Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Quintessential she/her]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

How paranoid does it make you if I say that I've literally been thinking this

I kinda thought it too, but I dismissed it because Tani's new... idk though. 

[Stick. she/her]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

How paranoid does it make you if I say that I've literally been thinking this

7

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I don't really wanna go all contribution crusade, though. IMO this is better, as long as it like doesn't get out of hand.

hm it'd be nice to hear more from @The Unknown Order and to hear at all from @Daisy 

[---]

8 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

The reason I took the vote off Books was because I didn't want to tunnel - I know that can get annoying

I think it was at an awkward time, and then along with that- well, I wouldn't call it tunneling at all yet, because D1 votes are initially meant for pressure and whatnot, and you kept your vote on them for a whole 30 seconds it felt like, which....felt useless.

8 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

if she were an elim I would expect more people coming in to defend her

Perhaps the elim team is doing the incredible strategy of "bus the Elim Smoker" that no one would ever suspect.

8 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

It just seems like a very village train-of-thought. I don't see an elim being so passively confident in their false village identity that they go ahead and read other players village purely for sharing a mind-meld moment.

I'd argue that this isn't really village indicative, at least for Quinn, who has watched how many times Matrim has ended up trusting me because we have the same reads. :P.

3 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I'm only ignoring it because it's a special case. It's not a read I can trust, and I know that  

I feel like for me it's less of me not trusting the read, and more of me knowing that I'll find them sooner or later as the game goes on :P.

2 hours ago, Quintessential said:

Also, would note that Matrim's "reads-list" feels odd to me. iirc Mat normally just does a list labeling everyone null or null village or mild elim or whatnot. What's with the "Tiers of whether I'd exe these people or not"? Feels hedgy to me 

This feels like unnecesary shade :P. Are people not allowed to change up their playstyle? :P. Where was your getting after me in LG73 for never really giving reads, when I did that before?

41 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

This is true. But like. We're all kinda voting on each other? XD if that makes sense. We early actives tend to form our opinions of other early actives before our opinions of anyone else... which is probably part of the problem : P I am genuinely more sus of Illwei than anyone else, for example, but ig you're right that that could be because she's talking a lot. idk...

It's kind of hard to get opinions on everyone else when the other people aren't talking as much, yes :P.

43 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Anyway Tani's votes are fascinating to say the least, but ngl I'm not receiving great vibes  

I guess I'm the odd one out here that thinks Tani would be receiving a little more coaching if she was an Elim in her fist game? Her votes are all over the place and careless and she doesn't have reasoning and she doesn't plan to :P.

Stick

If I have to start defending myself soon I'm going to be sad

EDIT:

@Gears What's your thoughts rn

Edited February 27, 2021 by Illwei

[Quintessential she/her]

6 minutes ago, Illwei said:

This feels like unnecesary shade :P. Are people not allowed to change up their playstyle? :P. Where was your getting after me in LG73 for never really giving reads, when I did that before?

...you give reads? D1? I've... I mean, I guess you do, but it certainly didn't stand out to me that you didn't in the LG? anyway, I still read Mat village I just... noticed the difference. Figured I'd say so :P. 

6 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I guess I'm the odd one out here that thinks Tani would be receiving a little more coaching if she was an Elim in her fist game? Her votes are all over the place and careless and she doesn't have reasoning and she doesn't plan to :P.

That's part of what I meant when I said I dismissed it because she's new, so no, you're not the odd one out. 

6 minutes ago, Illwei said:

Stick

Why? Come to think of it, why did you vote Stick in the first place... hmmm hold on I'm gonna go reread that post

Edit: you voted Stick for... not voting on Randby? Stick said they were going to vote on Randby and then realized Randby's new (well, sort of new--they've played a few games now I think?) and didn't vote after all. And you responded by voting for Stick.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Quintessential

[---]

3 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

I still read Mat village I just... noticed the difference

Quote "Unnecessary Shade."

3 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

That's part of what I meant when I said I dismissed it because she's new, so no, you're not the odd one out. 

I guess another thing I didn't add onto is that I don't find that villager-y just because she's new

3 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

...you give reads? D1?

So I have decided that Striker and Quinn (especially, who is reading me off of meta but can't remember my previous games) cannot read me and the only barely acceptable vote on me is from Mailliw :P.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Illwei

[Stick. she/her]

3 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I think it was at an awkward time, and then along with that- well, I wouldn't call it tunneling at all yet, because D1 votes are initially meant for pressure and whatnot, and you kept your vote on them for a whole 30 seconds it felt like, which....felt useless.

The vote was there long enough for Books to provide an actual read on Striker instead of not picking a side at all, which I'd say is a win  

6 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I'd argue that this isn't really village indicative, at least for Quinn, who has watched how many times Matrim has ended up trusting me because we have the same reads.

Ah, well, I don't really know her playstyle so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt 

8 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I guess I'm the odd one out here that thinks Tani would be receiving a little more coaching if she was an Elim in her fist game? Her votes are all over the place and careless and she doesn't have reasoning and she doesn't plan to :P.

Said coaching could've been 'vote on one of us for distancing, and then switch your vote to someone else' xD Which would point to Mat/Tani's interaction as elim-elim but I'm probably reaching xD

[Quintessential she/her]

Just now, Illwei said:

So I have decided that Striker and Quinn (especially, who is reading me off of meta but can't remember my previous games) cannot read me and the only barely acceptable vote on me is from Mailliw :P.

...even though Mailliw is voting you for literally the same reasons as me? Just, not looking at meta. We're voting you for the same post, and the same specific thing within that post, and I happen to have seen other things too but we definitely have at least one of the same reasons? Which should mean my vote is at least "barely acceptable" yeah?

Also who exactly was it who caught elim!you last game? I can definitely read you sometimes, though I've honestly no idea whether this is one of them.

[STINK he/him]

Man all the active people in this thread are people who've sent me like 1 PM and peaced out what'd I do

[---]

12 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Just, not looking at meta

oh look the magic words.

I'm not taking meta arguments from you when you don't remember what I do in games. You're trying to compare everything to the MR, and not thinking about my other games. you're taking this one point and starting to confbias everything from there, when the "there" isn't a valid point to begin with.

12 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Also who exactly was it who caught elim!you last game? I can definitely read you sometimes, though I've honestly no idea whether this is one of them.

Who was it that caught Elim!me? was it you? was it the 6 people who said they didn't think I was an Elim but chose not to vote?

On that, yeah. 1 game. If I had a nickel for how many times you got frustrated at people for trying to use your meta on you, when you've only had like, 4 games as either alignment? you've seen a total of one Elim game from me, and it's at the top of your mind, and you're struggling to try and match everything you find to that picture, when if you chose to look deeper you'd see there's not really anything there.

anyways I'm not going to argue with someone in a tunnel, because it's pointless.

Village reading Quinn a bit, also Tani and Danex I don't want killed today.

EDIT:

10 minutes ago, STINK said:

Man all the active people in this thread are people who've sent me like 1 PM and peaced out what'd I do

what am i chopped liver

Edited February 27, 2021 by Illwei

[Quintessential she/her]

3 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I'm not taking meta arguments from you when you don't remember what I do in games. You're trying to compare everything to the MR, and not thinking about my other games. you're taking this one point and starting to confbias everything from there, when the "there" isn't a valid point to begin with.

 not that this matters for this argument but it's not that I'd forgotten you didn't do reads in the LG when normally you do, it's just that I never noticed it in the first place, probably because I was a little busy trying to make sense of the Mat-Striker thing and then I died right after Mat did. 

As for forgetting what you do in other games... what specifically am I forgetting? Yes, in QF50 you did the vote-unvote thing, but they were purely joke-votes, whereas your vote-unvote in the MR and the one here are not, so it's... not really the same thing. 

[---]

1 minute ago, Quintessential said:

so it's... not really the same thing. 

just as what I did in this the same thing as what I did in MR48.

My vote on Quinn was a statement that apparently didn't make sense to anyone but me :P. Quinn was saying that these people had bad reasoning, and that's not a village thing to do. She also had bad reasoning herself. So she can't hold everyone to a double standard or whatever that's called. If your suspicious activities are things that you do as village then maybe they're not as Elim-Indicative as you think.

In the MR I was dead I felt, both because the village didn't get on and because half of my teammates didn't get on. So I tried some last hope attempt in directing it onto Ash because people had suspected him.
From a village!me perspective, I was voting ash to see what you would do, you having him in your top elim reads.

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

because I was a little busy trying to make sense of the Mat-Striker thing

Welcome to tunneling 101 with Illwei.
--
If people keep making me explain my actions it's going to turn into a sad day for the Illwei

[Stick. she/her]

illwei and quin definitely not elim-elim 

unless they're just incredible at distancing

you're welcome

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

So sorry for the walls of text y'all (except not at all)  

23 hours ago, 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.

23 hours ago, 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  

23 hours ago, 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.

23 hours ago, 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.

23 hours ago, 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.  

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 >>

23 hours ago, 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  

22 hours ago, 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.

22 hours ago, _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  

22 hours ago, 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 ). 

22 hours ago, 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  

22 hours ago, 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  

22 hours ago, 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  

22 hours ago, 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)

22 hours ago, 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 >>

21 hours ago, 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  

[---]

4 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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

Has nothing to do with the fact that they have the role, and more to do with someone deciding to claim that in thread: Why? Why claim Vanillager in thread? What would be the point other than to hide yourself from a seeker?
I'm not saying "let's kill all the vanillas!" at all- I'm saying that, as of right now, I don't see any village reason to claim that role.

[STINK he/him]

38 minutes ago, Illwei said:

what am i chopped liver

chopped liver is a delicacy in some areas

[---]

TJ Shade

[Elandera she/her]

Mm. Yes. That's copper. Mostly. It left the familiar tangy metal taste on my tongue. Only copper did that. Maybe steel, too. But this is definitely copper.

That's what that cranky mistie wanted, right? Should be. He was not happy with me. Impatient.

He'd get the copper and zinc. Brass, is what they call it.

Like they call me mad.

Good. This mistie will get what he wants. 

[Quintessential she/her]

51 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

unless they're just incredible at distancing

I mean, at this point if we ever do end up on the same team we'll probably have to do something like this... 

53 minutes ago, Illwei said:

just as what I did in this the same thing as what I did in MR48.

aHAH! So you admit it! jk jk lol ik what you mean.

53 minutes ago, Illwei said:

My vote on Quinn was a statement that apparently didn't make sense to anyone but me :P. Quinn was saying that these people had bad reasoning, and that's not a village thing to do. She also had bad reasoning herself. So she can't hold everyone to a double standard or whatever that's called. If your suspicious activities are things that you do as village then maybe they're not as Elim-Indicative as you think.

Er... yeah no that didn't make sense. Also I have already explained what I meant by that post! In response to you! You misinterpreted because you weren't looking at what Books said smh. Books stated that "an elim wouldn't put something that they know is fallacious or bad reasoning in a post." My response was meant to convey the singular idea that a villager wouldn't put something that they know is fallacious or badly reasoned in a post either. That's not... suspicious? That's just true? Basically my post was an argument with Books' wording more than their conclusion.

53 minutes ago, Illwei said:

In the MR I was dead I felt, both because the village didn't get on and because half of my teammates didn't get on. So I tried some last hope attempt in directing it onto Ash because people had suspected him.

Um. You posted the vote-switch back when the only people sus of you were Matrim and Liranil, and they were equally sus of each other and of me. Also Ash was your teammate? Like. I thought that was just distancing?

53 minutes ago, Illwei said:

From a village!me perspective, I was voting ash to see what you would do, you having him in your top elim reads.

Which would have come off as rly odd to me if you were village, because I was reading him as "null elim" and it was literally for being inactive, a thing which he'd said in blue text he would do, so I couldn't very well pursue it with a vote. idk why I'm even quoting this actually lol

38 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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.

Sure lol; Illwei PMd me saying that it was too bad I'd rolled elim again (4 of my 9 previous games were elim). That struck me as odd because it reminded me of some of the things that elim!Illwei had said in the MR--like, at one point I voted on Illwei and she was like "Quinn no stop bussing me" or something like that. Obviously that's not much to vote off of and I didn't intend to leave my vote there for long, but then I was rereading the thread and I noticed the other stuff that I mentioned in my reads list (have you gotten to that yet?) and decided I was happy with my vote on her after all.

Would also note that I did go back and reread Illwei's most recent village D1s, and her tone is generally much lighter as village? Typically her first post as a villager would be either a random vote with little to no reasoning (or an RNG vote), or a comment that she needs to reread the rules (though in this game I guess that wouldn't be something she'd say lol). This game, her first post was... not that. Which is in line with e!her in the MR, where she voted me early based on tone and participated in the discussion about roles distribution and such, much earlier and much more than she normally would (and don't try to tell me I was imagining that Illwei, because I know I wasn't--you even pointed out at the time that you were acting different than usual).

38 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

*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 >>

Nah this kind of thing is pretty normal : P tbh I really wish people wouldn't take D1 banter from me seriously because I've jokingly claimed elim as both an elim and a villager... I got sussed for like half of the MR for a single comment I made halfway through D1 that was meant as a joke but everyone took it seriously for some reason? idk, anyway...

20 minutes ago, Illwei said:

TJ Shade

Okay see this is what I usually expect from v!Illwei  but why?

Also, you never explained why you removed your vote from Stick, unless I'm blind and didn't see that.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Quintessential
Formatting : P

[---]

Just now, Quintessential said:

aHAH! So you admit it! jk jk lol ik what you mean.

a little Freudian slip from illwei there? :P.

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Er... yeah no that didn't make sense.

??

I interpreted book's comment as talking about how Elims are generally more aware of what they're typing. if they're casing someone who's village then they'd know that it's bad reasoning or whatnot. A villager wouldn't.

4 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Which would have come off as rly odd to me if you were village, because I was reading him as "null elim" and it was literally for being inactive, a thing which he'd said in blue text he would do, so I couldn't very well pursue it with a vote. idk why I'm even quoting this actually lol

Quinn you find everything I do odd. :P. Don't deny it :P.

11 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

(and don't try to tell me I was imagining that Illwei, because I know I wasn't--you even pointed out at the time that you were acting different than usual).

In the MR? yeah, I tried to hope that someone would ikyk it and let me be. Alas....

7 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

I got sussed for like half of the MR for a single comment I made halfway through D1 that was meant as a joke but everyone took it seriously for some reason?

Did everyone take it seriously or did Illwei try her hardest to exaggerate the comment to get Quinn killed :P.

[Stick. she/her]

41 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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

Agree

41 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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  

Way too long  Welcome back, Fifth!

24 minutes ago, Illwei said:

TJ Shade

Interesting xD Did they say something suspicious in PM?

10 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

I mean, at this point if we ever do end up on the same team we'll probably have to do something like this...

Oh dang you're not wrong IKYK :notlikethis:

12 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Also, you never explained why you removed your vote from Stick, unless I'm blind and didn't see that.

I don't think she did xD

[Quintessential she/her]

2 minutes ago, Illwei said:

Did everyone take it seriously or did Illwei try her hardest to exaggerate the comment to get Quinn killed :P.

Matrim and Reading both brought it up independently, without mentioning you. I was just gonna ignore it when you said it, but then both of them did and I was like "oh this is actually a thing huh?"

And why did you unvote Stick??? this is like the third time I'm asking? And you definitely responded to the other two posts in which I asked. Just not that specific thing.

[Experience he/him]

3 hours ago, Tani said:

I vote that we don’t vote today. We’re more likely to kill a Villager than we are to kill a Spiked.

 

3 hours ago, Tani said:

No info, no substance.

 

Actually, lets do this:

Matrim's Dice

Quintessential

This seems off... but it is your first game i think soooo. I dunno.

Also. I'm not so sure on quinn now. She's starting to inch closer to the null read line for me.

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

23 hours ago, 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.  

20 hours ago, 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 >>)

19 hours ago, 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.  

18 hours ago, 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  

18 hours ago, 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. 

17 hours ago, 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? 

16 hours ago, 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.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Fifth Scholar

[Quintessential she/her]

2 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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.  

Oh, no lol I take no offense to your not following them  like I said at some point later, they're reasons that are quite specific to me. I just figured I would put those reasons out there so everyone else can understand what they are--the intention wasn't to get others to vote with me.

5 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

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  

I think he got his wisdom teeth removed? Mentioned it in sign-ups or something. 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

On 2/16/2021 at 7:23 PM, Quintessential said:

I know why I die early a lot. Why me and Illwei and Mat, and to a lesser extent Ash and Gears and Connie, die early a lot. It's easy for the village to find something sus about people who talk a lot, and it's easy for the elims to find something threatening about people who talk a lot. Most of us, myself included, feel bad killing off inactives because it's possible they're inactive due to something irl, and it doesn't feel fair if they're not there to defend themselves or if they haven't really gotten to participate much--or at least, haven't really participated much, having had the opportunity or otherwise.

But the problem with that is it then kind of... punishes the players who are actually playing? And obviously it's not black and white, active and inactive. There's a scale. But the further up you are on the scale, the more often you die early (at least in my experience, as someone who's very far up on the scale). That's especially true for games where active players role village, because they basically have two options: they can appear so obviously village that everyone realizes they're village, in which case they're NKd in the first couple of cycles, or they can avoid appearing blatantly village, at which point the general population will begin to ask themselves why such an active player doesn't look super village yet. They've said plenty, right? There must be something there to indicate their alignment, right? So then they look, and usually they find something, and usually it's negative. 

So that kind of... it sometimes ruins the enjoyment of the game, for me? And I would guess for others as well. The people who are willing and able to dedicate the time to the game are also the ones that get kicked out of it earliest. And we all have in common that we really enjoy playing the game, and would like to play for longer and get to endgame more often, but it seems like the most reliable way to do that is to transition to, and then keep, a much less active playstyle. Which I'm not planning to do because that would also ruin my enjoyment of the game, all the time instead of just some of the time. 

How can you justify voting on any of the above players after posting this? There are several players who have posted, and are thus participating in the game, but who haven't said enough to draw attention to themselves. Reading and Danex come to mind, and there might be some others I'm thinking of. We can't justifiably complain about the state of the meta and then go take actions that reinforce the status quo. There is a difference between going full-blown Contribution Crusade and strategically keeping our more vocal players alive so that they can contribute analysis later in the game.