NotW XLI: Chronomancy Redux [Game Thread]

[TheForestAuro]

Backwards Logic, the game literally ended because of the Chronomancers' incompetence. The GM himself said so, it's how it went in the writeup, what was said in the dead QT as you can see.

There's a difference between "the chronomancers" and one man. I designed the game to be finished with if the Chronomancers were killed and I stand by that design point. There are ways to get past the storm, such as killing Save_Ferris, or having Backwards Logic's PG skip past the storm. I sent a message to Aiolos more than a week ago and I allowed him to be puppeted by his teammates in order to further facilitate everyone's continued enjoyment of the game, but when it was him alone I had three decisions 1) to assume he sent in a command that would benefit his team without any input whatsoever, 2) to assume he didn't send in a command and kill him and everyone else without a WOG, or 3) WoG him and call him out for his inactivity, and the proceed with action 2.

Despite everything BL just said to you, Earthling, you just shrugged it off and kept your little air of superiority. I'm very certain that I agree with his points and I'm very certain that you need to step back and quit being such an %#$hole for once.

Excusing my french, of course.

 

[Mergle]

My favorite lynch of the game was when Mergle completely figured everything out and got lynched for it, turned up innocent, and then was promptly ignored.

This. C'mon guys, this was a total town failure.

 

[Earthling]

This. C'mon guys, this was a total town failure.

Well, not some townies. Renata was spot-on with her worries about the storm and the demons and an active townie, her posts all seem good too.

Spoiler :

Now I've got a troubling observation about the nightkills that unfortunately we probably cannot confirm, not knowing what the Chronomancers are up to, but speculation by the late Mergle or others might have some truth to it.

The demons must really, really, really, want the Chronomancers dead and they are acting like it too. This isn't unexpected, but we should take advantage of what we can - namely that there are fewer dead Innocents than we might have feared and we don't need to wait for more people to die to puzzle things out. Especially if we could run out of time or run into trouble when something happens between the two groups.

As for the kills, isolated incidents are understandable, but the demons have both killed people that were widely suspected by other townies and the one time got a Chronomancer on their own as far as I know. The Earth Mage who was openly anti-demon I can see being targeted, but otherwise why would they attack people already suspect by enough of the town and leave obvious townies untouched - except that they are really trying to target and kill the Chronomancers. If this keeps up and maybe even if not I think focusing on catching the demons is perhaps a better priority for us and we have perhaps a narrower list of candidates.

As for a vig-kill today, it's a clear chance to take out another demon. Not worth the shot at killing demons to you?

There are far too many absent people (lurkers and inactives) to not give that a shot even without other leads.

I don't see that it's been really addressed why we shouldn't use the chance to catch a demon, unless you have a different theory or see downsides to the next time skip which you didn't share.

If you guys remember that Takhisis, Roman, and Harkonnen were not town and their numerous anti-Chronomancer comments were all biased (they frequently accused townies like me of being too pro-Chronomancer!) you'll see the town overall really did a decent of trying to focus on and take out the demon threat in the time we had.

 

[Takhisis]

Very funny, Mr. Winston.

Earthling, go sit on a tack. We were townie (ish, the only catch was that we had to kill al 'Evil' players and the Chronomancers who were out to kill us), and everyone seems to agree that we played the game rather well. If you expect to try to run the show and make the entire town reveal their roles without even trying to give proof of your 'Innocence' and when called out on it you say it's 'nonsense', the ones being insulted are the rest of the players. Please stop abusing every single body else whenever you lose, it would be excusable in a five-year-old but not in you. to cap it off you keep repeating it and repeating it and repeating it as if insulting people over and over and screaming 'notmyfaultnananaIcanthearyou' continuously is gonna make it come true. You're even worse than Nyan Cat, and that's saying something.
Nobody agrees with you, nobody can stand you, just shut up already.
JUST STOP POSTING, PERIOD.

@sensible people: sorry we sometimes went Holy Righteous, but we had to kill all the Evil players unless Hark completed his goal of peronsally slaughtering all kills. Which is why once or twice we had our kill coincide with the lynch, we'd all have won faster. We totally were for the town. It'd have been too much if all we had to do was slaughter the Chronomancers and Demons (the latter first, but the Chronomancers were still enemy and there was no denying that). Seriously, the town could have won either with us or with the Chronomancers. Both factions had no option but to win with the town, and it was fine, and it wasn't very unbalancing. Imagine if the Chronomancers and Paladins could have won with each other. Poor Demons…

@Mergle: actually blame it on someone who kept discussing nuances and generally insulting everyone for your post to be discovered. There were pages on the thread where as much as half the visual space was occupied by Earthling textwalling and quoting anything within sight and also insisting that we all reveal our roles so the Demons knew in which order to slaughter us. Mistakes do happen anyway, but to us Paladins anyone who reeked of Chronomancy had to go ,sooner or later, but they had to go, and we did have a sort of insta-win scenario within sight that would have meant victory for the town as well. We played as well as we could.

 

[Mergle]

Oh, I think the paladins did well. It was a tricky line to walk, as if you killed off the demons first, town+chronos would win.

Only a game, folks!

 

[choxorn]

BL, I'd have to agree with you on the "The Town hated the Chronomancers for no reason" part, but to be fair to Roman, Takhisis, and Harkonnen, all of whom you quoted, they couldn't win without killing all the Chronomancers.

BTW, TFA, I can't find the Seer's role PM in the posts with the role PM's.

Considering that I was an evil wizard who was neither demonologist nor chronomancer, yet I died early, I wasn't exactly invested in this game. It is a shame though that all the wizards were sought out and destroyed by both town and demons - it rather destroyed any subtlety within the factions.

If you want to blame someone for the Demons killing all the wizards, blame me and my PG to scan or kill them all. Plus, we had to kill 4 people who couldn't be non-wizards.

Backwards Logic, the game literally ended because of the Chronomancers' incompetence. The GM himself said so, it's how it went in the writeup, what was said in the dead QT as you can see.

The Chronomancers played as good of a game as they could with what they had. Well, maybe not Aiolos, but don't tell me they weren't playing a good game.

Aiolos couldn't give a competent effort towards the game so it was just declared done with and everyone subsequently killed off. What else was the reason - to callously wipe out players from multiple other factions who were still trying for an interesting game? - or the lurking Save_Ferris who was hardly participating and had his team deciding his orders deserved immediate victory?

Earthling, do us all a favor and shut the flower up, and stop trying to blame this on the Chronos or the GM. Ferris was lurking, but he wasn't completely inactive at the end. The only two kill orders that he missed when Winston killed someone for him were the ones on Backwards and Red Spy (and, technically Autolycus, because Winston said to kill Auto if Ferris didn't show up, Ferris did show up- and decided to kill the already-dead Red Spy) If he actually had been Aiolos-inactive (and Aiolos is missing from other games, not just this one), TFA probably would have just wogged them both
and awarded victory to the Paladins.

Again, you can't plan for inactivity when designing games, and you certainly can't plan for high inactivity from the last remaining members of two different mafia teams.

If there's a need to make constructive criticism out of that, all that can be said is well, don't make an instant game-over condition trigger off of something that the nobody else can prevent. How was the town supposed to force him to be active and not be WoG'd? It was a good game and shaping up greatly, it's all right that it's over now and sure TFA did a good job hosting regardless of rough spots and should be thanked for the game, but the ending was still a disappointment.

Oh, you think our VC was that easy, do you? You underestimate the number of ways we could be totally screwed over. For example, just as Backwards complained in the dead QT that the fact that his role was revealed in thread in the end lead to us killing him, the same was true of me and Winston. You remember that comment you made on day 1 about one of the Svartalfar Elves obviously being a demon (wrong- two of them were) because they were mentioned as elves, do you? And did you read the Paladin thread? The specifically decided to kill me because I was a Svart, and planned on doing the same to Winston. And then there's Auto's ability and Jarrema's Item Scan, just off the top of my head. Look at how close we came to losing, for crying out loud!

I will say I could be less annoyed at Takhisis and the response to his stuff didn't have to go with postgame commentary, but Takhisis spent the entire time, in public and in private, insulting me and civplayah for no other reason than that Takhisis wasn't town. Attacks on civplayah for the claim he didn't like how he posts in other games, constant tirades on his QT, he gave the impression he cared more about insulting townies than going for his victory conditions or playing the game. It is something I guess we can discuss more in private if necessary rather than continue here.

I like how you never fail to percieve other people insulting you when they're not, but always fail to percieve yourself insulting other people when you are.

 

[Earthling]

choxorn, I wasn't complaining that the demon victory was too easy in strict game design. It was just the unexpected WoG that nobody had any way to do anything about that was most upsetting. I'll point out that the idea there weren't alternatives isn't quite right, because I thought of at least one long ago even besides having more replacements which isn't fully achievable by the GM alone - Aiolos could have rewound the game one day anyway before getting WoG'd and given everyone another shot at a lynch, for instance.

You remember that comment you made on day 1 about one of the Svartalfar Elves obviously being a demon

Yes, but you and others are mistaken that it was just a random accusation and a lucky guess. It was purposeful roleplaying like I usually do very well, because I was a vampire and I didn't want racial scanners after me if there were any, and at the same time knowing stuff could be up with people's races the recommendation to double check is valid enough.

 

[BSmith1068]

I actually thought it was an interesting set up to have two rival factions that could both win with the town, but had to eliminate each other.

 

[Renata]

I was so freaking willing to work with the Chronomancers; I'd have kept the secret single-handed if any of you had revealed to me. I was all but forced to conclude you were anti-town when, given so many opportunities, all I heard were crickets. Both BSmith and General Olaf were lynched. They weren't killed at night, and they weren't killed by Harkonnen. Neither admitted who they were (granted for GO given the situation with Aiolos it would have been too late; presumably the demons would have taken him out. I'm amazed they didn't kill him earlier). Neither made any clear statement of goals or enemies or anything, only vague platitudes. From my perspective by the end we had one clearly anti-town faction (demons), one probable anti-town faction (chronomancers), and one potential anti-town faction (paladins) -- it was a question of trying to play them against each other and hope for the best. It didn't work out. But for the chronomancers the only thing that kept them as "probable" and not "potential" anti-town in my eyes was NOT the setup -- the setup was in your favor. It was your own actions, Bsmith's in particular, in failing to claim.

That's all; I'm really frustrated.

 

[Renata]

Earthling that was uncalled for. Criticism should be constructive.

After you died BL I brought up the possibility that chronomancers weren't anti town, but we never really acted on that idea.

But we did. I all but begged for one of them to claim in a public post. Argh.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Victorah!

 

[Optical]

I was thinking of roleclaiming when people started accusing me. If TFA had gone through with his option 1 it would have worked too - nobody had any idea Aiolos was a chronomancer! Maybe I'd have been lynched or nightkilled, but the town would have had some idea.

Despite the fact that I ended up all on my lonesome, I thoroughly enjoyed the game and think TFA did a superb job of GMing.

 

[GamezRule]

I miss Aiolos. He seems to have disappeared from the forum.

 

[Optical]

Yeah. Wonder where he's gone? What's happened to him?

 

[Optical]

Also:

Chronomancers who were out to kill us

not true. We weren't even given explicitly the fact you guys existed... it was there in the PM, but not really obvious (at least unless I missed something). Not to mention, we didn't even have a nightkill.

 

[BSmith1068]

Technically BL could night kill but it wasn't guaranteed.

Renata - looking back it is easy to say that I should have revealed, but it was still quite early in the game and when it was obvious that I was not going to escape the lynch I was offline.

As Olaf mentioned we weren't even aware of the third faction at that time and the town at that point had been clearly anti-chrono, so a public reveal was super risky but with little visible benefit.

If you look at our QT you will see that I advocated approaching Winston of all people to try to get the word out through back channels. Thankfully BL talked me out of that as it would have been a disaster.

Unfortunately I was lynched pretty early and wasn't able to develop that idea further.

 

[Takhisis]

I was so freaking willing to work with the Chronomancers; I'd have kept the secret single-handed if any of you had revealed to me. I was all but forced to conclude you were anti-town when, given so many opportunities, all I heard were crickets. Both BSmith and General Olaf were lynched. They weren't killed at night, and they weren't killed by Harkonnen. Neither admitted who they were (granted for GO given the situation with Aiolos it would have been too late; presumably the demons would have taken him out. I'm amazed they didn't kill him earlier). Neither made any clear statement of goals or enemies or anything, only vague platitudes. From my perspective by the end we had one clearly anti-town faction (demons), one probable anti-town faction (chronomancers), and one potential anti-town faction (paladins) -- it was a question of trying to play them against each other and hope for the best. It didn't work out. But for the chronomancers the only thing that kept them as "probable" and not "potential" anti-town in my eyes was NOT the setup -- the setup was in your favor. It was your own actions, Bsmith's in particular, in failing to claim.

That's all; I'm really frustrated.

Oh, stop feeling frustrated for that. You could feel frustrated about the fact that HarkonnenII convinced you to talk me into doing things which we'd already planned… it was actually fun to wait around and see you pressure

not true. We weren't even given explicitly the fact you guys existed... it was there in the PM, but not really obvious (at least unless I missed something). Not to mention, we didn't even have a nightkill.

Heh-heh. We did our best to hide and let the Knight be our visible face and we weren't outed until Romanichine was killed. But once we were outed, as we were bound to be, we'd be antagonised by you lot sooner or later.

 

[Optical]

By that time, of course, I was the only active Chronomancer left, I was doing an awful job at it... and outnumbered by you Paladins. Anti-Chrono sentiment was enough that I couldn't do much at that point

 

[Renata]

I want to say I don't think at all that the Chronomancers did badly per se (and the Paladins did great) -- I'm not sure their dilemma was even entirely soluble minus taking a wild leap of trust with someone or other. (B/c even if Bsmith had revealed, what about keeping the rest out of pressure?) Just from my perspective I'm not sure how I was supposed to conclude what was supposed to be so obvious a 4-year-old could see it; and it's really really frustrating. Too much townie fail lately, that I've been a part of.

It was a great game setup, TFA, thank you.

Takhisis, what WAS it with you and Romanic both pressing me for a role reveal over and over and over? Any point to that, or just for the lulz?

 

[Takhisis]

By that time, of course, I was the only active Chronomancer left, I was doing an awful job at it... and outnumbered by you Paladins. Anti-Chrono sentiment was enough that I couldn't do much at that point

Actually we expected to be outed much earlier than we were, I expected people to suspect someone who started skewering people with a sword and went slightly berserk

I want to say I don't think at all that the Chronomancers did badly per se (and the Paladins did great) -- I'm not sure their dilemma was even entirely soluble minus taking a wild leap of trust with someone or other. (B/c even if Bsmith had revealed, what about keeping the rest out of pressure?) Just from my perspective I'm not sure how I was supposed to conclude what was supposed to be so obvious a 4-year-old could see it; and it's really really frustrating. Too much townie fail lately, that I've been a part of.

It was a great game setup, TFA, thank you.

Hey, you didn't have much to do with the townie fail except perhaps the Mergle one. Yes, the ending was anticlimactic but that's largely due to it being a WoG. if Hark had vigged Aiolos we'd be doing a humungous facepalm…

Takhisis, what WAS it with you and Romanic both pressing me for a role reveal over and over and over? Any point to that, or just for the lulz?

We've known for weeks that you were a tracker, but it was funny to play games with you. At least on my behalf, I'm not quite sure about Romanichine.