Game Thread - WW XCIIX - The Meaning Of Death

[Loslote]

tp: Why did you send the dream to me?

[Boromir88]

I wish I had the gall to use my self protect night 1...as if the KMs situation wouldn't have been bad enough. Excellent game and role design G55, I think with the way we could use Elendil's dreams it knocked the game off balance. But don't get too down, it was experimental with some really interesting roles, and had it been large enough to keep a Cursed Cobbler, then there would be some real Day 1 and early going fireworks.

After realizing the dream plan, my main focus was make sure a dream happened thus guard Shasta night 1. And then dupe the wolves into coming after me on a night I would use my self-protection, but I painted that "Come kill me sign" a bit too early, and didn't have the riskyness to use it Night 1. I liked the making me look like Elendil the day after, quite fantastic Shasta and tp.

[Pomegranate]

Oh yeah, boldly played, Phantom and Shasta. I tried to figure out that situation after my death, and everything else was traceable, but I couldn't figure out why Shasta would say he dreamed of Phantom, why he would trust enough. It worked, gladly.

[the phantom]

Wow, now that was an interesting game. I'm glad I played- even if it did wreck my schedule a bit.

Shasta- major kudos to you. On Day 2 I really didn't know which way things were going to swing, so I was attempting to lay groundwork for various forks the game could take. I knew the bluffed dream was a possibility, but I didn't have my heart set on it, for I knew it might be difficult for you to bring yourself to trust me so far that you would risk handing me the game (if I was a KM). But you took the risk- and it paid off. Thanks much! I'd love to hear what all you were thinking at the time.

And way to keep the cards close, Inzil. As I said on the final day, I was totally going to let you do my reveal for me in thanks for not outing me earlier, but unfortunately you died first.

Originally Posted by Lottie

tp: Why did you send the dream to me?

I had lists put together for potential KM packs and you were on too many of them compared to how guilty I actually believed you to be. I suspected you more of being Isildur than being a KM in fact- thus ruling you out would be rather useful to me, as it left Nerwen in every remaining pack, and I suspected her strongly.

I debated a lot on who to send you, though. Even though assuming you innocent left Nerwen as the obvious choice, I was wanting to get Morsul ruled out as well, as I saw him as one that was likely to get lynched and likely to be innocent. I very nearly picked him as the dream.

But the main problem I saw with that was that would leave the lynch target open. If it came down to Nerwen and Inzil I would've been pleased, as Inzil was the other high-occurrence KM besides Lottie and he didn't look so clean, and I felt that finding him innocent via lynch would at the least tell me that Steve was in the pack, where as at the moment I was inclined to leave Steve out (I wondered if he was more in the mold with Morsul as far as being a lynching distraction).

In the end it came down to playing the odds- I felt we just really needed a correct lynch. So I sent my big suspect to the most trustworthy unknown and hoped the gamble paid off. If I was right then I thought it would really help because I felt Nerwen was the biggest threat to a positive lynch outcome, in the sense that she could spear-head efforts to herd the sheep in the wrong direction.

(Of course it did occur to me to send the dream to Shasta or Brin, but I figured the KMs would try and kill them, particularly after I'd spent the entire day planting the idea that Shasta was the obvious kill.)

Anyway- it worked out, and all's well as ends well, right?

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Good game, everyone.

Phantom - A lot of that day had me wavering back and forth, but I knew with the death of a gifted Boro (and the fact that he'd been the dream, meaning we were down one dream already) that the innocents needed some way to come back. With you having come up with the dream plan mechanic, I couldn't see any reason a KM-phantom would have done something so detrimental to the baddies, so I took a leap of faith (knowing that, if you were a KM, I was handing you the game did nothing to help me sleep at night!). I almost came back at the last second of the Day and spoiled the ruse, but I knew you were working extra hard to get the KMs to attack me at night - therefore, you were clearly Anarion and going to protect me.

[Kuruharan]

I started reading through this game during some idle time at work and was hooked.

It was a most riveting game.

Very well played, and of course, the twist of the known innocent still being innocent...but not actually being known.

[Galadriel55]

Firstly, good job innocents! You did some marvelous wolf-detecting. And the whole mental limbo with the dreams was a stroke of genious on Shasta's part. Kudos to you.

KMs, I was very impressed with your knack for knocking the gifteds! It was kinda scary, looking at the kill at Night and thinking "what? ANOTHER one? AGAIN?". Refreshing the page every few seconds about 2 minutes before DL was a bit nervewracking, though. You were awesome, and you put up a good fight despite the unbalanced conditions.

As for that part, I sincerely apologize to both the wolves and the village for not thinking the logistics through. The lesson learnt from that: do not start an experimental game the first time you mod unless you've had it reviewed and approved by all of the ancient WW-playing community. I hope you enjoyed the narrations, though.

Once again, well done everyone! You were very entertaining, and even though I was a bit pressed for time and only skimmed the thread lately it was fun to see first the mix up with the dreams, and then the final reveals... And every once in a while I chuckled when on a suspicion list all the KMs were under one group but the wrong one...

[Brinniel]

During one of the last Days, it dawned on me that Elendil just had to be phantom. After all, Inzil knew who Elendil was so it wouldn't make sense to list Manwe and Eonwe as likely baddies. That left Morsul, who I just couldn't believe would be gifted. And it would be so typical of phantom to sneak by the baddies as a gifted without them realizing it. But I kept getting stuck on the fact that Shasta couldn't have dreamed of phantom were he Elendil. Faking a dream as a known innocent is certainly a risky move and I wasn't sure if Shasta would be so bold. But he was, so kudos to him on that.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

As for that part, I sincerely apologize to both the wolves and the village for not thinking the logistics through. The lesson learnt from that: do not start an experimental game the first time you mod unless you've had it reviewed and approved by all of the ancient WW-playing community.

I do think it would've been more balanced if you had a larger village with the Cursed Cobbler as intended. Don't worry if things didn't play out quite as planned; both games I modded didn't go as I planned (in fact, they were disasters). I think modding really is a learning experience. Nevertheless, this has been a fun game and I'm sure most other players would agree.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable return after a long absence from WW. Certainly a better ending than my last game.

[satansaloser2005]

Hurrah! Glad to see this ended in a village victory, although the villains were clever and certainly would have deserved the win if they'd taken it.

Originally Posted by Boro

I painted that "Come kill me sign" a bit too early

Same here, to some extent, though, as I expected, I haven't had a chance to read the thread since this weekend. I knew there was no way I'd be around Tuesday, so I'm glad the baddies took the flail bait and killed me instead of someone more useful (or at least more available). Except, you know, someone made me think about Morsul as I lay dying....

I had already intended to put myself up for a kill since I thought the game was going to go more than another Day (see above), but I over-over-hinted as a knee jerk to Phantom terrorizing me (you jerk), and I couldn't decide whether Dun was holding his cards because he knew someone else or because Phantom was telling him not to. Of course it was both, because Phantom. Sadly the dream rules change turned this from a suicidal protective maneuver into one that was in fact detrimental to the village, but given how much the innocents broke the game, I think it's only fair we had a wrench thrown at our heads....um, I mean plans.

If a game like this is tried again, I recommend the mod think about how the players may abuse the setup and plan accordingly. It's impossible to think of every loophole, but I think further limitations on the dreams (for instance, being able to send to a target no more than twice during the entire game, and perhaps even limiting that to only being able to double target one person the entire game) would have made it much more difficult to manipulate the system. Then again, Phantom tends to find a way to break anything....

Well played by all. More thoughts later, perhaps, but it's been quite a long (but enjoyable) day, and I need some sleep.

[the phantom]

I don't know why everyone seems convinced the setup was broken or unbalanced in some way. The fact is even playing it the way we did it took an extremely gutsy risk by Shasta and a well-played continuation of his risk by me and a gutsy risk in choosing Lottie for a dream in order to win this thing. Despite our good luck and good play we villagers were possibly one Night-kill choice away from losing this game.

What if instead of killing Shasta that night they kill me? Frankly it's what I expected despite all my efforts to push the kill-choice towards Shasta. Because killing him didn't help the KMs at all- due to his Amandil power it instead just transferred known-innocent status from him to Inzil, thus reducing the potential lynching pool.

Killing me and leaving Shasta alive on the other hand would have cut the knowns down to 2 and killing Brin the next night would've left it at 1, and given that population and the dynamics that existed I suspect Morsul would have gotten lynched at some point, and then it would be down to one final day in which all the innocents had to vote correctly and together to keep the Baddies from winning. In other words, if Steve or Manwe could manage to lynch either Inzil or Lottie ahead of them, game over. In fact, if Morsul had gotten lynched the day after Nerwen then Steve and Manwe could've potentially won the game with both of them still alive! A fairly resounding victory.

And frankly this is all you can ask for in terms of balance- if it can come down to a final day and innocents have to decide between a Baddie and an unknown innocent, then you did it right.

[Galadriel55]

D0 – “whilst there is still one voice to cry” – There’ll Always Be An England
N1 – “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn the power on man, for none of woman-born shall harm Macbeth” – Shakespeare, Macbeth.
D1 – “I think, therefore I am” – Descartes
N2 – “Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.” – Wolf Larsen, Jack London, The Sea Wolf
D2 – “I’m a good boy, I am!” – “I’m a good girl, I am” – G.B. Shaw, Pygmalion, OR My Fair Lady, Eliza.
N3 – “We are not amused” – Queen Victoria
D3 – “Had you fought like a man, you need not have been hang'd like a dog” – Anne Bonny
N4 – “The things I do for love” – G.R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister
D4 – “I think you've made your point now / You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home. / Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt” – Jesus Christ Superstar, Peter (Could we start again please)
N5 – “You don’t want to ___. You want to go home and rethink your life.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi, Episode II, Star Wars
D5 – “I left the first for another day” – Robert Frost, A Road Not Taken


If you have had an inkling about any one of them, count yourself a winner.