flip.

When does a tunnel not have the emergency exit door

[Mat he/him]

Here's the other thing I don't understand- why is Gears a better option here? It's not like there's more reason to vote Gears over Maill; people have said that there's a disproportionate amount of pressure for Maill's actions and I could easily say the same for Gears. What, he's doing too much isoing? Or something? It just doesn't make sense. Maill gives us more info. It's the better option. Maill tells us things about the entire player list because of this history he's had in voting and being voted on. Gears tells us neither of those things.

Edit: But I realized something that makes me slightly more fine with Gears' death. So like. Do whatever guys, you know which one I prefer but I guess i do elim read both.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Matrim's Dice