Game Thread: WW LXXXVI - The Halls of Mandos

[the phantom]

And about the double lynch- honestly I'm not even a little bit sorry. Heh- I actually wasn't expecting the double due to the fact that there was the extra-vote power out there (I completely forgot the fact that Agan hadn't voted either of the top two candidates, plus Shasta didn't vote, and those two were pretty well guaranteed to have the power) but I'm glad I finally offed Lommy, and I'm anxious to see what she was.

As far as Nessa... We ought to debate tomorrow (or late today after the vote is decided) if we'd rather have our latest lynch checked or her, but that's not an issue for now.

[Boromir88]

I lied.

Originally Posted by the phantom

As far as Nessa... We ought to debate tomorrow (or late today after the vote is decided) if we'd rather have our latest lynch checked or her, but that's not an issue for now.

No. It's best if we tell the dead exactly what we want now. Leaving to decide this later in the day will only clutter up the lynch, and also make it easier for any baddies to mess up and put an end to Agan's plan.

If you want to wait to see if you think it would be better to let Nessa go and the dead check who we lynch today. Fine. But I say we tell them the plan now.

What I mean is, EVERYONE, and I mean everyone. Besides just making your lynch vote, tell the dead who you want to check.

I suggest. "Dead ones. Check ______" (insert Nessa or Today's lynch)

Dead people. Go by majority rules. If it's a tie, go by the person who first reached the vote.

Agree this is a straight forward plan the dead can follow? Excellent. Moving on...

[Mithalwen]

Glad as I am that I have said something sensible for once, it does occur that we could totally eliminate any wolf anticipation by just stating the criteria for the day depending on who we have left - There are lots of ways of doing it someone with numbers in name, one word name.... but for today odds and evens is just fine. Of course we don't have to vary the system at all but if pointing out we could stymies a wolftrick


Are we going to refine it to make clear if Lommie or Nessa or is that too limiting?

[Mithalwen]

Ah so there was a def agreement in case of a double lynch, okies. Well I shall be out for a few hours this morning but on past form will be quiet anyway.

[Mithalwen]

Helloooooooooooooooooooo? I know Ang has had tecnical difficulties via FB ..suppose not alone...

[Anguirel]

Right. Well, sorry about that hiatus within the non-hiatus. It has been, though, quite helpful for my point of view in retrospect; very rarely am I accorded an insight in a werewolf game which is not a bit deranged by me being in the thick of it. Now I can peruse a whole day of 'control'.

I was concerned after a couple of re-readings by just how much mob rule went on during the day of the double-lynching. Very few candidates were seriously proposed, and of course even fewer voted for. Nessa got half a quorum deciding against her before she had said anything (although admittedly partly because she hadn't). phantom said he thought her more cobbler than wolf. I thought that sounded sensible at the time but actually, that is the most passive and uninfluential way to play a cobbler. I reckon there's a slim outside chance she was a silent Mata Hari wolf, but that more likely the situation was Manwe all over again.

Neither, after some thought, did I like what happened to Thinlomien much, although it was even more unstoppable than Nessa, in a different way. Nessa had none but the most threadbare of defences; Lommy somehow enacted just enough of a defence to convince several big guns, otherwise mutually disunited, that she was lying (I'm thinking Boro, phantom, Mith). Not so sure myself. Her attitude reminded me of me. "So what, wolfy," you might respond, and I suppose that's a valid enough question.

But when one is in fact innocent, the mod has handed one a powerful but double-edged weapon - the absolute conviction of inner (sometimes self-) righteousness. Wolves (and cobblers) can try and imitate this feeling's outward radiation, but they never get it quite right. Cf Nogrod, I think. Whereas in my view Shasta, wilwa and Mith have taken that stand, this game, in ways that convinced me, amongs others, then and now. Obviously Shasta now matters less but I remain pretty confident about the other two.

I say that this inner glow of innocence is double-edged, and that it can be self-righteous, because it makes innocents liable to be defensive. They feel frustrated at their attackers because they know they are truthful, and it's tempting to launch into a retaliatory crusade in turn, where innocents hang each other all over the shop. As an innocent (in this case) who enjoys thinking, and is conscious of sounding, like a wolf (cf Fea, Aganzir), I am subject to a related but different problem - I tend to clear people who accuse me too easily, because I know it is reasonable to accuse me.

I shall therefore try to be quite even-handed about Sally, in negative as well as positive ways. She has brought up a persistent, undercoloured, half-jocular thought about me despite not having me to bounce off and react to about it (as Thinlomien got reacted against by her accusers.) She maintains that case into today despite considerable new event - a voting pattern, a double-lynch and a successful Glorfindel save. I can't remember whether she knows I'm a person people like to lynch, but against someone largely absent, I wouldn't call it the boldest of manouevres. I will give it this, though: it's quite original at the moment, more so than either of yesterday's candidates.

So much for Sally, who is one of my suspicions but certainly not supreme among them. That honour goes to Loslote. I believe her implication that she caused the double-lynch by accident, but her stress on this accident, a preemptive fanning off of blame, looks really bad. Also, read her posts yesterday's and no one else's. The consistency of wolf-perspective they show, given their rarity and brevity, is really noticeable. On the whole then I think her guilty of murder rather than of shoemaking. A cobbler wouldn't have bothered to try and excuse that double-lynch to her extent. I would like to lynch Loslote today well ahead of anyone else.

phantom is as so often in a sort of architecturally integral position, where no one has the spirit or strength to conduct archaeological research on him because the operation is megalithic, inconvenient, and a bit dangerous. Unfortunately I myself am firmly in that "no one." I don't want to lynch him yet (and that's a phrase that keeps coming up about him; Boro and Elron both said something of the kind yesterday). I will say this though - I disapprove of his ironclad set of instructions to the dead. We all need absolute flexibility to adapt to new situations, not further rules in a heavily ruled game...

Mith's amendment was therefore helpful as far is went, but it only diluted what I think is innately a bad idea. (I was uneasy too with the number of people who loudly OKed it; the expressive enthusiastic support of a detail; like constitutional reform supporters in other political struggles, they seemed technical, weird and playing a long game...)

Finally, a few observations on the few voices that seem to defy the convention wisdom - even if sometimes very oddly. sally's casually intent pursuit of me is one example. Legate's position that lynching Cobblers is a bad thing (the heir of Nogrod's theory) and overt suspicion of phantom is another. A Little Green, even more radically, still wonders whether Nogrod was perhaps truthful. Glirdan's defence of wilwa is strong, well expressed and convincing - even if arguably only a wolf has the knowledge to be so persuasive.

I think much of the stuff in that last paragraph is mistaken on specifics, but all the same if we want to face the full range of possibilities we need more thinking like it.

On the whole if I had to bet now I'd go for a triumvirate of Glirdan, Sally and Loslote, so I'd better check if there are any actual relationships between them...

[Anguirel]

(as you can see, I'm afraid I think we still haven't caught a real wolf, though we may be down a cobbler or two. One of those cobblers is isolated in Mandos, more or less in the open, so we can probably count on quite helpful support from the Dead right now. But the population is dipping worryingly.)

I'm sorry the above is so antisocial to read, as well. I had a lot to say and had been prevented, first by my bodyclock then by the aether, from saying it...

And, please speak up lords and ladies. Some of our most vocal debaters are dead now. On this thread as well as theirs. (Now I'm starting to imagine them as Oxford and Cambridge...)

[Mithalwen]

But Lommies "defence" of my point was totally unconvincing. Apart from the fact that it was completely inconsistent, I find feigning ignorance of the rules supremely suspicious. One think to miss an in game post but the rules are upfront and accessible. Apart from the fact it is a basic cursory to the mod to read them it always seems so disingenuous to ask rather than to go and check too "oh I am too innocent and ordinary to have to worry about the technicalities".

[Anguirel]

I'm feeling extremely sympathetic to a disillusioned attitude to the technicalities.

This plan re: lynching and double votes, for example. I don't get one major thing: it seems to assume that wolf for wolf votes won't happen. Isn't that crazy?

But really I just hate plans, on principle. They mean we end up having to talk about boring mechanics instead of wild psychoanalytical speculation.

[elronds_daughter]

Originally Posted by Mith

...too "oh I am too innocent and ordinary to have to worry about the technicalities".

I agree with you on this.

And Ang, your tome was one of the easier ones to read through. I found it helpful.

Not much for opening thoughts, I know.... I'm not sure how "okay" I am with the double-lynch. Glad the Lommy-enigma (she always is, to me) is gone, yes. But Nessa? I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by Anguirel

I disapprove of his ironclad set of instructions to the dead. We all need absolute flexibility to adapt to new situations, not further rules in a heavily ruled game...

Mith's amendment was therefore helpful as far is went, but it only diluted what I think is innately a bad idea. (I was uneasy too with the number of people who loudly OKed it; the expressive enthusiastic support of a detail; like constitutional reform supporters in other political struggles, they seemed technical, weird and playing a long game...)

I'm not sure what you mean here. Or rather, I'm not sure why devising a (very simple) system for communicating with the Dead concerns you. We can't count on the Lovers or Glorfy (that would just be bad sense tactically), so it makes sense that we ought to have a method of communication. And I don't see how it's "ironclad". We can always change it, if change is agreed upon. Or if it seems like the extra-vote-getters are not going to vote well. It's not a rule, just a system.

Upon consideration, I think I understand why it seems immovable to you. We need to be decisive, otherwise the Dead might get mixed messages. And we don't want that. So Boro and phantom (who is still fishy to me, but is not without his contributions) are being decisive.

But, done is done, on to a new day, etc., etc., and we need to catch a wolf. So.

Opinions:
Well, obviously the Lovers are okay.
I'm not sure what to make of Mith.
It strikes me that Lottie has often come across as "oh, dear, did I do something?" while still being innocent. So.....well, I'll investigate.
phantom is still iffy, but I'm still not ready to lynch him yet.
Boro seems innocenter and innocenter to me.
Not sure about the rest.


Oh, lastly - Yay, Glorfy!

[Boromir88]

This morning, I was having the same problems as Ang. The BD was temporarily not loading.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Glad as I am that I have said something sensible for once, it does occur that we could totally eliminate any wolf anticipation by just stating the criteria for the day depending on who we have left - There are lots of ways of doing it someone with numbers in name, one word name.... but for today odds and evens is just fine. Of course we don't have to vary the system at all but if pointing out we could stymies a wolftrick

Well, I think the odds and evens is simple and can't be affected by the lynches. The only way it gets screwed up is if the baddies hijack the dead thread. But as long as the dead know what we want them to do, and there's a trail, Agan's plan will continue to work.

Which is why I brought up yesterday, if the dead went with Agan's plan than Nessa went unchecked, for the plan to continue being of use, we're going to have to tell the dead to either check the Nessa or today's lynch. Phantom wanted to put this off until later, because maybe finding out today's lynch could be more informative then finding out Nessa's role. Which is a fair enough point, but if we wait to spin around in circles about it, it's going to get all jacked up.

I'm proposing a method that will

1) Tell the dead whether we want them to check Nessa or Today's lynch.

2) So we have a clear trail to follow for ourselves, and we don't screw up what the dead are trying to tell us.

So, instead of just our lynch votes, I think we make it plain to see what we want the dead to do. Easiest thing I can think of is.

Check _____ (insert Nessa or Today's lynch )

Dead will then go by majority rules, and if there's some tricky attempt to tie it. Then the first person who reached the vote total.

This way dead will see what we want them to do, and can continue giving the extra vote with the odds/evens plan. And we also have a trail to follow back to, so we don't screw up our end in botching what info the dead give us. Make sense? Simple?

Edit: crossed since phantom's post.

[the phantom]

(Here's the post I was going to post a few hours ago before the site went down.)

Originally Posted by Boro

This nullifies that double-lynch yesterday *glares at phantom and Lottie*.

Oh, whatever. Some people wanted Nessa, others wanted Lommy. Why don't you wait and see what they are before glaring.

Originally Posted by Boro

One more thing before sleepy time...Glorfy. Reveal when you want to, don't listen to phantom.

Whatever. If Glorfy saved himself last night then there isn't any reason not to reveal. He's going to die tonight anyway. May as well know the identity of one person.

Originally Posted by Boro

No. It's best if we tell the dead exactly what we want now.

Well then- what do you think? I would say that if the Dead find Lommy to be guilty then they should just keep checking our lynches, but if she turns out innocent they should check Nessa, for it would perhaps make that lynch particularly telling.

Originally Posted by Ang

That honour goes to Loslote. I believe her implication that she caused the double-lynch by accident, but her stress on this accident, a preemptive fanning off of blame, looks really bad. Also, read her posts yesterday's and no one else's. The consistency of wolf-perspective they show, given their rarity and brevity, is really noticeable. On the whole then I think her guilty of murder rather than of shoemaking. A cobbler wouldn't have bothered to try and excuse that double-lynch to her extent. I would like to lynch Loslote today well ahead of anyone else.

I will give her a read-over.

Originally Posted by Ang

Legate's position that lynching Cobblers is a bad thing (the heir of Nogrod's theory) and overt suspicion of phantom is another.

Yeah, I've been wondering if Legate's ill-founded (I believe) attack on me is a sign of innocence, for I cannot imagine a Wolf inviting that sort of thing. I mean really, if you've managed to stay off of Phantom's radar you'd have to be completely unafraid of death to launch any but the most careful and logically sound attack. Or is he counting on that? Risky I'd say.

Daughter's position on me is the more sensible if one is looking simply to survive. Voice a suspicion, but don't actually go so far as to poke at me. Hmmmm... I agree with Ang on this point- that's kind of suspicious.

[elronds_daughter]

Originally Posted by phantom

Well then- what do you think? I would say that if the Dead find Lommy to be guilty then they should just keep checking our lynches, but if she turns out innocent they should check Nessa, for it would perhaps make that lynch particularly telling.

I think this is a good idea.

And I haven't poked at you, phanty, because I honestly don't think you're that much of a threat. My gut tells me you're fishy, but you've been mostly helpful (if very vocal; but I'm sensing that's typical), though half of the helpfulness seems to be agreeing with Boro (who is on my "Sensible" list, by the by). Also, the fishy-gut-feelings don't point to wolfishness, just general muck-up-the-works-but-still-be-helpful-enough-to-be-ignored cobblery.

Now, to do what I was going to before the 'Downs apparently went down (pun intended, sorry).

Originally Posted by Anguirel

I feel really bad about elron's last post actually. There's a sort of mad collective conformity in this village, er, camp, which she endorses, straight down the line, numerous times -

- "not sure" on people she's been prominent in helping kill
- in favour of the technocratic elite with their elaborate plan that involves evil counting
- the phantom could be a wolf ,but for some reason we shouldn't possibly interrogate him yet
- the lovers are innocent (well, yeahhh...)
- Loslote is a scatty innocent

It's just...unconfrontational and platitudinous. There are wolves in this camp. Elron, who do you suspect? At the moment the closest thing you have to a suspect appears, in my view risibly, to be Mith...

Grumble-grumble-I-really-should-start-phrasing-things-more-decisively-grumble. <kicks self>

I can't see how I've been "prominent in helping kill" anyone except Lommy. Who I did think was off. From Day one, if you recall. If you're referring to my calling Lommy an enigma, that's because there are always things about her that I can't pin down.

I never said phantom could be a wolf. I said he seemed fishy. Which I still think he does. But (as explained above), it's not wolfishly fishy.

Mith is currently on my radar, mostly because I can't get a read on her yet. Which is puzzling.

Yes, there are wolves. For all we know, they could be the quiet, busy-in-real-life ones.

Okay, that's all for my self-defense. (That sort of thing never ends well.)

I think Boro's recent method (in conjunction with the original plan...Agan's, wasn't it? I got a bit lost that Day) is a good one. I'm really not sure why anyone is reluctant on this. Don't we want to know about the Dead before we die ourselves?

EDIT: Right, duh, of course it was Agan's plan. My brain apparently took an unexpected leave.

[Nerwen]

I'm sorry to have to be saying this again, but apologies again for not being around. It's been a combination of RL plus connection failures.

More when I've read things.