WW: XCVIII ~ Game Thread ~ Death at the Foot of Taniquetil

[Nerwen]

To take up Pomegranate's point: as far as giving us something to analyse goes, it doesn't really matter that the wolves didn't all know each other on Day One (as we now know for certain). The usual "find people trying to protect each other" method goes out the window, sure– but, to replace that, we should be able to detect them trying to make contact/plan the kill choice. I say "should": the *real* problem is that there was so little activity yesterDay, it's statistically possible that no wolf posted at all.

On the subject of probabilities and statistics– Coppermirror, the village *always* has to catch a wolf in the first few Days. I have to tell you, new players quite often go through a phase where they tie themselves in knots over this fact, but honestly, it's just how WW works.

EDIT:X'd with Coppermirror.

[Nerwen]

So, some things from yesterDay:

#6.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Let's say you are a wolf X and you need to get someone killed by the rules which say there has to be at least two votes for the kill to take place in the first place. So how do you pick your choices when the kill demands others (you don't know who they are) to think the same way? So all the "high-profile" players are more probable to enter their lists as any wolf would pick them thinking the others would think like the same... So not so much strategical discussion but trying to make the same pick other wolves would do (in your opinion). So the "obvious ones" die first.

Note, though, that this is part of an explanation of his previous post (#3), and doesn't, in context, have quite such a "now, here's the plan" look to it.

Pomegranate (#8) responds:

Regarding obvious kills. No-traces should be the second pretty obvious group of targets - though, on a second thought, especially if the wolves don't know each other, there is not quite as many traces left by a kill of a loud player than there would usually be. Indeed, agree with Nog about his point on the wolves not being underhanded by the set-up of the game.

Which does have a "here's the plan" ring– to the extent of being a mark against Pom, I think. However, it's also true that the wolves did *not*, in fact, manage to co-ordinate their kill-choices last Night, so... *shrugs*

[Nerwen]

Another thing I find quite interesting is that, although my "howling" post yesterDay occasioned a good deal of comment, I only got one vote. This suggests that there were indeed wolves amongst those present, and that they weren't willing to try lynching me, just in case.

–It would be nice if this logic worked the opposite way, to clear Boro, since he jumped in and voted me right away– but there is always the possibility that a Borowolf had dreamed me already. And yes: this is reasoning from my knowledge of my own innocence. Sometimes you have to...

[Coppermirror]

Still nothing from Skip Spence and A Little Green, although it seems likely that A Little Green will show up later. On the bright side, it looks as if all the people here today will vote.

What isn't good is that so far the following people have said very little: Boromir, Sally, Shasta, Skip, and A Little Green. (Although to be fair, Boromir's one post did at least have a vote in it.) That's half of our number. How can we seriously try to pick out wolves when half the village have said so little that we can examine? We can look at the people who have posted so far, on the grounds that Pom and Nerwen and others have been discussing, although even for those the conversation has not exactly been raging away. It's come to the point of having to weigh up the problem of only considering half of the village vs the problem of including the other half as well but having no evidence to judge them by. I have no idea what we should do. Both options are distasteful. I'll try to think about it some more, but for now I've got to go to sleep.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

On the subject of probabilities and statistics– Coppermirror, the village *always* has to catch a wolf in the first few Days. I have to tell you, new players quite often go through a phase where they tie themselves in knots over this fact, but honestly, it's just how WW works.

Yep, that must be true. This village is a particularly small one, though, so I do find it helpful to know exactly what the limits we're working with are.

[Pomegranate]

Partially I mentioned the obvious kills - the post that sounds like "here's the plan" - to get rid of having only one of that kind of plan posts. If there would've been just Nog's post, I felt like it would only be too obvious for the wolves to follow that logic - however, if they would need to decide between several plan-like things, or if we would've got some proper discussion on the topic, it would be less probable for them to get the night-kill right. And they didn't - whether it was partially due to what I said, don't know, but we should be happy for the extra time.

And Coppermirror, I feel your pain. Cannot just keep shouting "People, contribute", but it's really hard to do anything with just the few of us commenting.

[A Little Green]

Ouch. So sorry for the no-show yesterDay! And today I was at work until just now which is why I haven't been here.

Anyhow - there are two people that particularly interest me at the moment, namely Nog and Pom, and their interactions.

Originally Posted by Nog

But my question is, why do you feel the need to bring that up? With a smiley?

Nog gets quite unreasonable with Shasta first, on a post that I read as a completely normal remark (the sort I could easily picture Nog himself making). Seems jumpy.

Now, Nog's point against Pom is the following:

Originally Posted by Nog

Now you say there you doubt the merits of the "plan" because it would "keep us from having something to analyse today and tomorrow", and "could prove to be pretty disastrous". Now thinking that the wolves don't know each other, we the villagers already are in that position that we can't deduce or argue about anything from what happened on D1 as there is (probably) no co-operation by the wolves; which is more or less the only thing we might try to catch normally.

So the question becomes, how didn't you realise that? Now if you were a wolf, that would be logical as there would have been no natural way for you to think about that situation from the POV of a villager - which is very different from a normal game indeed this time - but had only thought of it from the POV of a wolf and thus had not noticed it (probably more busy with a thought of how to find your mates which must be a stressing question to a wolf). That would actually be even more believable explanation if you've been busy and had no time to think this properly...

This is actually a good point (especially for Day 1), regardless of that I disagree with Nog's premise that trying to confuse the wolves by having everyone "act wolvishly" (whatever that means) would benefit the village.

The interaction becomes even more interesting when Nerwen raises the point of the two of them giving "here's the plan" -posts; Pom responds with

Originally Posted by Pom

Partially I mentioned the obvious kills - the post that sounds like "here's the plan" - to get rid of having only one of that kind of plan posts. If there would've been just Nog's post, I felt like it would only be too obvious for the wolves to follow that logic - however, if they would need to decide between several plan-like things, or if we would've got some proper discussion on the topic, it would be less probable for them to get the night-kill right. And they didn't - whether it was partially due to what I said, don't know, but we should be happy for the extra time.

Wait a second - this looks as if Pom was working under an assumption that Nog is a wolf, and yet she doesn't really seem to suspect him.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

This is actually a good point (especially for Day 1), regardless of that I disagree with Nog's premise that trying to confuse the wolves by having everyone "act wolvishly" (whatever that means) would benefit the village.

Well, it's funny, because when I became aware of what I was I thought...huh probably the best thing I could do to help would be to look like a wolf trying to signal another one, and therefor at least waste one (possible more) of their efforts in finding packmates. I also thought if Nog wasn't a wolf he would try the same, therefor it was a mental check to myself "don't jump on anyone looking wolvish early on, especially Nog. Wait and see what happens."

With my sickly interweb fairies Day 1, I couldn't do that trickery, and I'm not even going to bother with it now. But anyway, I understood what Nog was saying there about everyone acting wolvish, I just think what is the point in saying it right at the start? I mean we all have our own roles and responsibilities, all are going to be different, so play them the way you want, right?

Now Nerwen, I saw it as an obviously sarcastic howl response to Nog saying we should all act wolvish and like we're giving signals to confuse the wolves. I mean it was obvious, and might look like it goes against my "don't immediately jump on anyone," but it was going on after a very limitted hunch, gut-feeling it was a sarcastic howl from Nerwen and trying to prove a point to discredit Nog's "we should all act wolvish" as silly. Considering my pixies are feeling better, and I'm not limitted to a 40-minute lunch break today, it's really not something I'm going to harp on.

I honestly think with how long the sign-ups took and to start now, most people simply forgot and didn't remember. Nothing serious, and certainly nothing malicious about the poorly slow and no-shows from Day 1. It's somewhat good too when you've had a moderately busy and stressful week to see "oh I don't have 3 pages to read through? Awesome."

[Pomegranate]

Greenie: I was working under the assumption that there are wolves around that don't know each other, yet need to hit the same targets, and thus would react to an outspoken "plan" - not knowing whether it is from a fellow wolf or just something that someone says out - hoping that either Nog were a wolf and followed his own plan, or if that wasn't the case, that others would pick the same plan as well. I don't know if I suspect Nog, until now I've been just very happy that he's around, but if other people are starting to wake up I'll give him more consideration. I agree with Greenie about him jumping on Shasta, and I'm not sure whether I like his approach towards myself. I'll do some re-reading in a bit and see if that leads to something.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Pomegranate

I agree with Greenie about him jumping on Shasta

"Agree"? He did jump on Shasta– no question. I wonder why, though.

And speaking of our resident psychic, I'd say the failed Night-kill points away from him, anyway. I mean, no doubt even clairvoyant wolves have their off-Nights, but still...