Mini 1558 - VisCon: Crossroads [Game Over]

[Majiffy]

Who the fuck is Aetis? At first I thought you meant Aegis but he's not in this game.

[FakeGod]

VoteCount 3.1

notscience [2] - Kalimar, Desperado
Desperado [1] - Majiffy

Not Voting [5]

- Brian Skies SXTLHGaiden pieguyn notscience borkjerfkin

With 8 alive it takes 5 to lynch

.

Deadline is April 15, 2014, at 11:00 AM PST.
Countdown to deadline: (expired on 2014-04-15 13:00:00)

[Desperado]

Who the fuck is Aetis? At first I thought you meant Aegis but he's not in this game.

Did you look at the links to the two previous games? Aetis is FakeGod's designated flavor for his investigative role. In Wingate he was a modified weak cop, in Desert Kingdom he was a parity cop, and this time he's a flavor cop.

[Majiffy]

Yeah I don't read things people post usually.

[notscience]

Back now.

Posting something substantial in half an hour or so.

[notscience]

okay.

So:

My role is a searching thing. It said if I find this person- think it started with a V or something, then something would happen. Knowing FG's setup's I've played, I'm expecting a neighborhood. I have nargles that I could also be a searching lover. I dunno.

I don't really get how Desp's claim is game-breaking, but I believe it. I also believe Majiffy's claim.

@Pie- how to read NS, part 1-

Is he lurking? (Yes, No)
Yes- Probably scum, but reach out and see if he responds first
No- He's town

Does he look like the role pm he has is like an STD to him? (Yes, No)
Yes- Scum
No- Town

There you go

[Kalimar]

I'm Jack. Neighbour with GiF.

:flavour interlude:

Initially, I lived in my hometown contemplating how my life would be as lived with my childhood romance.
Three years ago, a blast of energy created a dimensional rift, changing natural laws themselves. This is the scenario mentioned in the cult portion of the opening flavour post.

Aetel, who I love dearly (I assume this is my childhood romance -- although I suppose it could be a platonic love with a separate friend, I doubt that), fell through a portal in some city ruins we were looking around and subsequently disappeared. She is Aetis' sister and Aetis is termed as 'my friend'.

After failing to locate her, I returned home to find my house was destroyed, as if a large avian creature had raptured it with its talons. My nameless uncle who had brought me up in my youth had also disappeared at this point.

I journeyed around to find out more about this disastrous event, but failed to find many leads. However, rumours of witches, who are complete encapsulations of a single given quality, were a possible avenue of information. A given example is that the current Witch of Death participated as his own faction in a great war over a century ago. By himself he killed more people than any known other.

Whilst on my travels I met Beta. She was termed as a quirky girl who needed to get to 'this town' (presume current location/game setting), and since I was good at travelling I decided to go with her. It was rumoured the Witch of Truth had been seen near this town; this was the closest I'd been to the truth and that nothing would stand in the way of me getting my answers.

~

So, what does the above mean? I have a theory about Aetel but I would like everyone to have claimed first before discussing it. The Witch of Truth rumour turned out to be accurate, and it's heavily implying that if Witch of Death is in this game it's a self-aligned killing faction (i.e. SK). The way the house was destroyed, the portal and the missing uncle might mean something to someone else, or could just be expositional filler. Or, if I'm feeling charitable, enrichment of the fictional setting.

I wanted to talk flavour with GiF to see if it meant anything to him but he didn't seem interested. We didn't talk much, except he asked if I wanted to claim masons pregame. Having checked the flip format FakeGod uses, I declined, thinking it could be very harmful if GiF were scum. We shared some scum reads on n1 - the QT was only active at night - and that was about it.

[Brian Skies]

I'm a Knight with mental powers.

Are your powers referenced by a specific name?

Who the fuck is Aetis?

I'm Aetis and I'm neighbors with Desp.

I have the ability to check if somebody is a witch or not (something to do with Aetis having to deal with witches in his last two VisCon appearances). Night one I checked Notty and got a negative result. Last night I got a positive result on Who. I know he claimed ascetic or something like that, but the fact remains that I did get a positive result on him. So either he was gambiting/lying with his ascetic claim or my role has a way of bypassing it (I don't have any knowledge of my role having the latter so I'm leaning towards the former right now).

@Pie- how to read NS, part 1-

Is he lurking? (Yes, No)
Yes- Probably scum, but reach out and see if he responds first
No- He's town

Does he look like the role pm he has is like an STD to him? (Yes, No)
Yes- Scum
No- Town

There you go

Is this supposed to be a scum-claim?

I'm Jack.

Neighbour with GiF.

:flavour interlude:

Initially, I lived in my hometown contemplating how my life would be as lived with my childhood romance.

Three years ago, a blast of energy created a dimensional rift, changing natural laws themselves.

This is the scenario mentioned in the cult portion of the opening flavour post.

Aetel, who I love dearly (I assume this is my childhood romance -- although I suppose it could be a platonic love with a separate friend, I doubt that), fell through a portal in some city ruins we were looking around and subsequently disappeared. She is Aetis' sister and Aetis is termed as 'my friend'.

After failing to locate her, I returned home to find my house was destroyed, as if a large avian creature had raptured it with its talons. My nameless uncle who had brought me up in my youth had also disappeared at this point.

I journeyed around to find out more about this disastrous event, but failed to find many leads.

However, rumours of witches, who are complete encapsulations of a single given quality, were a possible avenue of information. A given example is that the current Witch of Death participated as his own faction in a great war over a century ago. By himself he killed more people than any known other.

Whilst on my travels I met Beta. She was termed as a quirky girl who needed to get to 'this town' (presume current location/game setting), and since I was good at travelling I decided to go with her. It was rumoured the Witch of Truth had been seen near this town; this was the closest I'd been to the truth and that nothing would stand in the way of me getting my answers.

~

So, what does the above mean? I have a theory about Aetel but I would like everyone to have claimed first before discussing it. The Witch of Truth rumour turned out to be accurate, and it's heavily implying that if Witch of Death is in this game it's a self-aligned killing faction (i.e. SK). The way the house was destroyed, the portal and the missing uncle might mean something to someone else, or could just be expositional filler. Or, if I'm feeling charitable, enrichment of the fictional setting.

I wanted to talk flavour with GiF to see if it meant anything to him but he didn't seem interested. We didn't talk much, except he asked if I wanted to claim masons pregame. Having checked the flip format FakeGod uses, I declined, thinking it could be very harmful if GiF were scum. We shared some scum reads on n1 - the QT was only active at night - and that was about it.

I bolded the flavor knowledge I share with you. My role PM mentions a childhood friend named Jack who was in love with my sister Aetel before she got zapped by a portal. But you disappeared after the incident looking for a way to find her again.
*I don't have confirmation of who Jack is, I just have flavor for him.

Lizen is my traveling buddy.

I also have really similar information regarding witches in my role PM, and I have my own thoughts about it but I want to wait for the end of the mass-claim as well.

[borkjerfkin]

Claim: Villager (VT)

I have no idea what to do with any of these non-VT claims (save Majiffy's: I'm convinced he's town and it explains the extra kill)
None of these so far confirms the claimant in any way, nor does it clear any person they've investigated.

In fact, Desp I am underwhelmed as fuck as to how this is allegedly 'breaking the game'. You don't appear to be claiming masons with Brian (he in fact clarified it to be neighbors) so how in the Christing fuck do either of you know the other to be town like you've both been asserting all game?

[Desperado]

The only way one of us is scum is if lizen or aetis was given to us as a fake claim. Considering he didnt even give us a fake claim at all in Wingate and the fakeclaims in kingdom were periphery cjaracters, I'm gonna go with no.

[pieguyn]

The only way one of us is scum is if lizen or aetis was given to us as a fake claim. Considering he didnt even give us a fake claim at all in Wingate and the fakeclaims in kingdom were periphery cjaracters, I'm gonna go with no.

are you absolutely sure about this

the last time I was in a game with a pair of ppl who were supposed to be "confirmed town" one of them was scum and they got out of a D1 wagon bc of it and we almost ended up losing. (AOT BROseidon/kthxbye) not to mention the "fakeclaim" was BRO's real role except it was a scum role

given the amount of nothing he's done all game and everyone else being strong town I literally can't believe this. the last thing I need is to fking lose this game bc we cleared someone incorrectly for no reason

[pieguyn]

also if there's actually an SK it has to be majiffy bc nothing else explains the extra kill

[pieguyn]

wait hold up

I just thought of smth but I wanna wait till MC finishes first

[Desperado]

are you absolutely sure about this

Yup. Brian confessed his role and flavor to me unprompted in pre-game and it matches my own. Add in the two roles' history in the series and I'm willing to bet the game on him being town.

[pieguyn]

are you actually confirmed to each other or is this just based on his play

I don't want another fucking AOT right now

[Desperado]

I just explained this.

[pieguyn]

yeah that's what I'm saying. I have literally never had any success at all scumhunting via the setup. it has done nothing but lead me down the wrong path every single time I tried it. the last time someone tried to "confirm" someone with logic like that THE PERSON WAS SCUM AND WE ALMOST LOST BECAUSE OF IT

I wanna know if it outright STATES in your role PM Brian is town (I assume it doesn't)

[Desperado]

It states that Aetis and I are traveling together. The same way it has stated that in the last two VisCon games. As in, if I quoted the role PMs that FakeGod released from the previous two games I would be concerned about getting modkilled.

So, once again: unless you think this is the game that FakeGod tells Lizen that she is traveling with Aetis but actually gives Aetis to the scum as a fakeclaim, Brian is town.

[Kalimar]

I'll admit that this game doesn't feel very broken. I just come away from it with mixed feelings. :/

Here are my thoughts on, well, everything. It's a bit of a superwall, but you'll probably like it anyway, because transparency. I don't feel very decided on things, but I think that a scumflip today is important and should lay things out far more clearly.

One thing's for sure: town does not have 6 (+?) power roles. Two flipped witches of unknown powers - energy could be redirector, motivator, rolestopper, or even roleblock immuniser? though he was said he was lynchproof, I'm not sure how serious that was. truth/lies screams alignment investigative but then why would Who claim to be alignment investigation immune? (and on that note, the Who kill is a pretty bizarre one, but I'm not sure how to interpret it.)
+
witch of perception, 1-shot sensor
medic
flavour cop
modified vig
(+ arguably my neighbour if you consider that a PR, plus notscience's whatever.)

I wish I knew what Who's role was most of all. The role looks investigative and so that means I think that one, but probably not both, of {pieguyn, BrianSkies} is scum, because maybe three investigative roles is overkill. That's nothing new, given pie's role claim, except it probably just shows pie was telling the truth regardless of alignment, given I really think bork's play has been strongly town oriented. I did have some slight worries about a pieguy-Brian team, but the odds of that have gone down a little, both with the claims and with pie's townreading me/bork. Still not certain - if Who's PR was alignment cop, that'd be strong enough to trump any other investigative... but we just don't know. Between pieguyn and Brian, I'm not at all sure - more on this later.

Other role spec: Scum medic makes a very nice hypothetical counter to SKvig, though probably nicer if there doesn't turn out to be a scum RB. Brian's negative result on notscience, if Brian's town, means notscience's either ascetic/'immune to that type of investigation' scum or scum have an RB. I'd wager we'll know after tonight the odds of a scumdoc or RB, if the game's still in play then. I don't know if there's a lot of other setup spec I can usefully do right now; symmetrically pie's the odd witch out in that he doesn't have a connection with another character - I'm connected to Beta, notscience is connected to Veris (somehow) and pie's just disconnected. If you like Rule of Three, pie's witchclaim would have increased odds of scum just by being so, given the others are conftown. Wouldn't lean on that as an isolated factor, though. You also kind of have to assume a neighbour somewhere is scum, though there's an awful lot of choice there so that's not observation of the century. :/

So, on the wagon... Majiffy's either vig or SK. But, not for lynching. Chances of groupscum very low; would require probably a two-man scumteam, since a three scumteam getting extra kills is kinda borked even if the rest of the power is true. And, that would make pie's role very unfair, unless Majiffy-pie scumteam; in that case pie'd have to be a roleblocker who'd RB'd Brian. Seems really unlikely. Majiffy SK vs. townvig isn't a call I can solidly make atm but I'd lean town; claiming actual vig does earn some townpoints, since I wouldn't ever claim vig as SK (see what happened to pie in Gundam when he did - admittedly in a smaller game it's more viable but...) but depending on the actual power balance here either's technically possible. Witch of Death flavour could be a red herring; it's used as an example of a witch but isn't necessarily contextualised within this current plot. (only other possibility is if Majiffy is groupscum trying to bait SK... but whatever, that resolves itself.)

Desp being town would pretty much make it notscience/Gaiden given the suppositions that there's exactly one scum off-wagon and Majiffy's not groupscum. This just feels a bit too easy, although I have quite a few problems with notscience at the moment. I need to spend some time to actually properly read Desp; I put him on the backburner because I thought his claim would be strong. It's not a bad claim, but it's not incontrovertible; if we're talking setup meta the Wingates were used as antagonists in one setup and protagonists in the next. Also, there'd be a nice mirror with the spy-in-cult opening flavour if a typical protagonist was a spy FOR the cult. Expectations are there to be violated, so yeah I don't think those claims are enough for me to write either of you off as obvtown. I'll say that if both or either of you'd (Desp + Brian) fakeclaimed, you'd planned your game around it from the offset, because there were hints from both of you fairly early. Which is a consideration. As well as Desp being very in-your-face with the claim, whereas Brian was more subtle with his hints, though I need to think about how alignment indicative that is. Right now I'm not at all sure if we have 2 town, 1 town 1 scum, or 2 scum there, and it's something I want to be sure about, or at least have a leaning. If they're both town, then pie-gaiden-NS gg? But then they'd have been double-bussing Gaiden last day phase which... kinda makes no sense at all? Or I'm wrong about bork and I'll never let go of this read Rose I'll never let go. (because borktown is about the only confident read I've had all game, so fuck that if I'm wrong.)

On the topic of notscience - notscience's claim was vague and fuzzy. Yesterday he used the justification that he needed his flavour before he could claim, but he hasn't really given us any flavour in his claim here. I'd actually like to know the flavour justification for him looking for 'V', the exact name of who he's searching for (which is probably going to end up being the obvious one, but let's hear it anyway) and his character name. And why the claim he gave was as patchy as it was. :/

So, anyway, notscience-Gaiden
Gaiden-Desp
Desp-notscience.
... if I can rule out one of these pairs, I'll actually be happy in lynching the common factor between the others. I don't have time now, but I'll probably go interaction reading later unless I get lazy.

So, the big theory that may be a wild goose chase. Either Aetel's a complete red herring or she's the girl at the start of the opening flavour post (me being the lover). That suggests she knew she was going to be whisked away (hence the knowing that 'I will always be yours' is false). I'd wondered if Aetel could have become the Witch of Truth, since the obvious buzzword in that little segment caught my eye, but Beta was just Beta, so why wouldn't Veris just be Veris? Anyway, if we ever see an Aetel scumflip, I'm virtually confirmed town because of that segment because it'll almost certainly be referring to my character and hers. It's possible she did just become Veris, though, after portalhopping to wherever. I just prefer the other theory. We don't know a lot about our 'Hanged' cohort - presumably we'll have a scum called 'The Hangman', plus maybe Aetel and then some unknown factor maybe. Oh, and if the groupscum faction somehow isn't actually called 'Hanged', then pieguy's scum, just for reference. Getting a groupscum flip today would help with a lot of these uncertainties.

The bottom line? Unless notscience seriously steps up, I'm happy lynching him. I still have no strong opinion on Gaiden; he's a metronomic null who ends in the slightly scummy pile more than the slight townie pile. Between pie and Brian, I don't know. Both have threads that would support their claim, pie fewer but he did crumb at the start of d2 and then followed it up. So, if one's fake, they did think about it somewhat. Ultimately, I just look over the posts and think pie's scum on a gut level (but meh, gut). There are some niggles in Brian's posting, though - lack of meaningful followup is a major one, the townread on Who felt too easy as well, and I feel like you could have taken him out of the game and very little would have changed... but I'll concede that applies to several people. I just find Brian very null, really. I need to think about it some more. If one of you could obvtown it up, that'd be great.

[Kalimar]

While I'm here, questions:

@notscience: What is your character name, who exactly are you looking for (answer's obvious but eh surprise me), what is your flavour justification for doing this?
Given you believe Desp/Majiffy claims, who's scum?
(and why are you still avoiding this game, it needs love.)

@Brian: Why'd you investigate the people you did, especially a guy you believed to be ascetic?

@Majiffy: Who'd you target and why?

@Gaiden: Who's scum & why?

[Kalimar]

Oh actually, Brian - would you mutually bet the game on Desperado being town?

[Brian Skies]

You don't appear to be claiming masons with Brian (he in fact clarified it to be neighbors) so how in the Christing fuck do either of you know the other to be town like you've both been asserting all game?

No one is confirmed to me in my role PM. And I don't remember ever saying I knew Desp was town. I've been town-reading Desp thus far, and it's mostly attributed to his play looking a lot closer to his town game than his scum game to me (which I explained earlier). The flavor just helps assert my read on him.

the last time I was in a game with a pair of ppl who were supposed to be "confirmed town" one of them was scum and they got out of a D1 wagon bc of it and we almost ended up losing. (AOT BROseidon/kthxbye) not to mention the "fakeclaim" was BRO's real role except it was a scum role

Except that was a game where the mod strictly told you the flavor wasn't alignment indicative (I even told you so) and you guys let him string you along anyways.

Either Aetel's a complete red herring or she's the girl at the start of the opening flavour post (me being the lover).

Aetel might not even be in this game. In Desert Kingdom, my character was son to the king, and the king was briefly mentioned in my flavor that game. But the king was fake-claimed by the scum-team. The same thing could be here in this game in that Aetel is only mentioned as a character in the flavor.

I do know that Jack is supposed to be in this game, though, because my flavor indicates that Jack was in town.

@Brian: Why'd you investigate the people you did, especially a guy you believed to be ascetic?

Desp and I had a brief discussion of our reads in each of the night phases. On Night 1, two people I wanted to look at the most were Notty and Who. Who didn't have much of a presence in the game as a whole and I wanted him sorted in some way. Notty started off decently well but kind of dropped off as the day went on. I don't have any reason for why I chose one over the other. I just chose one and went with it.

On Night 2, Who still didn't have much of a presence up to that point and I felt he was still worth a check. After seeing GiF flip a town witch the night before, I started to get a feeling that my role was put into the game as misdirection (similar to the four town roleblockers v. an unroleblockable scum-team in Desert Kingdom). I know Who was hinting at his role being ascetic but I wanted to confirm to see if it was a scum gambit or not.

Oh actually, Brian - would you mutually bet the game on Desperado being town?

I've been betting on him being town since I claimed to him. My role flavor was hinting at my neighbor being Lizen, and Lizen has a history of being a town doctor in VisCon games. I haven't seen anything that indicates Desp-scum thus far.

[borkjerfkin]

It states that Aetis and I are traveling together. The same way it has stated that in the last two VisCon games. As in, if I quoted the role PMs that FakeGod released from the previous two games I would be concerned about getting modkilled.

So, once again: unless you think this is the game that FakeGod tells Lizen that she is traveling with Aetis but actually gives Aetis to the scum as a fakeclaim, Brian is town.

This is unwarranted assumptions out the ass. If FakeGod wanted you two to be confirmed town he'd have made you masons.
I see zero reason to think 'hey these are characters that I've seen before in exactly two other games, confirmed town end of discussion' and not even attempt to question that.
There may or may not be fakeclaims involved. I admit that I am entirely uninvested with the flavor in this game because

it really shouldn't matter.

Like this is even weaker than role/balance spec. It's nothing but flavor spec, and it's really some of the weakest flavor spec I've ever seen.

I would not even be remotely surprised to find 1 scum between (Desp, Brian) despite how this game has been supposedly 'broken'.
Both of their play has been lacking to me this game.
Brian's reasons for townreading Desp, which I believe can be distilled down to 'really vague meta' don't jive with the level of confidence he's displaying in the read.
Desp's play has been...obtuse is the best word? I like displays of paranoia (even on me) but the reasons he gave for it (opposing massclaim) were really bad, this massclaim thing hasn't even approached 'breaking the game' and I'm actually feeling a little better about Gaiden lately, which is pointing to others on the neil wagon.

The only thing that's really giving me pause here is that 2 scum neighbors don't really work for me which is making me want to say they aren't a team, even if I'm scumreading them independently.

[SXTLHGaiden]

Majiffy, why am i not dead?

[Majiffy]

I'm a Knight with mental powers.

Are your powers referenced by a specific name?

Visualization or something like that.

/too lazy to check

@Majiffy: Who'd you target and why?

Fitz/Baitslot

I think it's pretty obvious why.

Majiffy, why am i not dead?

Because you haven't been nightkilled or lynched.

---

I'm pretty underwhelmed by Brian this game; he struck me as a much stronger player than this in the game that I was scum and buddied the fuck out of him. Can't remember which game that was.

Desperado still seems like a scumbutt, but I do agree with you bork; it's unlikely they're both scum. Unless they've got bigger balls than me.

I really don't think this setup is as breakable as Desp initially led us to believe.