Ten Year Anniversary Game: Living Thread

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Mac

Maybe it's my memory now, but I think they were. Didn't they just chose not to check Nogrod, because he was so obviously a cobbler.

Seriously?! Okay, if that's true, then that game was even funnier than I remember.

Originally Posted by morm

old tummy is making this thread obscenely long

Psh. I remember days with considerably more posting than this. Put on your big boy pants and play.

Originally Posted by morm

However I'm not sure I fully understand the logic on the intentionally tying the vote and having the dead break the tie. I don't think the dead will know the guilty or innocent, will they?

Yes, they will. Only the Dead will know evil/good for certain. They will always know more.

Basically we try and lynch the folks we feel are guilty, and toward the end of the day we make sure our top two or three candidates are tied so that the dead can swing the vote. Of course that would require us to be on the ball and try and finish up an hour before deadline.

And if the Dead go against what my gut tells me I'll probably decide the plan sucks, but logically it's not a bad idea.

Anyway, I'm not committed to that idea, but I think it's worth considering. The only thing I'm truly committed to is giving the Dead the option of passing info to the Living. It would be silly not to take advantage of our only consistent connection to real information.

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by the phantom

Yes, they will. Only the Dead will know evil/good for certain. They will always know more.

I re-read the rules and once there is 3 in dead they will be able to vote to reveal if one of them is good or evil. They will know more than us so the plan has more merit than I originally thought, however my reservation still remains that a prescribed voting pattern takes away one of the clearest evidences we have.

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Mith

I may as well state now that I didn't come back to Werewolf to merely be a pawn in anyone's masterplan and I certainly don't want to play if it is a case of "Do what Phantom tells you or it is all your fault". So to be clear, I will vote as I see fit, not as I am told, dead or alive. It is a game, it is meant to be fun. I am not here to be a minion, bullied or bored to sobs.

I fully expect you to vote as you see fit. When we vote we simply cast the vote that is the most beneficial to our side. Thus if you can use your Dead vote to reveal an important clue to the Living why not do so?

Basically I don't think the whole passing information plan infringes on your voting rights. When we vote we are always considering outcomes. Sometimes we don't vote for our best candidate but rather our second best because we know our first choice won't get lynched that day, etc.

Or looking at it a different way- if someone tells me, "Phantom, try and vote for a Werewolf!" there is no need for me to object- "I don't have to vote for a Werewolf. I'm free to vote for anyone I want!" Obviously, yes, I can do anything I please with my vote, but in the end I will of course vote in such a way that benefits my cause. I expect people to vote logically and attempt to win. Nothing more.

(You'll note that I built options into my plan to allow the Dead maximum vote flexibility while simultaneously passing information. I did this specifically because I knew certain folks would complain if they were asked to participate in anything resembling a plan.)

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Nog

That said, I'm somewhat optimistic with our chances as a village: there are so many factors involved, not the least the rivalry between the two competing Wolfgangs *sic*.

Nog you're killing me!

Originally Posted by Nog

Oh one question on what Greenie said and most people seemed to strongly agree on (maybe I'm just in rust for not playing WW for a long time):

I'm just a bit confused about the last sentence, the conclusion, or the POV of it, that is.

Originally Posted by Mac

Actually, that's a good catch. Wouldn't the conclusion be: "so a good-looking case is not as strong a sign of innocence as it usually is"?

Either way. What I was getting at was trying to figure out how to spot wolves with these dynamics. One of my most common reasons for suspecting anyone is that a case they make seems fabricated, ie. they know the person they're accusing is not actually guilty. I was referring to not being able to base speculations about a player's wolfishness on this since the wolves, too, are essentially hunting wolves they don't know the identities of. Did that help?

Originally Posted by Lottie

It doesn't make sense to tie before the Dead thread starts up, since we have a better chance at killing wolves and avoiding Gifteds if we lynch than if we leave it to the Night kills (see my above post).

Word.

Originally Posted by Lottie

I am also dubious about giving the Dead thread the power to choose who dies in the lynch - I agree that it would be good to set up a system wherein the Dead can let us know who they checked and what the result was, but I would prefer for that system to not give the Dead the ultimate choice. After all, if all we the voters can do is comply with the voting scheme already set out, we do not get nearly as much information on the voters. Even if we don't know the result of the vote, looking at people's votes with an eye to what they appear to be trying to do, who they want lynched, and who they don't gives us a lot of information that we wouldn't get if we gave that power to the Dead.

This is also a very good point. I would suggest trying to leave the deciding vote for the Dead only if we have good reason to believe they have crucial information we don't.

Originally Posted by Nog

Well, we'll see - for it truly seems a complicated game (I haven't had time yet to really walk myself through the rules and the possibilities they might offer all the sides). But therefore I'd suggest we at least start by trying to lynch a wolf and notb try to enforce a double-lynch on D1 (it most probably will not work anyway).

Sidenote - don't worry, Nog, no double-lynches in this game! A tie will result in no lynch.

Also, thanks Kuru for the clarification! I was confused.


EDIT: x-ed with morm, phantom, Agan and Lommy. Also, can I just say how happy it makes me to type that? I mean, cross-posting with morm and phantom, for the first time in God knows how many years! <3

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by phantom

Basically I don't think the whole passing information plan infringes on your voting rights. When we vote we are always considering outcomes. Sometimes we don't vote for our best candidate but rather our second best because we know our first choice won't get lynched that day, etc.

For heaven's sake man, stop sounding like a politician!

Originally Posted by Lommy

edit: xed with Agan - ...WHAT???? I smell Freud... but whatever I'll look at it when I'm back

I assume you're referring to this:

Originally Posted by Agan

"We" obviously as in "us villagers", not as in "me and my wolf pack", duh!

I don't smell Freud as much as a trolling Agan. Admittedly, I took morm's "Agan, what are you suggesting here" as not a reference to her use of "we" but to her hypothesis of the Dead Thread only being populated by Europeans, and in that regard her reply doesn't really make sense. That doesn't equal Freud-odor, though.


EDIT: x-ed with phantom again!

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

Sidenote - don't worry, Nog, no double-lynches in this game! A tie will result in no lynch.

Sorry about my sloppy expression... That was indeed what I meant to say: double lynch = no lynch - and that is what we shouldn't do. Lynching baddies is how we win games, not by waiting for someone else to do it for us.

Also: what helps us lynching the baddies is having some clues as to who did what and when, but with an agreed upon consensus (even with only some people claiming to take part) for any style of voting we lose a lot (or all) the info voting could give us.

- "Why did you not vote for the guy who turned out a wolf and we all saw as one so clearly?"
- "Well I thought we were still hanging on to this deal we'd leave it to dead to decide!"

So let's not give anyone a "free passage" -card with "I can't explain my vote otherwise, I was only trying this scheme someone talked about".

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

So let's not give anyone a "free passage" -card with "I can't explain my vote otherwise, I was only trying this scheme someone talked about".

But I can use that excuse, right? I mean... I was kinda hoping to skate by on that for at least 2 days.

[mormegil]

++Macaclure

Sorry for the earlish vote, not sure what the rest of the night holds and wanted to make sure I get it in. He is the one that seems a bit off to me. I don't recall any previous encounters with him so my perspective is as unbiased as it can be but something in a number of the posts felt off, not the statistics though .

Hey, look I did the whole red highlight thing right!

[Thinlómien]

But first a step back:

Originally Posted by Agan

"We" obviously as in "us villagers", not as in "me and my wolf pack", duh! [winking smiley]

This still exchange related to this post by Agan sounds rather fishy to me. So, as I read it, Agan is playing with scenarios and makes a joking example of the village only killing (= lynching) Europeans. Morm makes fun of her by implying she actually suggested doing that (since she's European herself, it's kind of double crazy idea). Agan misunderstands that morm is (half-jokingly) calling her out on saying "killing" instead of "lynching", which would imply she's one of the wolves (the term "killing" usually referring to Night kills) and she continues the joke from that angle. Basically I find it curious that Agan would interpret morm's comments in a way that would lead her to make a joking clarification about not making a Freudian slip about being a wolf. Like, I don't know why an innocent player would look at morm's comment from that angle. (Morm please clarify if I'm the one misreading your comment to Agan.)

Okay then...

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Btw. how about we send the phantom into the Dead Thread as our first move? If he is innocent he is a great asset organizing things for us there - and there people could check his alignment (unlike here) so everyone would know whether to trust his ideas or not. It would be a win-win -situation.

I actually laughed aloud. (Also Greenie's reaction. Have I ever mentioned I love my family?)

Originally Posted by Rikae

Day 1 too often seems like the day to lynch anyone who behaves erratically, which is, to my recollection, a really bad strategy.

Or alternatively vote someone whom you always suspect, which is equally bad. For example I had to slap myself today getting bad vibes from Lottie - I always suspect her on Day1, regardless of her role. So I would actually encourage people to go for someone they usually don't suspect if they're wavering between two options as it's less likely they're just falling prey to knee-jerk reactions. (Later addition: okay, I see Rikae said practically the same. Should I start worrying about the number of people I'm aggressively agreeing with?)

Originally Posted by Form

In PRACTICE, however, the actual participation of the players starts with Day 1--in a real world, if werewolves started killing people in a closed community, we'd have a history of interaction with our neighbours on which to base our lynchings; in the game world, we have nothing but a Day 1 that precedes any actual choices made by the Wolves. The death of the moderator is presented as a fait accompli and we have to try and analyze the actions of people who never actually made any decision to kill that person.

Yes, but you forget the Night kills are hardly the only trail the wolves leave, and they are even less reliable in this game than in your average game since the roles are not revealed upon death. (Of course, the same goes for the usefulness of the lynches, but the lynches are our only weapon against the wolves, and while they might be killing each other, all the six wolves won't die without our help.)

Originally Posted by Greenie

So yes, we're statistically more likely to lynch an innocent than a wolf, but that is sadly not a feature of Day 1 but rather of the entire game.

^^ this.

Originally Posted by Mith

I don't think there has been much discussion of the wildcard role. Obviously it is hard to discuss an undescribed role but it is a known unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld would say, something we know we don't know. It holds strange powers some of which might well stuff up cleverclogs voting systems.

As you said, there's little use in discussing it now - however, it's good to keep in mind that if something doesn't add up in this game, it might be thanks to the special role.

Originally Posted by Eomer

certainly Lommy, Shasta, Nilp and Boro are never wasted lynches, if you ask me.

Wrong, sir, first off it's you and morm who are never wasted lynches and besides if you go to the grimoire I have an amazing track record of being an ordo in 90% of the games I've played in and a very successful seer in several games in the last 10%, so statistically speaking it's a very bad idea to lynch me.

Originally Posted by Agan

I think it's more important to keep the Dead Thread under control as best we can

I disagree. We cannot control the Dead Thread. I've been thinking about this and what I would do if I died and had to vote on the dead thread. First off, I would be likely to start lazing because following two threads and general frustration at being dead, ugh. (I'm being honest here.) Being the good citizen I am, I'd still probably get as far as voting. Now, would I follow the instructions of the living? Possibly, unless we dead people had a better idea. How to convey that to the living? And - I'm emphasizing this again - whose instructions would I follow? Say, the phantom suggests a course of action for the dead thread. Six living people state they agree. Four state they disagree. The rest don't comment. Now, are the living to assume the dead then followed the instructions? How could they know? Or what if two living players had two different ideas for what the dead should do and there was no clear consensus? Whose idea would the dead follow then? And how would the living ever deduce whose idea the dead went with?

Seriously, unless we elect a living village spokesperson or something, there's no way of clearly communicating with the dead. The best we can do is probably use our knowledge of the personalities and the playing styles of the deceased and try to guess what those particular players would do, but that's a little risky. In short, we shouldn't make decisions based on how we can use the dead thread until we have found a way to do so, because it's possible we'll never find one.


edit: xed with Lalaith and onwards

[Thinlómien]

Okay, now seriously kinda thinking about it.

What if we actually elected (toMorrow, as it's getting late toDay) a village spokesperson to direct the dead thread? Or come up with a system where people could volunteer to be the spokesperson and we'd rotate the turn between them?

And everybody would pinky swear that when they're dead, they'd obey the village spokesperson?

That way, we could get about ...80...? percent reliable information from the dead thread, if there isn't an obvious pitfall I didn't see. (Apart from that I don't know how we'd ever get everyone to participate in the spokesperson election and pledging to serve the living in the afterlife.)


edit: xed with Mac and Nog

[Thinlómien]

Okay then the list:

The Good
Rikae - so far so good, seems calm and collected which (sorry dear) Wolfkae often isn't
Mac - well I think I'm usually fairly good at reading him and he seems ok atm
Firefoot - somehow seems pretty good to me or whatsoever no specific reason
morm - I actually think he might be innocent this time?
Nilp - as I see it: self-voted because it was expected of him, since then has been very reasonable and seemingly genuinely trying to figure out what's good for the village
Legate - seems more like his innocent self than not, would not bet large sums of money on it though

The Bad
Sally - under my radar, and in a manner that makes me think of sneaky Sallywolves of the past
Agan - her little "slip" and he shameless advocation of no lynch make me raise my eyebrows to say the least

The Ugly (err sorry I mean the in-between category )
Form - I disagree with his reasoning, but that has nothing to do with his role
Gwath - where art thou?
McCaber - insufficient data
Lottie - acknowledging the fact my bad vibes are probably kneejerk, if they persist, I will have a better look at her
Boro - ...he posted?? in an uncharacteristically unnoticeable manner, then!
Nogrod - so far looking like his usual sinister self and making a lot of sense
Nerwen - all I've got on her is "I hope she votes toDay"
Rune - he seems a little... grumpy? nervous? negative? but then again isn't that why we love him
Lalaith - no idea yet, just happy she's playing after a loooooooooong time *waves*
Eomer - seems fairly fine for Eomer actually, haha, but not good enough to be in the good category
Shasta - could be either way, as always
the phantom - I actually think he looks pretty innocent at this point, but he can thank his reputation for me still keeping my eye on him
Mith - innocentish vibes, slightly curiously started talking about the special role out of the blue (throwaway topic, even though that matters a lot less than in an ordinary game)
Greenie - is a meanie, and very sharp, and I adore her, but I'm absolutely not trusting her
Kath - goes to the "has hardly been here" category


edit: xed with da phants and onwards

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I disagree. We cannot control the Dead Thread.

Exactly. And the Dead might not wish to be controlled either - they probably even have a better idea about what is going on than people in the living thread and will see the follies we here, or some of us, might think as wisdom.

So I'd be cautious of trying to make deals here on the living thread concerning what to do here based on ideas that the dead will follow rules we set to them - or rules suggested by some willing gamechangers.

[Nogrod]

At 2am my time I think it's beginning to be a time to wrap it up for my part for toDay.


First: the wolves are not too keen on passing to the realm of the dead. They will fight, at least a little, to not be lynched. An ordo would have no problems changing realms as the game will be quite intense and fun in the Dead Thread in a couple of days time.

Second: the living can't control the thread of the dead and should not imagine they can. the dead are much wiser than the living so even an idea that looks pretty nice in the living thread might be folly seen from the POV of the dead. So let's not fall into hybris here that we know how to handle any forthcoming situations.

Third: the dead thread will be confusing as well. With three possible deaths per day/night -cycle and them being able to check only one during the same interval there will be more unknowns than known people in there (as the Night-kills aren't automatically innocents).

Fourth: if you want to talk of probabilities, the probability of the wolves just nicely killing each other is something like zero. So we should use our weapon which is lynching. And if we make a mistake (which we're bound to do) the people we lynch will still be on the dead thread and can play it from there - being able to try and catch the wolves with their possible knoweldge of the dead wolves.

Fifth: enter all the visits to and fro between the realms, mystery-roles etc. aka. let's just hunt some wolves toDay and try to make more informed tactical decisions later when we have something better to base them on.

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But first a step back:
This still exchange related to this post by Agan sounds rather fishy to me. So, as I read it, Agan is playing with scenarios and makes a joking example of the village only killing (= lynching) Europeans. Morm makes fun of her by implying she actually suggested doing that (since she's European herself, it's kind of double crazy idea). Agan misunderstands that morm is (half-jokingly) calling her out on saying "killing" instead of "lynching", which would imply she's one of the wolves (the term "killing" usually referring to Night kills) and she continues the joke from that angle. Basically I find it curious that Agan would interpret morm's comments in a way that would lead her to make a joking clarification about not making a Freudian slip about being a wolf. Like, I don't know why an innocent player would look at morm's comment from that angle. (Morm please clarify if I'm the one misreading your comment to Agan.)

Home and trying to catch up I'm to this point...Being on the East Coast makes the timing on these quite different than when I was out West...anyway

Yes, it was said in a joking way as I thought it sounded very funny. Her response I took as a bit of a joke too but her follow up reaction raises and eyebrow or two.

[Boromir88]

I'm back and have been reading.

If I were to vote on vague suspicions of a furry-biter...

Nogrod stands out...the insistence in needing a lynch tonight is pinging on my radar. I get the lynch is a needed weapon to get wolves, but as Form says sometimes it's worth waiting for the enemy to make the first move. And...

I do not like the "let's not lynch anyone toDay" -meme (backed by the idea that we might lynch our Seer who is very important in this game) as the chances of lynching our seer are minuscule compared to any normal game and there are such loads of wolves around - and if we were to lynch the seer s/he could act on it before things get nasty thus at least securing another two dreams the next Night when the Ranger covered it for her/him...

There 24 players of which 1 is the Seer. The chances of hitting the Seer on D1 lynching = 1/24.

THere are 3+3 wolves in this game. The chances of getting a wolf on D1 lynching = 6/24 = 1/4. And add to that the practical stats we've just seen (a village is slightly better than random in picking up the villains), so yeah. Let's try and hunt a wolf toDay.

In the words of Han Solo...never tell me the odds! The bottom line is a Seer living through Day 1 with 4 dreams is a better asset and powerful gifted Seer than any village has arguably ever had. As miniscule as the chance is, it's not something I want to leave to chance, on a Day 1 lynch where we won't know anything about until later (or possibly never).

I'm not optimistic about organizing a tied-vote, there are too many variables and too many who probably would be against it. However, I'll be here for the rest of the night and it's likely what I will have in mind to do when I do vote.

Now to read through page 4 and beyond!

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

This is me not ordering the Dead around (like I can tell Nog, phantom, or Rune what to do), but I'd bet a pretty penny they'd uncover phantom's role toNIGHT.

Now that I think about it, Nogrod feels less evil, but more stubborn? (With the way he opposed the plan, I chuckled at the thought of leaving him in charge of the Dead thread, at least for a NIGHT.) Anyway, surely, no one can be that blatantly evil, especially in a game like this, where losing one of the Pack would put the rest under immense pressure to catch an opposing Baddie. Probably.

Of course, this line of reasoning should also exonerate Agan's fumble, but a slip of the tongue is one thing, and a determined and blatant effort to oppose something that's obviously for the village is another. It's hard to imagine someone being so glaringly evil, but a slip of the mask is still possible.

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Just checking in. I've decided on a posting project today (nothing too fancy, so don't get too excited) but it's gone one in the morning and it took me far too long to even articulate this post, so I'll get to it in the morning. Night, everyone.