Tol-in-Gaurhoth III (The Saga Continues...)

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Thanks for validating my own work there TGWBS. Actually, the odds are precisely the same of catching a wolf overall whether by random lot or off a short list, that 0.2% advantage you've found in my system is the result of numbers being rounded off along the way as you calculated.

The advantage to the system I've proposed, to any system for that matter, is that there is a system into which we all, wolves and innocents, will 'fit' -- this seems to me a vast improvement over the current situation in which there are two systems that have us voting in ignorance and the wolves voting in knowledge.

The short list idea was meant to provide us with a way of making the votes meaningful and to avoid consensus; there is no magic solution in choosing a few people to vote for, only better (that is, more reliable) results for us to look at afterward. We need to make each vote count and we need to make everyone vote. Again, we can't let the wolves hide either by casting meaningless votes in a landslide or abstaining.

As to the seer protection idea -- you are right, Phantom, that the plan will in the long run make the seer more visible, but this will happen for wolves and innocents alike. And if the seer does make it to round three (at which point there will be at worst 3 wolves left and 5 innocents) then to kill the seer is to pinpoint him or her for us and give us the identies of 4 of the 8 people (and monsters) in the village: game over for the wolves!

As to my 1 in 50 numbers: there was no mistake in the math, not for this learned lore master, I merely misspoke. What I meant to say was that there is only a 1 in 50 chance of guaranteeing that we will catch a wolf in the first round by coming up with a short list. More boring math that I want to get away from: (3:14) x (2:13) x (1:12) = 6:2184 = 0.00274 (2.7%)

I agree that this is all highly theoretical at this point, however and we need to move toward casting some votes. I for one will hold on to my vote until closer to the deadline only so I can cast it in such a way as to spread the votes around. I'm not afraid of hiding my vote! There is no time anymore for a random selection of nominees, and I admit it was a tricky proposition in the first place, so I will just have to see what happens in the next few hours.

(I will admit here, however, that my suspicions are aroused by those who argue most voluably against our developing a common strategy, as it seems to me -- obviously -- that the wolves are the ones with something to fear from this. I am also going to keep my eye on those who have said much, but committed or ventured little to the discussion.)

As to the seer protection idea, I will leave that for the next round (presuming I surive the lynching and the night!) as we have more important wolves to skin at the moment.

[The Saucepan Man]

I would first make clear at the outset that circumstances have meant that I could not until now be present during this lively debate (beer doesn’t make itself you know ).

One point to clear up:

Originally Posted by TGWBS

Another thing that concerns me is Saucy's jesting.

As anyone who knows me could tell you, I take comfort in humour (and beer) in the face of distressing circumstances. And I will readily admit that the names that I have mentioned were put forward on the basis of no evidence. If anything, I was merely seeking to evince a reaction.

But the initial posts posts were really nothing but opening gambits and it is, I think, difficult to draw any conclusions from them whatsoever.

It is with Fordim’s bold idea and, in particular, the reactions to it, that the discussion has become really interesting.

I will first state my thoughts on Fordim’s proposed strategy. I will not go on at great length, for various the pros and cons have been stated already. For reasons that others have already stated, I see the “shortlist” idea as a very good mechanism for hanging a lot of innocent Villagers early on (the odds are more in favour of Villagers, rather than Werewolves, appearing on the random ‘shortlist’, at least at the outset). But, more importantly, I see the “Seer dream” idea as a perfect device for enabling the Werewolves to identify the Seer, or at least dramatically narrow down the list, very early on (see, in particular, the phantom’s last post on this.) Even if, having identified the Seer through this method, the Werewolves did not act upon it and kill the Seer immediately, it would enable them more effectively to neutralise his or her influence during the daytime discussions.

So, having considered it carefully, I am against both aspects of Fordim’s plan. It is, in principle, a good idea to carefully examine who people accuse, defend and vote for, but I would prefer not to do this in the structured manner which, to me, seems to favour the Werewolves more. However, I do welcome his having put his ideas forward for what they tell us about him and about those who have reacted to it.

First, what were Fordim’s motives in putting it forward? There are a number of possibilities:

1) Fordim is innocent and genuinely thinks that his plan, if implemented, will help even the odds and protect the Seer.
2) Fordim sees the shortcomings in his plan but, being a Werewolf, sees it as a way of helping his “side” (in particular by providing valuable information on the Seer’s identity).
3) Fordim sees the shortcomings in his plan but, being innocent, recognises that people’s reactions to it might be telling.
4) Fordim, being a Werewolf, wants to generate confusion and steer any accusations away from him.

Now, as an intelligent master of lore, I cannot believe that Fordim did not see the shortcomings in his plan, particularly as regards the Seer. So I am going to disregard 1). Of the remaining motives, the majority (two out of three) favour him being a Werewolf. But I remain undecided on this one, since it has been proved a jolly good way of getting people to react and, possibly, to provoke the Werewolves into making unguarded comments. However, I remain suspicious.

Which brings us to people’s reactions to the plan:

Firefoot spotted a flaw in the mathematics straight away and then posted convingly against the “Seer plan”.

The phantom was initially very mush in favour of the “Seer protection plan” (supporting it in three posts), but then, after its flaws had already been noted, posted convincingly and at length against it.

The Only Real Estel was against the shortlist from the start, but saw merit in the “Seer plan”.

TGWBS was immediately, and vocally, against the “Seer plan” and has been ever since, although he seems to support the "shortlist" idea on the mathematics.

Holbytlass liked the “Seer idea” but was undecided on the “shortlist”.

Kuru ventured no solid opinion on the plan but recognised its worth in gauging people’s reactions to it.

Evisse recognised the shortcomings of both plans, but thought we should go with it in the absence of anything better.

Shelob was in favour of the “Seer plan” but against the “shortlist”, on the basis of the mathematics.

Mormegil immediately spotted the key flaw in the “Seer plan” and has been against it.

SoN posted shortly simply to support Fordim’s idea with little explanation.

Based solely upon this (which is all we really have to go on at the moment), my suspicions are currently primarily directed towards Holbytlass, Evisse and SoN. They seem to be the most in favour of Fordim’s plans. Since they were in favour of the “Seer plan” (which seems to particularly favour the Werewolves), I am also suspicious of The Only Real Estel and Shelob. I am least suspicious (currently) of Firefoot, TGWBS and mormegil (despite my initial, playful, posts), since they have been against the proposals. One might put the phantom in the same category, but he initially supported the “Seer plan” and then turned against it when others had spotted its flaws. Good cover, perhaps, for someone who is intelligent enough to have spotted its flaws from the outset.

Kuru, as always, ventures no solid opinions. Which makes me suspicious of him too. And that is most certainly not a xenophobic reaction.

I have residual suspicions of those who have not yet commented on the plan, namely Azaelia and Oddwen. But they, like me, may simply not have had a chance to get here yet.

So those are my suspicions, but I shall reserve final judgement for a short while yet.

[The Saucepan Man]

The problem with your proposal, Fordim, is that there is a good chance that there will be no Werewolf in the radnomly chosen "shortlist". And, if that happens, an innocent Villager will automatically be lynched on DAY 1, an innocent Villager will automatically be killed in the night, and the results of the DAY 1 voting will tell us nothing and, statistically, be likely to result in the death of yet another innocent Villager.

While, as the numbers of innocent Villagers come down, it may help us out, it seems very much to favour the Werewolves in the opening few days. Thereafter, the effects of the opening few days will begin to favour the Werewolves in terms of numbers. The Werewolves need to get the Villagers' numbers down quickly and early on, without losing one of their own, and this seems to provide them with a good way of doing so. Personally, I would prefer to rely on "gut" instinct and a careful analysis of what people say than randomly choosing names out of a hat.

As for the "Seer protection plan", this may provide us with valuable information as the game wears on, but it will provide the Werewolves with essential information very early on. They will be able to narrow down their list of possible Seers on DAY 2 and, as the phantom said, will be pretty much sure who the Seer is by DAY 4 at the latest. Now, they would be silly to kill the Seer in those circumstances, given that we will all have the same information. But, as I said, they would be more able to neutralise his or her effect. Combined with a dwindling number of innocent Villagers (courtesy of your "shortlist"), this would give them a very distinct advantage.

Finally, I would have thought that now was the time to come out and admit that your proposals were a ploy to try to flush out potential Werewolves. Since you continue to defend the proposals, my suspicions of you are now very much heightened.

[the guy who be short]

I have balanced the suggestions in my mind. Here is what I have come up with:

Pros:

Originally Posted by Fordim

we can't let the wolves hide either by casting meaningless votes in a landslide or abstaining

Cons:
The werewolves could vote in a landslide anyway. A landslide is still possible with a shortlist.
As Saucy said, there could very easily be no wolves in the shortlist - a chance of almost a quarter. This balances because overall the chances are the same.
The Werewolves could avoid the Shortlist by using how it works against the Villagers. They could, for example, vote against one another or for other innocent villagers (not in the landslide) to stay off the shortlist.

I would like Fordim to address all these issues, please, as well as the timing and place of his posting which I inquired about in an earlier post.

[Kuruharan]

Kuru ventured no solid opinion on the plan

-and-

Kuru, as always, ventures no solid opinions.

Heh! I have a future in diplomacy!

However, you've been inattentive. If you read my last post you will see I did give a solid opinion on the plan (although perhaps not the solid opinion you were looking for).

I'm worried that due to the nature of the first DAY's discussions we are not going to learn much from the hanging unless we do somehow manage to pick a werewolf, and I believe we will probably be completely in the dark about the next NIGHT's killing considering how wobbly most people have been.

Right at the moment suspicion seems to be centering on Fordim (as much as it is centering at all). However, even so I'm not sure I'd favor hanging him today even if he is a werewolf (which of course we don't know). Maybe we should leave him alive and see what happens at NIGHT.

Of course, where does this leave us...

[mormegil]

I would like to voice my current great suspicions. They are the phantom and Son of Numenor

If I may quote the phantom

If everyone was to have a "dream" tonight, what would happen tomorrow? A non-werewolf would have a 25% chance of correctly naming a werewolf. In other words, if a villager says "I had a dream, and person X is a wolf" it is 75% likely that their choice would be wrong, and the wolves would obviously know if they were wrong and rule that person out as the seer. That means that making a random werewolf accusation would greatly serve the wolves. If all nine villagers said "Person X is a werewolf", then probability says that the wolves would then immediately be able to rule out 6 or 7 of us as the seer, leaving them with only 2 or 3 candidates. This would be suicide for the village.

Has no one else noticed this?

This is from his post not supporting the seer protection idea yet his first post was in support.

Your ideas for making a lynch list out of people who voted the day before makes me a bit antsy (because I see a way for wolves to exploit it to some degree), but as far as the idea for protecting the seer, I think it's a good one. I do see a way that an extremely risky and devious wolf could use it to his advantage, but it would have a fairly good chance of backfiring on him, so I doubt he'd try it.

Count me in as far as the seer protection goes. Every day I will tell about my "dream" and name a person as innocent or guilty.

So phantom how is it that you are able to contemptously ask us if nobody else noticed the flaws in the system when they had already been pointed out (albeit with less verbosity) and also when initially you supported the idea while thiiking the shortlist was the bad one?

And I suspect SoN based on his simple acceptance of the plan with no explination merely stating that let's do whether or not it's logical.

[The Only Real Estel]

To clarify my position on the seer protection idea:
I was in favor of it because it occurred to me that, if the werewolves killed the seer upon quickly distinguishing him/her from the lot of us (which is unfortunately very likely to happen), we need only find the villager that the seer told us was innocent. I then reasoned with myself that we could easily conquer these beasts because we would know who not to lynch. Unfortuantely, during the night I realized my blind stupidity--it's not enough for us not to lynch the villager we know to be innocent (thanks to the seer), the werewolves would simply kill him or her during the night, sending us back to square one. Although my thoughts remain a bit confused on both matters, I can see no real advantage until late in the game, and if the werewolves quickly discover the seer and kill him/her before he/she has much of a chance to provide us with information, we will have gained nothing discernable by our new method.

Therefore, since I realized that pretty much the only reason I was supporting the seer idea was a hopelessly faulty one, I am not leaning against both of Fordim's suggestions. Unless someone can give enough evidence that either of the plans would outweigh the cons that they bring with them, I don't see why we should take the risk.

In the mean time, although I will not say that this is something that Fordim has planned, we have only about two and a half hours remaining to lynch someone and no idea who to lynch! No doubt these suggestions of Fordims have served the wolves purposes in at least one way, we have been completely distracted and most likely will end up voting in a flurry at the last second and lynching an innocent villager one next to no evidence. I suggest we concentrate on discerning the wolves among us and decide on Fordim's propositions during the next day (if the majority has not already spoken).

[Kuruharan]

I suggest we concentrate on discerning the wolves among us

*Noises of agreement*

We don't really have time to do otherwise anymore.

[Oddwen]

Sorry I haven't made an appearance yet, my work has kept me from the village councils...

Egads, what a way to go, Eomer.

Reading up on what everyone has said so far, it seems that the Seer Dream Theory seems to be dangerously flawed...more so than the Short List, which just confuses me.

I have to vote now, as RL will keep me away 'til perhaps Monday. Dang, I hate being rushed.

I feel as if I should go with my gut instinct, which was right in the past though I ignored it, and vote for ++THE PHANTOM , though The Guy and Fordim also unsettle me.

Also - Where is Zali?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

RL demands that I will be away from my computer for the next few hours, and as time is up in just 2 hours I find that I must cast the first stone...

That having been said, this first round really is all about luck and conjecture, so no matter who I vote for there is only a 3 in 14 chance of getting it right...

That having been said, I am going to cast my vote against

++SaucepanMan

insofar as he is the one person here who has done the two things which I have already stated to be the most suspicious things that could be done: 1) argue against my proposals; and 2) posted quite voluably but said nothing of real substance and committed to no particular or specific course of action.

In Saucy's last post he does two things; he attempts to undermine any attempt at developing a system to flush out werewolves and he casts suspicion over groups of people, setting them against each other -- just as though he were a wolf trying to separate the flock into smaller groups for easier managing...

So anyway, that's my vote. There is only a 22% chance that I am right. I predict, however, that there is a 100% chance of me garnering votes for having voted first -- and I will further predict that at least a few of those votes will be cast by werewolves...

[the guy who be short]

Originally Posted by Firefoot

I am, however, more suspicious about phantom's confusing behaviour. He seemed pretty adamant about supporting it, and then switched colors without warning. He did not even show any sign of convincing, as TGWBS is doing now.

I was against the proposals from the start. Fordim's arguments swayed me to neutrality for a second, but now, I find I must find his ideas faulty and vote for ++Fordim.

Several times I asked him to explain his motives, and I have been ignored. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for this, but it is the only kind of "evidence" available to me.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Evisse

Saucy, I was in favour of a plan, as opposed to no plan.

I too am in favour of a plan, but not one which seems to greatly favour the Werewolves. Fordim's "Seer dream" idea just looks to me like something specifically designed to identify the Seer for the Werewolves' benefit. My plan is to look carefully what everyone says in reaction to what has been said before, and look at who they accused and how they voted (if I get the chance). Admittedly, that's pretty much how things have gone peviously and it could well end up in chaos and confusion. But I'd rather take my chances with that than provide a structured way of doing it which can surely only benefit the Werewolves, given their greater pre-existing knowledge.

Originally Posted by Evisse

I am not sure, however that I undestand your reasoning when you automatically suspect everyone in favour of this plan of being a werewolf.

I readily acknowledge that it's not perfect. It is quite possible that some people's initial reactions were based on a misunderstanding of its true effect. I myself was initially persuaded by Fordim's reasoning, until I thought further about it and heard some of the others' reactions.

But, thanks to Fordim having raised this "red herring", it's really all that we have to go on at the moment.

And, with the exception of The Only Real Estel, I have not seen anyone who was initially in favour of the "Seer plan" come out against it, despite the convincing arguments against it. Actually, I suppose Holbytlass changed her mind over it. But perhaps we should be more suspicious of those who have changed their mind as they have been able to see which way opinion was going ...

The more that I think about it, though, the more that I think that Fordim's proposals were specifically designed to draw our efforts away from trying to discover the Werewolves and lead us down a cul de sac. If so, it was probably planned between all three of them, which would suggest that those who continue to support it are similarly guilty.

However, there remains a possibility that Fordim's intentions were good. My inclination, therefore, would be to lynch either Evisse or SoN (who continue to support Fordim's plans despite their now obvious defects) and, if they turn out to be Werewolves, direct our gaze towards Fordim.

[The Saucepan Man]

Hmm.now I have had the benefit of seeing Fordim's vote ...

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

... insofar as he is the one person here who has done the two things which I have already stated to be the most suspicious things that could be done: 1) argue against my proposals; and 2) posted quite voluably but said nothing of real substance and committed to no particular or specific course of action.

1) I have explained why I believe them to be defective (as have many others);
2) Untrue. My proposed course of action was to look at people's reactions to your proposals and, in particular, those who sought to support them.

Now I am in a quandry. Do I vote for Fordim who I suspect the most, despite that this might appear simply to be a knee-jerk reaction to him voting for me? Or do I follow my previous strategy and vote for Evisse or SoN?

I have time. I will wait for further reactions ...

[Kuruharan]

Hmm, now we have an interesting situation.

Fordim accuses Saucepan Man.

TGWBS accuses Fordim.

Saucepan Man ignores the both of them and points at two totally different people.

I'm inclined to agree with Saucepan Man, Evisse makes me nervous.

We have to ask ourselves, which death will provide the most information. I'm suspicious of both Fordim and Saucepan Man (although at the moment I don't think both of them are werewolves).

Initially I'd have said kill Fordim. If he's a werewolf well and good we can kill those who supported him. If Fordim is not a werewolf we'll pacify his spirit by tossing Saucepan Man into that nearby volcano (points to nearby volcano that nobody noticed before).

However, perhaps Saucepan Man has created a reasonable compromise. Kill one of the people who supported The Plan as a test of Fordim's loyalty (and Evisse makes me nervous...)

[Firefoot]

I was against the proposals from the start. Fordim's arguments swayed me to neutrality for a second,

I know, sorry if I was unclear. Using you as an example would have been for the opposite; my point was that you were against it, and then you commented that you would consider Fordim's plan given proper reasoning, you didn't just suddenly say you were on his side, which is what phantom did, just going in the other direction.

[mormegil]

As for myself I am not going to vote for Fordim today. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is innocent and started this discussion simply to give us opportunity to weigh people's reactions.

Based on that as I previously stated the one I can find the most "evidence" on, based on his reaction, is the phantom. He is far too clever to not catch the flaws in Fordim's system initially. He initially agrees with it in a very short post (uncharacteristic) and then in a rather long post explains why he is against it after the majority of people posting on the idea are opposed to it. It seems that he's quickly trying to side with the majority and actually appear to be championing the cause. A good way to try and cover guilt I say.

It's always risky to cast a stone in this round, but it must be done. If we vote for an innocent, and they are lynched, suspicion will be cast on those that vote for him/her.

I therefore will be voting for ++THE PHANTOM and ask that others look at the limited shreds of evidence that we have and vote how they best determine. I think we need to watch SoN and Fordim a bit, however I don't believe they have the strongest evidence against them, albeit weak evidence against the phantom.

[Son of Númenor]

You could lynch me, true enough, but you'd not only be losing an innocent villager -- you'd be losing the man who fixes yer houses!

I'm not a man of numbers; I supported Mr. Hedgethistle's idea only because it seems clear based on the tales of recent villages that another system needs to be worked out for finding 'wolves. At the very least, a new system could throw their lot off balance, mathematistry and such aside.

My grandpappy always said, "He's a fool as tries to find a werewolf among villagers on the first day of voting," or something of that nature. We've naught to go on but the most meager suspicions. While at the moment I find myself suspicious of The Saucepan Man more than any other villager, I don't want to be too hasty, as lynching him prematurely'd rid us of a man with great powers of deduction, who could be of considerable use down the road if he's innocent; and then there's his fine brew to consider.

I think we ought to hang ++The Only Real Estel. I'd be foolish to try and explain the decision beyond saying that his posts don't sit right with me and I don't know why. Only time'll tell if I'm right.

[Firefoot]

Or not too much, but some interesting discussion at any rate.

As to the seer protection idea -- you are right, Phantom, that the plan will in the long run make the seer more visible, but this will happen for wolves and innocents alike. And if the seer does make it to round three (at which point there will be at worst 3 wolves left and 5 innocents) then to kill the seer is to pinpoint him or her for us and give us the identies of 4 of the 8 people (and monsters) in the village: game over for the wolves!

This excludes the possibility that the villagers accidentally lynch the seer, or that the wolves get lucky and kill the seer right off.

Finally, I would have thought that now was the time to come out and admit that your proposals were a ploy to try to flush out potential Werewolves. Since you continue to defend the proposals, my suspicions of you are now very much heightened.

Ditto that. The plan is extremely risky and tends to favor the werewolves, especially with Fordim's original shortlist plan of only 3 (not five, as TGWBS calculated). The whole purpose of it was to get some rhyme and reason to the voting and not have it completely random. However, gauging people's reactions, the vote will no longer be completely random.

My suspicions at the moment are similar to SpM's. I am, however, more suspicious about phantom's confusing behaviour. He seemed pretty adamant about supporting it, and then switched colors without warning. He did not even show any sign of convincing, as TGWBS is doing now.

And now we have less than three hours to vote. The field is still wide open and I could see it going in several different directions. Time will tell...

[the guy who be short]

I would like to reinforce Fordim's point: after further calculations, it is true, the percentage remains the same.

So the question is will this benefit us as Fordim said.

At the moment, I am not sure, one way or the other. On the one hand, Fordim has compelling arguments, on the other, the wolves could hijack the system.

I'm undecided. I am still against the new Seer ideas, but my suspicion about Fordim's maths proved false. I am almost convinced.

One final thing, Fordim. Why did you decide to post here instead of in the Town Hall [Werewolf 1] where all questions concerning our democracy [game structure] should go? Or are you suggesting that we should simply use this system unofficially?

[the guy who be short]

Kuru, as always, ventures no solid opinions. Which makes me suspicious of him too. And that is most certainly not a xenophobic reaction.

Dwarrowphobia is in many ways worse than Xenophobia.

I will have to think about Fordim's shortlist strategy, I am currently neutral, Saucy, not pro. But one thing I will say in its defence:

I see the “shortlist” idea as a very good mechanism for hanging a lot of innocent Villagers early on (the odds are more in favour of Villagers, rather than Werewolves, appearing on the random ‘shortlist’, at least at the outset)

Unstructured voting would have exactly the same odds. Neither system will help us mathematically.

[Evisse the Blue]

Saucy, I was in favour of a plan, as opposed to no plan. Chaotic behaviour tends to not work so well in our favour as it has been seen before. I am not sure, however that I undestand your reasoning when you automatically suspect everyone in favour of this plan of being a werewolf. Just a few hours ago, it used to be the other way around: those who opposed the plan were being suspected. Now, I confessed my ignorance when it comes to the obscure () science of mathematics, and therefore I had only a vague idea of the shortcomings of Fordim's theory, until more gifted villagers like the phantom and TGWBS explained them in detail. This is why I reprimanded the former for not speaking out earlier, it would have saved me a great deal of headache trying to work out the probabilities.