Yay!
 

The thing that I was most worried about toDAY of the wolves coming in and orchestrating a tie to prevent a potentially necessary lynch in case there are two wolves left can't happen now! :D

*throws confetti*

++Lottie for rep

++BORO for lynch

Yeah, he shouldn't get away with it, really.

Anyway, pretty sure one of him and Lalaith is a wolf, hoping and assuming the two others were Shasta and Zil.

Good night, good Night and good luck to us!

So...Lottie you around?

Sorry for getting in so close to deadline! :eek:

So, Lommy and Lalaith want ++Boro, and Kuru and Boro want ++Lalaith. I would actually love it if you would pick one, Legate, since I could be persuaded either way.

Edit: xed with Kuru - here I am!

Ahh...good, you are around.

I've grown suspicious of Lommy and I really think we need to lynch Lalaith...as in need to if we want to win this thing.

Disenfranchise people who aren't confirmed innocent?

At least not let them vote on potential lynches...

That was going to be my method, but I wanted to hear Legate's thoughts, too.

Cool. I figured we'd be on the same page on that.

This, and her unnecessary delay in voting for rep are what's made me feel bad about her.

We are well beyond the point where feeling "iffy" about me is at all acceptable in the context of this game and we have proof after proof of that.

No. Please, don't. In case Zil and Shasta were really actually Wolves, I don't want to be responsible for winning or losing the game. Not again. By which I mean, not after I have been thinking the whole Day that I am responsible for it already.

Boro's "not giving up without a fight" attitude yesterDay could be interpreted like a Wolf's (as in, he very well knows he hasn't been that commited, but even with the little participation he has made, he doesn't want to step away). But it is equally plausible for him to act that way if innocent.

Lalaith has been generally a "more plausible choice" overall, but seriously, I can't tell. Her single post toDay does not really tell anything, she could post that whether a Wolf or not.

Choose the person who is the most likely to be a Wolf in case the dead are Wolves. That is the single and most important advice I can give.

Unless it is too late.

I think I shall just succumb to my despair here and go to sleep. So my last advice: yes, if you can (sadly I won't have time to check it anymore), check who of the two is more likely to be a packmate of the two dead (or at least of one of them, if Cab was a Wolf). That is the best way to go about it. I hope for the best, but, like Bilbo Baggins said when he had still been a robot, I won't lie to you about your chances.

In spite of my new suspicions of Lommy, I still think lynching Lalaith has the highest potential to pay dividends.

That's it, I'm going to sleep (RL) - so I don't know how soon you are going to send the lynch and when is sally going to publish the result, but just... all the best; and see you all on the other side. It's been a pleasure to play with all of you again, in any case.

Silence, my children. Sleep.

In the dead of night, voices whispered secret thoughts and dark plans. After all the work they had gone to, they were certain to be thwarted in the morning. It would be nearly impossible to destroy the Ward's morale now, especially with their rescue so near. How to crush what was left of the Ward with so little time left to act?

“There's only one more thing we can do. Come with me....”

~~~~~~~~

Sally was up late again, reading a book by candlelight and keeping her ears trained for any unusual sounds outside. Sure enough, she heard soft footsteps pass through the streets, and she quickly doused her candle, peeking out the windowsill to see who was sneaking by.

Lommy and Lalaith were in their nightclothes, quietly discussing something Sally couldn't quite overhear. From what she could hear, however, the topic of discussion was from from pleasant.

Mustering her up courage, Sally stepped outside and called to the two ladies in the street. Both turned to face her, each of their faces bearing an expression of confusion.

“Oh, hey, Sally,” said Lalaith in a casual tone. “Sorry, did we wake you? We couldn't sleep and thought we'd, um....go check on Lottie. You know, she hasn't been feeling the best, and we-”

“Wanted to make sure she got some rest,” said Lommy. Her eyes flitted to Lalaith, and she forced a smile. “Sorry. I can never resist a good rhyme.”

Sally laughed somewhat nervously. “Neither can I. So, uh, let's go see Lottie, shall we?”

Unable to think of a good excuse to the contrary, Lommy and Lalaith nodded, and the three of them approached Lottie's house.

As Sally was only half awake and Lommy was attempting to distract her from their behavior, Lalaith reached Lottie's door first. She knocked gently, but the door swung open slightly at her touch.

“Lottie?” Lalaith stepped inside, casting a quick glance back at Lommy. “Are you in here? We thought-”

“Aha!” shouted a voice, and there was a loud thump from within.

Sally and Lommy raced to the door, only to find Lalaith sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from a wound to her temple.

“I caught her!” Lottie shouted gleefully. “I finally caught one in the act!”

Sally stared down, horrified. “We were coming to- to check on you,” she stammered. “And you....Lottie, what did you do?”

"The right thing, I swear. Trust me, Sally. You'll see."

“I think there's been a big misunderstanding,” Lommy said solemnly. “Let's go find the guards. I'm sure they'll understand it was all an accident. Lottie, you stay here and try to get some rest.”

Lottie nodded, and Sally and Lommy headed back across the Ward. Before long, however, Sally began to again suspect something was very, very wrong.

“Lommy, why did you and Lalaith both go to check on Lottie?”

“Well, to be honest, we didn't.”

Sally stopped, turning back to see Lommy walking up to her side, a handkerchief in her hand. “What do you mean, you didn't?”

“It'll be okay,” Lommy assured her. “Here.” She tried to hand Sally the handkerchief. “Dry your eyes before we talk to the guards.” Sally shook her head, and Lommy sighed. “All right, we'll do it the hard way. I really am sorry about this.”

Lommy's hand clamped over Sally's mouth, and as Sally tried to scream, she realized she had made a huge mistake. Her throat burned, each breath choking her, and she looked up into Lommy's eyes as her vision quickly started to fade.

“Just rest,” Lommy said gently, her eyes glinting in the moonlight. “We'll take care of everyone for you. I promise.”

~~~~~~~~

In the morning, the group found Sally's body lying in the street, her mouth hanging open, her glasses askew. Though it was still dark, they could tell she was long dead.

Lottie immediately flew into a panic, claiming that this couldn't be possible. Everyone else had theories as to how this had happened, why someone would target Sally, and what they would do now that she was gone.

Lommy silently enjoyed the chaos. At last, she thought, we've succeeded.

At that moment, three guards appeared in the street. One of them carried a still Legate over his shoulder.

Keeping her cool, Lommy burst into false tears and ran to Legate's side, but as she reached him, her arms were roughly grabbed and shackles closed around them. She was quickly dragged away while the rest of the Ward watched on in shock.

Rumbling sounded all around. Every patient huddled together, then collectively breathed a sigh of relief as the source of the noise, a garrison of soldiers, revealed themselves. Some of them wore less battle-worthy garb; these presented the patients with tea, which everyone drank without argument.

The first rays of the morning sun began to spill over the buildings. The road ahead was long, but at last, they were safe, and they would persevere in memory of all those they had lost. Today was a new day.



The Ward is rescued!
The moddess finally dies! (Happy death day to me!)
The conspirators are thwarted!


Former Patients
Kuru (bard)
Lottie (patient)
Lommy (conspirator)
Boro (patient)

The Morgue
Phantom (running gag)
McCaber (patient)
Nerwen (patient)
Dun (patient)
Shasta (conspirator)
Lalaith (conspirator)
Sally (nurse/moderator)
Legate (herbalist)

I'm running quite late for a party, but please feel free to start discussion. I'll be back later with thoughts and cheers for folks. :)

Congrats, everyone! Well survived! Well done, Kuru and Legate, for a bold game well played. And congrats to the wolves, too - you played well, even though Legate's no lynch plan totally worked against you. Lommy, I really didn't think you were the last wolf at all. :o

And thank you to our dearest moddess for a fun and very interesting game! :D

*sigh*

On the good side once again, but I very much feared I would (as seeming usual) be more of an asset to the other side. I did nail all three of the baddies though. ;)

Good to see a win for my team though. Nice job all!

Congratulations, village! But I really have to give it to the wolves here. I thought after the first Day, with the no-lynch strategy and the easy way for the herbalist to identify victims, the villagers would win this without breaking sweat. But then you guys somehow managed to stir up enough paranoia to get people to go after Inzil, and suspicions against Nerwen, cast shady looks at Boro - heck, almost got some people to question the "known" innocent trio. Hats off to you guys! If there were more players and more people to suspect, you could have made chaos reign. :cool:

Also... Woe! End-Game! :D

Yay! Well played, village! And ditto wolves. I think, with hindsight, that the rules favoured the village. This is not a criticism of Sally,. as I well know how hard it is to balance an experimental game. Rather, I'd like to congratulate you on playing well in a difficult situation. (However, I am saddened that my jewel felt the need to murder me...)

And thanks for a great game, Sally. It was very interesting to follow, even from beyond the grave.:smokin:


Finally, I wish to point out that I was the first to suspect Wolflomien.:p

It's interesting to me that I get suspected both for being "careful" and "weird". :rolleyes:

In this game I was really just saying whatever was on my mind, caution to the wind. Que sara, sara...:p

The Bard's Theme.

Anyway, time for a funny story.

YesterDAY, when I said this...

I was not, in fact, talking about the discarded possibility of Legate being a wolf. I was talking about if he was the Herbalist! :eek:

You, sir, are up there with the very top Werewolfers for playing such a bold and up front game while all the while being so vital to the ultimate well-being of the Ward.

I was actually quite worried on NIGHT TWO that you were the Herbalist, but Lottie's subsequent behavior convinced me...up until the closing narration that she was.

So if that was a ploy on Lottie's part, a tip o' the hat to her (one among many the Ward owes her) for running that one.

Sorry about not protecting you on NIGHT FIVE. I actually could have, and I thought long and hard about what to do that NIGHT. But the wolves had thrown me for a loop on NIGHT TWO by striking Nerwen, a NIGHT that I did protect you. I was out of sync with them for the whole rest of the game from that point, usually unable to protect the person that I most thought needed protection.

I wanted to have a protect of you in the bank for NIGHT SIX and the wolves had also signaled a willingness to circle back and re-strike at previous targets and I thought it a worthwhile gamble that they might strike at me again and I didn't want to waste a protect on you when I thought it likely that I'd be the target and then be unable to protect on NIGHT SIX.

A wrong guess, as it turned out.

However, in a way it worked out well because it decisively eliminated you from consideration as a potential wolf in DAY FIVE's conversations (not that I thought that was at all likely by that stage).

I feel kind of bad for Lalaith, though. For whatever reason, most of the games that I've read that she has played in she has always been a wolf. In this game I could just sense it from her very first post. I don't know if that means that my reading sample is skewed or if she just has an inordinate number of wolf-side games under her belt.

That may be true to some extent. However, the wolves were actually pretty close to winning on a number of fronts, even up to the last DAY, there were winning scenarios for them.

Of course, McCaber's absence really helped balance it out in a way...so maybe nine players is the right number for the format rather than ten..?

EDIT: Also, it is Sally's death-day! Happy death day!

Kuru, I am most flattered that you count me among "top Werewolfers"- and yes, both you and Legate did a fantastic job of hiding in plain sight. I didn't suspect either of you until Day Five- and I, too, had Lottie down as a possible Herbalist. It'll be interesting to know how things looked to the wolves, once they show up.

Well, I am talking about the initial situation. But as I said, it's hard to get right, anyway- in this case, a slight difference to the rules or circumstances could well have favoured the wolves instead.

<= Herb
 

I am blushing right now, sir. But thank'ee. In any case, much of the burden was on you and Lottie (especially her with all the lynch-votes. That was some responsibility, Lottie! But you, Kuru, accomplished the equally important task to survive. Huh).

Truth be told, I was super-worried and the despair *really* took me the last Day. I had spent the Night calculating all the possible scenarios, and came to the conclusion to use my single remaining herb on Lottie.
My original plan since the beginning of the game had been to keep us away from lynching people in the beginning (which worked) and afterwards to keep my last save for the last Day, so I could save myself if I woke up with the Black Breath; or to save another person if I didn't.

Eventually, on the last Night, I arrived to the conclusion that it was the best to keep Lottie alive in order to maintain clear majority of "known innocents" in the village, to maximalize the chance of lynching a Wolf and to prevent the WWs from taking over the vote. I was 99% sure the WWs were going after me (since I assumed the WWs would not target Kuru because after the last target had been Lottie, he would be the obvious target and therefore protected; and I was the last semi-known innocent), but I decided to throw away my original plan I had since the beginning and instead use my last herb there and then, letting myself be killed (no light decision, because on top of everything I was a Gifted!), but counting on that the Bard was still alive and if we survived with enough numbers, it would be enough.

I did that because I was convinced we still had the Bard (neither of the dead ones looked like one, barring the unlikely chance of it being Cab), and I was sure that there was no way the WWs could kill both of us anymore. But at dawn, when I learned that I got indeed afflicted with the Black Breath, the paranoia accumulated throughout the whole game started to sink in and upon reading Shasta's death narration, my immediate reaction was that he was the Bard. I got the total "I am Denethor, I am Éomer" feeling - that I am the last Gifted and I am about to die, and I alone in the whole village know that we are down to the last Gifted, me, who is about to die because I decided to forfeit my life during the last Night; and against all odds it turned out to be the wrong decision. So, for example not announcing my Black Breath rightaway was what I thought at that point a poor attempt of pitiful revenge, to make the WWs think they didn't get me, if they were going to die anyway. (But this is also a point against reading the thread at 2 AM when you feel tired and already paranoid.)

The second time my blood froze was when I read that Lottie and Kuru cast votes for each other. I just hoped nobody would point that out, because depending on the number of WWs, they could jump on that and outvote known innocents if they voted in unison.

But anyway! Altogether I enjoyed the game very much. Thanks to sally for organising this, and for giving me this role, because my record as Gifted so far had been pretty dismal (also didn't happen that many times).

For practicality - I am not sure if the game was much disbalanced. One would have to play a couple of times, but look, we lynched three times and had to get two Wolves; if we didn't, we would have lost. And given that we didn't even know after their deaths that they were Wolves...

I think, however, the right people to ask about the mechanics would be the Conspirators, because they knew the most already during the game and could follow how did the odds look like during the game.

In terms of thinking about the rules further, I have been wondering how did especially the average Ordos feel about it. I enjoyed the game, but I kept wondering, because nobody knew anything - the Gifteds did know at least something, and the WWs knew the most (knowing who was innocent and who was not) - how difficult was it to play as Ordo, or how enjoyable in total? As in, whether it didn't feel like you were just voting in the void, hoping you made the right decision.

But I quite liked the system as a whole. For example the "delayed lynches" was an interesting thing. At times, I felt maybe the Herbalist was a bit too powerful (with the delayed lynches, I could save whomever I wanted as long as I had herbs). That said, of course such system could be easily exploited by the WWs.

Oh, and last one. I think I owe an apology, or at least an explanation to Nerwen for not healing her on the second Day. Realising we had still a long time before us, and given that some people were questioning her innocence, I decided to let her go. Also, I admit, for my own peace of mind. I thought the village might still be torn about her on the next Day, and we didn't want that, and even I was not completely sure. Mostly it was about the numbers, though, and also that I thought healing somebody later would send a stronger signal that I still had some herb in reserve.

Also a question for the WWs: did you think I was a Gifted? Or, Eru forbid, the Herbalist?

That's all right, Legate, one of my posts on Day Two was partly intended as a signal to the Herbalist that I was okay with being sacrificed if necessary.

Well, I recall you saying a couple of times that you didn't necessarily expect to be saved, so I remember thinking "ok, she is probably not the Bard if she is saying this, so in the worst case, we can live with that."

I could tell...or at least I suspected you weren't just RPing it.

I wanted to say something to let you know that while we were still in danger, the situation wasn't nearly as dire as you seemed to believe it was. But, we were still in danger and I couldn't really think of anything to say that wouldn't have given too much away.

And it was 100% the right decision.

My problem was I knew I couldn't be protected.

However, I honestly think striking you was a tactical error on their part. It added to the number of unimpeachably confirmed innocents when they already had a stable full of those to cope with.

Yeah, we nearly caused a catastrophic screw up there. I was in such a good mood because I knew that we had clinched at least part of the win condition that it never occurred to me that Lottie would vote for me right back. We did the one thing that gave them a shot at victory that DAY. :rolleyes:

Fortunately for us, they didn't recognize it.

Yeah, I got overexcited and didn't think for a second. :o

I kind of agree - the way the game ended up going gave us a shot, but I think that the wolves would have won if we had made any other choices than the ones we did.



I had, up until that moment, been convinced that you were the Herbalist, so I picked up on that and decided that Legate *must* have been the Herbalist - and that you must have been an ordo, which, well, halfway there. :p

Yes, but for the wrong person - I had thought that Kuru was the Herbalist, and since I knew I was an ordo, thought I'd better try to deflect attention a bit!

Well well well...

:Merisu:

I have to say the game was eventually a lot more even than I thought it would be - we conspirators had a really disoriented start (oopsie) and by the end of Day2 I was already like "woe is me we should have a scheme all along we're never going to win this if the village isn't lynching anyone and the herbalist is saving everyone" and that desperation on Day3 or 4 was completely genuine "I've been unmotivated to play because I feel my hands are tied" - but by that point I had chilled down a bit and wasn't feeling the game wasn't so unbalanced after all. I think you villagers also played remarkably well which probably contributed to my early game angst. :D

But yes, it was hard to be a conspirator on this one. Consider the fact we had only TWO successful kills in the whole game (and correct me if I'm wrong, that was even without the bard succeeding a single time) and we gave the village two (eventually three) known innocents which is a big advantage in a village this small, especially when the vote goes through a representative. There was never a chance one of us could've plausibly become the rep and it was not only because we failed to seem hyper innocent. Also, claiming Black Breath would have been a suicidal strategy so there was really nothing to do to stop the herbalist...

And yeah the no lynching really sucked. :p (I would have felt the same way as an ordo though tbh.) Maybe this is when I should apologise to Inzil for relentlessly trying to get him lynched all game? Sorry, but you were a very convenient target even though you didn't even do anything so suspicious!

Anyway, we did realise we had very little chance to outnumber the village by Day6, so we eventually settled on trying to bag the gifteds and win that way. Too bad getting people killed was quite hard in this game. I'd like to congratulate myself for pointing Kuru out to my fellows on Night3 (I was 90% sure he was gifted) and Shasta for insisting we kill Legate on Night5 and saying Lal and I could "beat him with brushes like a carpet" after the game if he wasn't the herbalist. *would add more smileys if I hadn't run out of the limit*

Lastly, you wanna know something hilarious? Our Night1 was pretty unorganized so I ended up sending an improvised kill to Sally so we wouldn't miss it. I felt bad for choosing to "cut someobody's game's short" before they even had the chance to post, but rules are rules, so I put the villagers' names into a randomizer and decided we should kill Lottie. Well, so much for feeling bad for cutting somebody's game short.............

Heh, no drama. Getting the good side lynched is what baddies do. ;)

Of couse. :D But I'm too much of a goody two shoes in real life that intentionally misrepresenting people's behaviour always feels a bit wrong to me - be it "look how shady Inzil is he's just not making sense and distracting the village with his posts" or "look Lalaith is so confused she couldn't possibly be a wolf" (she really wasn't half as confused as I liked to claim she is, she only like asked about the rules once or twice). :D Being a wolf is hard! Now who's going to mod the next game so I can get to be my goody two shoes self again? ;)

And since I forgot to say it in the last post:

thanks Sally for the fun and suspenseful game and HAPPY DEATHDAY! <3

Hello again everyone, good to be back here as my normal non-evil self :Merisu:
Kuru you are quite right that you have all too often encountered me in lupine guise, in fact I can't remember the last time I played werewolf and wasn't a wolf.
Having said that I haven't played much at all over the last few years and my goodness I felt rusty during this game; I genuinely was confused about the rules - a clueless wolf indeed. I just couldn't think of any survival strategies at all, particularly when faced with Lottie the Deathless.
I did enjoy Shastas magnificent fight with Kuru though.
By the way Legate, I am clearly still being clueless but I am not sure how Lommy and I could have orchestrated a tie as we were still outnumbered and Lottie could have switched her vote? Plus having such a late deadline for Europeans made it hard to stage up-to-the-wire chicanery - although worse for you and Lommy than for me, I know.
Well done fellow conspirators, you deserved a better packmate than I was this game. Well done villagers, some fantastic clear-sighted gameplay there, a well-deserved win.
And thank you dear Sally, splendid and ever-charming modding!

And here I thought I was being all insightful...and I was actually just playing probabilities. :o

You could be both, dear thing!

If you are refering to the last Day, then it was hypothetical, of course - I did not know how many Wolves there were. You did, but we did not. Had there been three of you, it was a way for you to win. But even otherwise, in case there were, say, still doubts regarding Lottie or Kuru's innocence, or some innocent forgot to show up, and so on... But yeah, objectively, I guess it is more like the rule of "never split the vote when the numbers are close!"

Oh, I'm sure there would have been a way. I think Lottie's miraculous survival made me lose heart.

It could have been done like this:

Because of Lottie's and my blunder in voting for each other, you and Lommy could have engineered a tie by voting for me. That way the vote would have (conceivably) have been tied at 3-3. In case of tied Rep votes there would be no Rep and thus no lynch. Then Lalaith would have still been alive but Legate would still pass on.

However, there is one thing about the rules I am unclear on, did the wolves get to submit a name for the Black Breath on NIGHT SIX? During the game I operated under the assumption that they did, but the final narration implies that they did not...and I guess since DAY SIX didn't go through to completion perhaps a NIGHT SIX Black Breath was superfluous..?

No, we didn't get to kill anyone on the last Night at all. Thus as soon as Shasta was dead, it was impossible for us to win by numbers and basically there was no need for me and Lalaith to even try act innocent on Day5 because you could never lynch both of us. Of course, we did try our best to get Boro lynched in case he was gifted (as Lalaith pointed out at one point, his absence creepily conicided with the herbalist not saving Nerwen) but in the likely scenario that he was an ordo, it didn't matter if one of us gets lynched or not. Like, since one of us died (which was bound to happen before Day6 given how few unknown roles there were) it was literally just up to whether we could kill the gifteds or not. I was a bit worried on Day3 because if the village had lynched one of us then there would have been the chance that we would all been lynched by Day6 and thus had no shot at winning at all. But fortunately Lottie went for Zil. :p

Don't say that! I think we all had our share of mistakes and successes - as did the village, known innocents included. It was a very interesting game, and I'd be interested to do a similar one in the future with slightly honed rules. (Not sure how exactly honed given that the current ones produced a surprisingly even game. Maybe give the herbalist one fewer save at least, or else prolong the game so that the Night6 kill would have taken place - imagine: if we had gone for Kuru then, e would have won. If for Lottie, not. A 50-50 chance I'd say. Kuru seemed more gifted but the temptation to kill Lottie for the third time would've been very strong.)

I always assumed they didn't, as it would give them an extra kill that could never be prevented in any way, therefore making any tacticizing there impossible (and Herbalist's power useless).

Whoops...should have protected Legate. :o

I'd noticed and wondered about that too.

Indeed. Wouldn't that be just a travesty.