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Post by Peter Pettigrew on May 5, 2022 0:33:42 GMT 10
Congratulations on surviving the first Vote! By now you're surely into the swing of things, and yet we only one round left before the weekend! ![:ha](http://storage.proboards.com/7158043/images/VOvCOHdjdczxDlacdwiV.png) But don't let us make presumptions, tell us how you're really feeling! 1. How did the Travers vote come about? Would he have been Cancelled if there hadn't been a DNS in the Challenge results? 2. Describe the Side dynamics for us. What do you think your place is within Malfoy Manor, and are you comfortable with that? 3. What plans do you have for this coming round? Are you also planning further ahead, or is it still too early for that? 4. Has there been any discussion of Hidden Immunity Items? How does the possibility that they are in play affect your Game? 5. Are you surprised that we're yet to see anyone saved by a Switch Charm? Do you think it's likely one will be cast this round?
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Post by Corban Yaxley on May 5, 2022 4:35:03 GMT 10
Thanks Peter. I'm really looking forward to the weekend, hopefully just gonna relax and play some boardgames with my wife Saturday. Sunday will be back to work, but it'll be a very different (and more relaxed) project. I've been trying to write something decent in here for the hosts most of the morning but between work and all of the puzzles put in front of me here it's been difficult, so today might be shorter than usual. (This wound up being a lie)
I think Pyrites might have died instead? It's hard to know. The fact someone voted Lucius is really weird. I don't know why someone would do that? Travers self-voted, so it was one of the seven of us. This should have been the first thing I puzzled out this morning but I've been too frazzled to really consider the implications until now. Who voted for him and why? I think the entire game knew Travers was going to die here, himself included, sadly. So it's not like this was a vote to actually kill Lucius. An attempt at breaking up any current alliances? It'd rely on Lucius suddenly losing faith in one of his own. Why would he do that? Maybe another faction had planned on voting Lucius out before Travers DNF'd, and someone wasn't online to handle the vote swap? No, that's not the case; the only folks who weren't present were me and Travers. Is it possible someone was trying to use my pre-vote to cause some problems between Lucius and I?
It would have been one of Barty, Igor, Rod, Regulus, HK, or Pyrites. Quickly going through the list of suspects...
Barty: I seriously don't see why he'd do this? Maybe I'm wildly misreading this but Barty seems very straightforward and honest, at least with me. The three of us seem to be tight. So no, I don't think he did this.
Igor: Hmmmmm believable? Except if that's the case, why is he pushing an Igor/Lucius/Barty/Yaxley/HK line of thought? He is trying to tell me that he thinks the vote was one of Pyrites, Black or Rodolphus. Perhaps a stray vote was the groundwork for giving some of us justification for splitting away from each other? That's be clever. Barty's convinced he didn't do it though.
Rodolphus: Unless he's playing a wildly different game then how he's acting, I don't believe he'd do this just on grounds of it it not matching his personality. He's part of the sacred 5 too, but it's not like that group is all that solid right now, we've had no discussions as a team of what we want. So it might have been a play to shift an imagined hierarchy? I dunno, just doesn't seem all that likely.
Regulus: I don't really know. Of the 'sacred 5' I'm least comfortable with him right now but that also might just be a function of our schedules not lining up well. I guess it doesn't feel like he'd be proactive enough to do this though? But I really just don't know.
HK: This guy's a definite believable option, he generally seems more eager & proactive then the rest. He also knew I was going to pre-vote and then likely not come back in time for the fireworks. Except, he wants to work with us already, so driving a wedge in shouldn't do anything useful for him.
Pyrites: The most believable option. He made a group of 6 we then ignored for a large chunk of time, so it doesn't take a genius to figure out there's probably a subset of those folks working together. If he did and he knew Travers was dying, perhaps he felt he could use a stray vote to figure out how his initial evil court broke down. I'm so low-key convinced it's him that I kind of want to see if I can trick him into admitting it, but that'd be one hell of an overplay and he'll die soon anyways.
Hmm. So probably Pyrites? With outside odds on HK or Igor. Barty wouldn't and gains nothing for it. HK and Igor both could have done it to try to make sure things shake up enough to get more safety, but in that case why Lucius specifically? Were they hopeful he'd overplay, because the rest of us seem content to drift along? Rodolphus and Regulus are just too hard to read one way or another, but I don't think they're proactive enough to stir the pot this early. Pyrites not only benefits the most, but he also knows I generally need to pre-vote. He's probably very aware of the fact his own group has multiple sub-groups of varying loyalties.
Also, I feel it's intellectually dishonest to not mention this bit of evidence, even if I feel bad about it. If the mystery voter was relying on my pre-vote being the smoking gun to cause a split, they would have needed to change their vote when I fucked up and told a group I was swapping. So unless Reg or Rod are just kind of dumb (or didn't think about things enough), they would have swapped to Travers as soon as I fucked up and accidentally posted that.
I feel like my detective work on figuring out that stray vote might give enough of an overview about how I see the dynamics, but just to quickly run through my thoughts on the whole? The Sacred 5, composed by Lucius, is in a really weird spot. He asked us individually if we wanted to work together and we all said yes because why not? But we never actually talked to each other much about it, so the group isn't actually coming together all that well. It's clear that group chains are a very hard tightrope to walk; making one that doesn't take off is an additional bit of information for everyone in the group where some other fault lines might exist. But getting a good one going can be a huge boon, as seen with the Lucius/Barty/Yaxley trio chain.
As far as I know, here are the groupings on this side of the fence I'm 100% aware of.
Evil Court: Everyone but Igor and HK. Basically dead to everyone? But I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than one splinter group in this set. Sacred 5: Evil Court minus Pyrites. Seems a bit wobbly. Sharing idol clues is a good but not great start, especially given Lucius got one out of Pyrites before Reg and Rod. Hmm. Idol Clue Trio: Barty/Lucius/Yaxley. My priority right now is keeping how tight this trio is a relative secret. I guess we'll see how that goes but I'm predicting not well. Other 5: Idol Clue Trio + Igor & HK. Hasn't formally made a chat yet, but I expect that to happen any minute.
Theoretical groups I suspect exist:
Black/Rodolphus (maybe Pyrites and/or Lucius)? I think the other chunk of the Sacred 5 must be working together decently closely; they seem similar in tone and style and are frequently on around the same time. A pair is a pretty small set to work with in this format though, I'd expect them to have one more. If Pyrites, then it winds up being 3-3-2 next vote with Igor and HK in swing positions. Awkward. Igor/HK: They say similar things consistently. Either they think similarly, or are working together.
So right now I think Pyrites is next unless Black & Rodolphus are working with him, in which case they just need to persuade either HK/Igor or Barty/Lucius for a majority. Barty and Lucius both like Pyrites so it's not impossible, and I don't think I can reasonably vote against them at this point. If it's not Pyrites, I'm betting Igor or HK? I don't think the sacred 5 will break for a while yet.
So my plan would be to kill Pyrites if given free reign. I expect I'll be at the mercy of the larger group though, and I'm fine with that. I don't think I'm in any danger? I had a moment of fleeting paranoia last night, but that's passed, at least for now. As for planning further ahead... I mean, I suspect we'll have a swap soon-ish? So it feels premature to get a boot order written. My biggest plan for 'further ahead' is to maintain solid relationships with the folks I can here or there. I do think if I can get ahead of a swap, I'll propose if one of us winds up too far away from the rest the larger group hits the 'voting' partner to trigger a Switch. Just need to figure out how to best communicate that and to whom.
I guess I can think about the dynamics in Grimmauld Place on this question. Still not getting a letter sucked.
So it seems like Fleur/Lily/Diggle/Wood might be a set? I know for sure Diggle's highest priority is Fleur, and Fleur and Lily seem like a solid pair based on sending letters to each other's partners. Hard to know if Wood really fits in there or if that's been forced in after Lucius and I sent our pair off to Diggle and Wood. I find it really weird Digg sent a letter of pure nonsense to Rodolphus.
If there's other info about the other side I don't know what it is, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. I have so little information to go off here that I can't speculate meaningfully.
Lots of discussion about how to find them, but I think no one believes one's actually out there yet. I think it's likely to stay that way, at least for now. As soon as someone asks the question about a target having an idol, I think it's safe to say someone has one. But until then I'll not worry about it too much.
I am not. I mean, we're 3/3 on folks who left willingly and probably didn't even do a Switch/Flick choice on the round they left.
As for this round, I'd be surprised. Still feel like it's hard to know who would want to do a swap to a team that they don't really know, and if someone is brave enough to hop over after just a couple of owls I applaud their courage.
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Post by Corban Yaxley on May 5, 2022 5:59:35 GMT 10
Just noticed I've misspelled my own name in every letter I've sent. So that's fun. Not only am I intentionally acting dumb, I actually am just dumb.
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Post by Corban Yaxley on May 5, 2022 11:10:39 GMT 10
God I'm so tired right now but I still have work to do and therefor time while waiting to see if my code finally works so I guess I'm confessing while everyone else is floating around messaging each other or just existing on the board.
Legit don't know if I try to bid higher on these challenges? The problem is there's basically no way I get up in time to do the challenges if I have to. Like, I'm barely functional enough to read missives and switch my vote if I need to before rolling back to bed. Maybe if I had nothing else going on I'd be more able to just go to bed really early and get up really early but it's just not realistic, I'm going to be working until 1 am again, getting up substantially before 7:00 to make sure I can do all these challenges is just not in the cards.
But also I can't just wake up and then make Mundungus do them. It's blatantly not fair to him and the hosts are 100% right to award him the victory.
But if I just roll over now, I risk looking like an even worse challenge flop on a team that seems to at least somewhat value challenge strength. Probably if I just explain that timezones make it unfeasible for me to compete on this one, I'm probably skirting too close to the ID rules and I can't even explain until after the challenge is over because we're not allowed to talk about how we think we'll do.
But if I just bid higher now with the hope he counter-bids and I can run away at least having made his life more difficult, he might just not come online until it's four in the morning here and I'm back to problem 1.
Ugggghhhh.
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Post by Peter Pettigrew on May 5, 2022 11:18:04 GMT 10
Can't solve all the problems for you. But FWIW I don't think it would be an ID issue to tell people you knew you'd be offline over a certain time period. By this point everyone has a sense of when the others are and aren't active. And you can keep the reason you're offline ambiguous enough.
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Post by Corban Yaxley on May 5, 2022 11:27:32 GMT 10
Yeah, fair enough. I'm whining to myself here more than anything serious anyways ![:P](http://images.proboards.com/new/tongue.png) Thanks for the tip on the ID thing though.
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Post by Corban Yaxley on May 5, 2022 13:53:43 GMT 10
Good Lord, Lucius is one paranoid motherfucker. Does he seriously think we were all going to die if Carrow and Travers quit?
I need to handle him with a lot of care here, or risk him blowing up prematurely. I can't exactly tell him I vaguely gestured at Lestrange in a way to give them an opening to suggest deposing him and Lestrange didn't bite, so who knows. I'm pretty sure Reg and RAB and maybe even Pyrites just aren't that invested, but he's convinced they're secretly doing a huge amount of plotting against him or something inane like that. It's round 3. There are still lots of easier targets floating around then one of the only folks with enough gumption to organize something out of the gate.
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