Ten Year Anniversary Game: Living Thread

[A Little Green]

A couple of things.

Originally Posted by phantom, underlining mine

I think #3 is the most intriguing aspect of this contest. The Baddies definitely don't want to lose the double kill each night (see my chart above for how quickly it diminishes our population), BUT they can't allow the opposing pack to equal or outweigh them, so really I think the WWs will be just as interested in lynching accurately as the rest of us. Lynching the opposition is the way to go, because it buys goodwill and they don't have to waste night kills on offing the other pack- hunting for Gifteds instead.

First, I think this is a crucial point. The wolves can (and probably will) engage in completely genuine wolf-hunting during Day phases, which means that we have to think differently than we would in a normal game; we have wolves who don't know everyone's alignment and who have a good motive to hunt bad guys too. That means they're not by default lying when they say they suspect someone, so a fake-looking case alone is not as strong a sign of wolfishness as it usually is. To make things even more muddled, looking at potential pack behaviour could point to the Lovers just as well. There are still the Night kills for clues, I suppose, but I personally never trusted them much, there's too much pure guesswork involved - especially in a game where the wolf packs might have an interest in framing each other as well as the villagers. I foresee a headache.

Originally Posted by phantom

Day 3 Seer reveals himself and 4 innocent dreams and Ranger/Hunter/Lovers also reveal, giving us 9 known innocents. That night the Ranger protects the Seer and the Seer brings us two additional innocents to balance the Ranger/Lover that were offed during the Night. We would at that point have 9 known innocents in a village of 19, thus giving us a 60% chance of lynching a WW. Let's say that night the WWs kill the Seer and other Lover, but the day before the Seer could tell us exactly who he was dreaming that night and whoever he finds innocent he'll make sure the Dead Thread gives a bonus vote to that person (so we have another known) meaning that even if we missed on the lynch yet again the day after we'd be sitting at 7-3-3 with SIX known innocents, thus we'd have a 6/7 chance of lynching a WW. If we missed yet again we'd sit at 4-3-3 with all four innocents being KNOWN, meaning all six Werewolves would then be known. (But then who the heck knows how that would go down, since everyone would know who was guilty and yet the innocents would be outweighed overall 4-6.)

I see a small hitch here. How can we believe anyone's claim if no roles are revealed upon death? There's no way of checking a claim, so basically we could have Seers revealing left, right and centre with no one able to verify which one is telling the truth - or, at least, no one but a resurrected dead person, and even that ony about whoever the dead happen to have checked.


EDIT: x-ed with two Lotties! <3

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Lottie

And I think we have to assume that we are, since it'll be a while until we get any confirmation one way or the other, and even that won't be as concrete as I would feel comfortable with.

Yeah, that's going to drive me nuts.
*lynch*
Okay, so... Was that a good lynch? Guess I'll find out in a couple days...

Originally Posted by Lottie

Then again, it seems to me that the best way to set the two packs against each other is simply to kill one wolf from either pack - then the pack which is down a member will by necessity switch its focus from the Gifteds to the other pack, since the only way for them to win would be to kill at least two members of the other pack.

Yep. Yep, yep, yep. The instant a Wolf gets killed this thing completely changes. But I would tentatively say that the Seer is still probably target #1 (because of the double-dream). Maybe. I dunno...

Originally Posted by Lottie

If we kill a wolf, we've gained a lot, and I might be hugely naive here, but I feel like they are less of a threat in the Dead Thread than in the Living Thread.

We gain a lot, yeah, but as far as WWs in the Dead Thread... I'm slightly hesitant to start laying out guidelines for the Dead, because really it'll be up to the Dead to do what they want, but you realize we could choose to empower the Dead.

Basically, we purposefully tie the vote every day and let the Dead decide who gets the bonus vote (and thus who dies). It's possible that it would be a good tactic (because the Dead will always know more than the living as they have access to the roles of the Dead). So basically we just debate which two to place on the chopping block and let the Dead call the shots. I mean, simple odds certainly say that we can trust the dead since 2/3 of them will be Wolf kills (thus unlikely to be Wolves). Plus we'll probably lynch a non-Wolf today.

Anyway, I don't know if it's even realistic to do what I'm talking about. Just putting it out there. Anyone else think about that option?

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Green

The wolves can (and probably will) engage in completely genuine wolf-hunting during Day phases, which means that we have to think differently than we would in a normal game; we have wolves who don't know everyone's alignment and who have a good motive to hunt bad guys too. That means they're not by default lying when they say they suspect someone, so a fake-looking case alone is not as strong a sign of wolfishness than it usually is.

Yeah, it's super weird.

Originally Posted by Green

How can we believe anyone's claim if no roles are revealed upon death? There's no way of checking a claim, so basically we could have Seers revealing left, right and centre with no one able to verify which one is telling the truth

Would a WW fake reveal in this contest? If there is a Seer counter then I guess the Ranger would have to protect both that night (ha ha, protecting a WW from the other team), but soon enough they'd both be dead (because the other pack doesn't know which is real) and thus soon enough the dead thread could tell us which Seer was real.
I simply post "Tomorrow I will cast a throwaway vote. If So-And-So was the real Seer, give me a bonus vote tomorrow", the Dead check So-And-So's true identity and then either give or don't give me the bonus vote according to what they found. Bang. We know which Seer was real and what the real Seer dreams were, not to mention the false-reveal WW is now dead which means the diminished pack has to gun for the other pack to avoid losing because they're already down one Wolf.

And if BOTH packs try a counter-reveal, even better, because we'd have a dent into both packs.

Is that right?

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by the phantom

Would a WW fake reveal in this contest? If there is a Seer counter then I guess the Ranger would have to protect both that night (ha ha, protecting a WW from the other team), but soon enough they'd both be dead (because the other pack doesn't know which is real) and thus soon enough the dead thread could tell us which Seer was real.

I think a false reveal is unlikely. But it could still buy the wolves a day or two, flush the real Seer, and maybe allow them to garner trust with the rest of the village by sacrificing one of the pack. I wouldn't write the potential off too easily.

I simply post "Tomorrow I will cast a throwaway vote. If So-And-So was the real Seer, give me a bonus vote tomorrow", the Dead check So-And-So's true identity and then either give or don't give me the bonus vote according to what they found.

I honestly had not thought of this, and it sounds really useful, but I am concerned about trusting the Dead Thread so much - what if they skew the vote? I don't think it's super likely, but all it would take is one wrong vote on the part of the Dead - maybe because of a wolf majority, maybe because of a lack of participation from the dead ordos, maybe from a misled and mistaken Dead - to deceive the whole village for, potentially, the rest of the game.

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

This is what happens when you don't get first word in. Y'all have all but covered my essay into the three-party dynamic of this village.

Oh, hi Mum.

[the phantom]

Originally Posted by Lottie

I honestly had not thought of this, and it sounds really useful, but I am concerned about trusting the Dead Thread so much - what if they skew the vote? I don't think it's super likely, but all it would take is one wrong vote on the part of the Dead - maybe because of a wolf majority, maybe because of a lack of participation from the dead ordos, maybe from a misled and mistaken Dead - to deceive the whole village for, potentially, the rest of the game.

Meh, it won't deceive us for the whole game, because at some point a lover or Ranger will die and come back to the living and shed light on the Dead and what's been happening.

And if there is a majority of Baddies in the Dead Thread, then I'd say we don't need any help because that would mean we are winning handily at that point.

I mean, as long as we give the Dead good options I don't see why they wouldn't cooperate and help us. For instance, if we want to ask them to test the good/bad-ness of the last person we lynched, we just do something like this-
1) Players Y and Z agree to cast throwaway votes for two people not on the chopping block.
2) Tell Dead "If you find player X guilty give your bonus to player Y, if innocent give it to player Z. If you give it to neither of them then that is your right and we won't make assumptions."

That way if the Dead know something even more important and feel their bonus vote is needed to make the lynch go the right way they do not feel forced to follow our plan.

Has anyone else thought about this- passing messages between the Living and Dead? Any other ideas for how to do it? I think it's too useful not to consider.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by the phantom

I mean, as long as we give the Dead good options I don't see why they wouldn't cooperate and help us. For instance, if we want to ask them to test the good/bad-ness of the last person we lynched, we just do something like this-
1) Players Y and Z agree to cast throwaway votes for two people not on the chopping block.
2) Tell Dead "If you find player X guilty give your bonus to player Y, if innocent give it to player Z. If you give it to neither of them then that is your right and we won't make assumptions."

That way if the Dead know something even more important and feel their bonus vote is needed to make the lynch go the right way they do not feel forced to follow our plan.

Wait, let me get this straight, the mechanic seems decent, but isn't there an illogical extra step? You have the players Y and Z casting throwaway votes for no reason. You could just announce "hey Dead, today, give please your vote either to Y or Z".

Otherwise, I think the main plothole in this is that the WWs could manipulate the Dead thread (at least when there are more of them, and since they can PM between each other). Then again, it's really a problem, if you have already two Wolves of one pack among the Dead, it's not really a good situation for them. Again, once the Dead thread gets populated by, say, 6 people (probably just a couple of days), majorities and such aren't really much of an issue there.

The other problem being also, the Dead, if I got it right, do not really learn 100% the identity of someone. (Although roughly.) But also, if, using your mechanic, we are asking about the identity of a player we lynched just yesterDay, they won't yet know about the player's real identity, since they haven't revealed it yet either. So in fact, that way, we'd probably get any info "back from the grave" only in a couple of Days. Otherwise we might just get an opinion of the Dead, which isn't probably that much better than that of the Living (of course depending on circumstances).

I'd rather be in favour of the mechanic "yo Dead, give your extra vote to one of the people our village is considering, or if you have a Seer among you or somesuch who knows something, then please give an out-of-the-blue vote." Or, to formulate it differently: "Please refrain from giving a vote to a person who is not the village's candidate for lynching, except if you know that random person X should be lynched in your opinion. That way we'll notice that while the village was bickering about whether to lynch Y or Z, you suddenly randomly voted X, so we know we'd better look at X."

And then again, even that is still a bit problematic, since the Dead thread has the same DL as the Living, so the voting has to take place simultaneoustly at least a bit - I doubt everyone will be at the Dead thread voting only just at the DL. But yeah, it is probably easier to coordinate than on the Living thread, sure.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

First, I think this is a crucial point. The wolves can (and probably will) engage in completely genuine wolf-hunting during Day phases, which means that we have to think differently than we would in a normal game; we have wolves who don't know everyone's alignment and who have a good motive to hunt bad guys too. That means they're not by default lying when they say they suspect someone, so a fake-looking case alone is not as strong a sign of wolfishness than it usually is.

Indeed. It's similar to the dynamic when there's a Werebear, except that in that case there's the "flag" of a player going on about bear-hunting rather than wolf-hunting.

On the plus side, the division between the wolves does at least mean they can't steer the lynch as easily as if it were one pack of six.

To make things even more muddled, looking at potential pack behaviour could point to the Lovers just as well.

Yes, but that's always the case with lovers.

Edit:x'd with Green at #24.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I sense... death in this place. I hear foul creatures about.

But so great to be back in WW, and I must say, quite a change with this ridiculously lively and overposted thread... so let's get to it.

Originally Posted by Loslote

Then again, it seems to me that the best way to set the two packs against each other is simply to kill one wolf from either pack - then the pack which is down a member will by necessity switch its focus from the Gifteds to the other pack, since the only way for them to win would be to kill at least two members of the other pack. Whether or not the other pack switched focus, too - though I think they would soon enough - we would have a bit of a reprieve. Plus, to have two wolves actively and jointly targeting the others would be much more obvious than to have three wolves coasting in the background.

To get back to my point, I think probably we should take any chance we can to bag a wolf, since doing so would not only wittle down the pack numbers, but would also help turn the Night kills away from our Gifteds and towards the other pack. The question is, I guess, is it better statistically to have the chance to potentially turn the Night kills away from the Gifteds, or to avoid the risk that we ourselves might kill a Gifted by mistake? If we kill the Seer Day 1, we're in huge trouble, but I suppose they can still do some good in the Dead Thread. If we kill a wolf, we've gained a lot, and I might be hugely naive here, but I feel like they are less of a threat in the Dead Thread than in the Living Thread. So I would say that I personally think a Day 1 lynch is worth the risk, but that's kind of subjective, and I would definitely like to see other peoples' perspectives.

I think all in all, this game - at least before we get the hang of it - is going to be such a chaos, that accidentally lynching a Gifted when wishing to lynch a Wolf is about as probable as Wolves killing Wolves from other pack even if they are aiming for Gifted, and so on. Basically at this stage, everyone is probably freaked out equally.

But the main power, in my opinion, lies in the Dead thread. Because we know nothing of the roles upon lynching, as the phantom has so lovelily illustrated, it is hard to form opinions even in regards to whether we were right or wrong. But with the amount of Wolves around and all, we are bound to hit something, and with the amount of Night kills, everything should probably gather up speed in just a couple of Days.

Originally Posted by A Little Green

First, I think this is a crucial point. The wolves can (and probably will) engage in completely genuine wolf-hunting during Day phases, which means that we have to think differently than we would in a normal game; we have wolves who don't know everyone's alignment and who have a good motive to hunt bad guys too. That means they're not by default lying when they say they suspect someone, so a fake-looking case alone is not as strong a sign of wolfishness as it usually is. To make things even more muddled, looking at potential pack behaviour could point to the Lovers just as well. There are still the Night kills for clues, I suppose, but I personally never trusted them much, there's too much pure guesswork involved - especially in a game where the wolf packs might have an interest in framing each other as well as the villagers. I foresee a headache.

I understand where you are coming from, but I'd say, personally, that there still is a difference. Really, from my experience, whenever one is playing a Wolf, whatever the circumstances, there is a psychological difference. They may aim to more or less hunt the other pack, but they still have to stick together, avoid getting lynched themselves (of which normal Ordos usually still tend to be a bit more carefree) and so on. As for pack behavior and Lovers, agreed, even though at least the Lovers (resp one of them) come back.

But all in all, I'd say this point about "it being a headache" is not really much of a point, rather an empty complaint. We still do what we do, there are ways to catch Wolves, so I wouldn't totally negate this.

Originally Posted by Greenie

I see a small hitch here. How can we believe anyone's claim if no roles are revealed upon death? There's no way of checking a claim, so basically we could have Seers revealing left, right and centre with no one able to verify which one is telling the truth - or, at least, no one but a resurrected dead person, and even that ony about whoever the dead happen to have checked.

Originally Posted by the phantom

Would a WW fake reveal in this contest? If there is a Seer counter then I guess the Ranger would have to protect both that night (ha ha, protecting a WW from the other team), but soon enough they'd both be dead (because the other pack doesn't know which is real) and thus soon enough the dead thread could tell us which Seer was real.
I simply post "Tomorrow I will cast a throwaway vote. If So-And-So was the real Seer, give me a bonus vote tomorrow", the Dead check So-And-So's true identity and then either give or don't give me the bonus vote according to what they found. Bang. We know which Seer was real and what the real Seer dreams were, not to mention the false-reveal WW is now dead which means the diminished pack has to gun for the other pack to avoid losing because they're already down one Wolf.

And if BOTH packs try a counter-reveal, even better, because we'd have a dent into both packs.

Is that right?

That extra vote idea sounds doable, of course on the account of that you don't have the Dead thread just full of Wolves (from the same pack, who would coordinate... so it shouldn't happen, in fact). So yeah. But in any case, it shouldn't happen in the first place. I really think Seer-revealing is potentially dangerous, still. I mean, if there's suddenly a reveal of seven "Seers", everyone can lynch every single "Seer" just for good measure (and the Wolves, I am sure, would take care of some of the rest). In any case, Wolves still do not want to end up lynched. No matter that the village can't know what you are, you still don't want to be dead. Dead packs don't win, even in a game that is all about death.

Originally Posted by the phantom

Basically, we purposefully tie the vote every day and let the Dead decide who gets the bonus vote (and thus who dies). It's possible that it would be a good tactic (because the Dead will always know more than the living as they have access to the roles of the Dead). So basically we just debate which two to place on the chopping block and let the Dead call the shots. I mean, simple odds certainly say that we can trust the dead since 2/3 of them will be Wolf kills (thus unlikely to be Wolves). Plus we'll probably lynch a non-Wolf today.

Anyway, I don't know if it's even realistic to do what I'm talking about. Just putting it out there. Anyone else think about that option?

I am not sure if I am following, all the maths and statistics goes completely over my head. Besides, I am not sure if a village this big is... manageable. You might just as well end up with Wolves (either pack or rather both) manipulating the vote from inside the village itself.

(x-posted with TP)

[the phantom]

Just to flesh out the Living-Dead communication thing... (and I see you're posting again on this very matter, Legate)

When someone is lynched they are then dead for the following night, meaning the Dead can check the lynch victim immediately and give us results (via the bonus vote) the following day.

Let's say we lynch Lottie and ask for the Dead to check her. The next day the leading vote receivers partway through are clearly McCaber and Legate, with Rikae, Morm, and Boro casting votes for Legate, and Nerwen, Green, and Eomer casting votes for McCaber. We can then tell the Dead thread, "If Lottie was evil give your bonus vote to Rikae or Nerwen, if she was innocent give it to Morm or Green, if you didn't check her give your bonus vote to someone else.

That way the Dead can impact the voting in any way they wish (push the lynch toward either of the two leaders) and simultaneously give us the information they gained about Lottie's role. If they give the bonus to Rikae then Lottie was evil and they wanted to lynch Legate over McCaber. If they give the bonus to Nerwen then Lottie is evil and McCaber is who they want to lynch. If they didn't check Lottie at all but want to help lynch McCaber then they give their bonus to Eomer. If they didn't check Lottie and don't want to lynch either candidate they give their bonus to someone else hinting that maybe that person's suspicions matched their own. Etc.

First and foremost I think we need to tentatively place some trust in the dead (because they will almost certainly be 50% or more innocent). Second we need to give them opportunities to pass info to us without restricting them too much (give them options), because if we reduce the Dead to being our servants and ordering them around I think that would kind of ruin the fun for them.

[the phantom]

All this Dead bonus vote stuff aside, I mainly just don't want the Seer or Ranger to die early. The double-dream and double-protect is amazing! Just as the double-kill reduces the population quickly, the double-dreams reduces the lynchable population quickly. We need to keep our eyes on the break-points of various days (e.g. with X number of players left, if the Seer has Y number of dreams under his belt it would be efficient to reveal now).

I'm not sure what to think about the Lovers. Even if they knew who they were, would the WWs even attempt to off them with the Seer and Ranger still alive? Though the back-from-dead could be quite nice later in the game (so an early kill would negate this possibility), I think the Baddies fear the back-from-dead less than a living Seer/Ranger.

Now the Hunter... When I've been a WW I tend to avoid the Hunter like a landmine, because one shoot-from-the-hip Hunter kill can totally bring a solid Baddie squad crashing down. But in this game it's probably worth it to off the Hunter as soon as possible because odds are he'll kill an innocent. If you leave the Hunter alive a couple days the odds are probably worse for the WWs (plus he'll have more to go on), so as far as intentions go, I figure they'll attempt to kill him early or not at all (unless they're quite certain he has an incorrect pick in mind).

Anyway, it's gotten so late that it's changed into early. I need a bit of rest....

[Firefoot]

A couple thoughts before I go quiet again for most of the day. (For the record, even if you don't hear from me for a while, I will be back to vote before the deadline - can definitely be here within a half hour of it.)

I like the idea of deliberately tying the vote today, if possible. A couple thoughts:

1) It seems likely enough that for some reason we don't pull it off (wolves screw it up, accidental cross-posting, someone doesn't vote) - so we should make a deliberate choice of our possible victims.

2) In order to prevent total chaos at the end, what if we orchestrated the vote (these players vote for this person, those players vote for that). Any deviance from this strategy could also be indicative of a non-cooperative WW (or a lover, I guess).

3) What if we aimed for a three (or even four) way tie? That way even if someone doesn't vote as planned and we don't get a three-way tie, we might still get a two-way tie which is all that is actually necessary.

4) As far as victim choice - sort of a shot in the dark anyway - do we go random? Ask for volunteers (at least we don't get a gifted - but then I guess it narrows the wolves' choice for who is gifted, so maybe that's a poor strategy)? Might as well pick Nilp since he's already got a vote?

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I'm always cool with getting a few more votes.

Anyway, long day, scattered thoughts, many of which has already been commented upon, so I'll say my 'substantive' piece before taking a nap and hoping to wake up at a proper time.

Re the three-party dynamic's effect on gifted reveals:

With competing wolf parties, they will be unsure as to how to deal with a real gifted reveal. For example, both parties might end up wasting their kill on a single target (or less likely, end up not killing the gifted because they expected the other Pack to do so.)

Also, there is little fear of a counterreveal or a false reveal: the revealing Wolf risks giving their Pack a numbers disadvantage against the enemy Pack. And they won't have a way of timing a fake reveal when they gain a numbers advantage over their rivals, because even they won't know if a Wolf not of their Pack has already been killed. (Of course, this information gap could change with the Dead thread activities...)

Re lynch/NIGHT kill analysis:

For obvious reasons, voting analyses (my weapon of choice--or rather, the weapon I use because I have no choice) are quite useless, at least in the opening fog-of-war stage of the game.

So what about NIGHT kill analyses? According my game-theorising*, the Baddies would prioritise killing the Seer, a Wolf from the other Pack, the Ranger, the Lovers, and the Hunter, in that order. Now what do the first two targets have in common? They both possess an above-average knowledge of the alignment of the people in the Village. So posting analysis of the dead could yield information as to why they had been targetted. (Of course, now that I've said it, the Wolves would now probably go after the quiet ones. Hehe. But on a less flippant note, I do realise that making such an analysis public could influence future Wolvish behaviour.)

My scattered thoughts are petering out. I'll be back when my brain cells stop screaming at me.

_____
*As someone who has watched No Game No Life twice (even being an editor for the first two volumes of the novel's English translation), and as someone who has read the Wikipedia article on Nash equilibrium, I believe I am qualified to game-theorise.

[Macalaure]

I had a crazy long post detailing why all those strategies above won't work, but then I realized it was really just an overblown series of quoting and arguing, so I scrapped it. Here's the key points, though.

We have a 25% chance to lynch a wolf toDay (6 in 24)
If we don't, each pack has a 15% chance to kill another wolf at night (3 in 20): P(A)+P(B)-P(A)*P(B)=27.75%.
Even by pure chance, we're actually quite likely to receive some help from the wolves at killing wolves. Not implying, of course, that this means we can be lazy, and definitely not implying that we should tie our votes and not lynch. (In a village of 24, with 6 baddies, and later with an unpredictable extra vote? Impossible to orchestrate. Seriously, people.)

All this trying to arrange an information flow with the dead... elaborate stuff like that never works. Unless a choice is obvious, you always have some people who vote right at the deadline or didn't get a chance to read everything and vote uninformed. Things get messed up, even without revealed or unrevealed baddies in both threads trying to mess with it intentionally.

The dead should give their extra vote to either A: someone they have reason to believe is innocent; or B: someone who has voted for someone they have reason to believe is guilty. This will give us a solid bit of information to go on, actually.

Fake reveals can be a problem. With no immediate knowledge of the role upon death, it's easier to pull off. Anyone remember how nobody believed Nogrod was the seer all game last time? And that was without a contestant (though with cobblers). Then again, would a wolf dare it, knowing that the real beneficiary is the other wolf pack?

Don't have too much faith in the roles that can return from the dead. It can only happen twice at most, and if the timing is off (as it was last time), it can end up much more unhelpful than hoped.

One question for the mod: Will the narrations state which unfortunate soul got killed by which wolf pack? Or was this stated somewhere and I overlooked it? If it is not clear to the village, then the wolves would have extra knowledge and be more adept at killing the other pack than we are. An uncomfortable thought.

Originally Posted by the phantom

I simply post "Tomorrow I will cast a throwaway vote. If So-And-So was the real Seer, give me a bonus vote tomorrow", the Dead check So-And-So's true identity and then either give or don't give me the bonus vote according to what they found.

This I don't get, or maybe I'm missing something. The dead can only find out roles among themselves, and do not see gifteds. They won't know who the real seer is, at least not for certain.


Sorry for being all negative, but all those Day1 strategies... Sweet summer children! No plan survives contact with werewolves.


These points I did like, though, so I'll quote them for truth:

Originally Posted by A Little Green

First, I think this is a crucial point. The wolves can (and probably will) engage in completely genuine wolf-hunting during Day phases, which means that we have to think differently than we would in a normal game; we have wolves who don't know everyone's alignment and who have a good motive to hunt bad guys too. That means they're not by default lying when they say they suspect someone, so a fake-looking case alone is not as strong a sign of wolfishness as it usually is.

Originally Posted by Legate

Really, from my experience, whenever one is playing a Wolf, whatever the circumstances, there is a psychological difference.

This. Of course, when looking for this difference, the risk is always to accidentally kill a gifted, since they operate similarly, but the lovers and the ranger have less reason to be afraid in our setup here (especially after a few days), and the hunter generally does, too. So, while the risk is clearly still there, it is smaller than usual, especially considering the number of baddies.

[Nerwen]

Firefoot (#37) and Boro (#39), you two are referring to phantom's suggestion at #20?
I had the impression it was off the menu, but if not- look, the problem is that, failing the Seer getting a wolf in that time, it requires not only all the gifteds but all the dreamed innocents not to get eaten until Day 3; meanwhile the wolves are getting 2 kills a Night and we have no chance of lynching a wolf. Plus, there's always the possibility of false reveals.

Originally Posted by Firefoot

I like the idea of deliberately tying the vote today, if possible. A couple thoughts:

1) It seems likely enough that for some reason we don't pull it off (wolves screw it up, accidental cross-posting, someone doesn't vote) - so we should make a deliberate choice of our possible victims.

2) In order to prevent total chaos at the end, what if we orchestrated the vote (these players vote for this person, those players vote for that). Any deviance from this strategy could also be indicative of a non-cooperative WW (or a lover, I guess).

So you're not even necessarily expecting this to work, you're just seeing it as a way of possibly flushing a wolf ("or a lover")? Only what would either really have to gain by breaking the tie? The Lovers just want to stay alive, and the wolves have the Night-kill. Besides, my "accidentally-on-purpose" comment on phantom's other plan applies here also- how could you be sure it wasn't just an honest screw-up? (Also, we don't actually want to expose the Lovers...)

4) As far as victim choice - sort of a shot in the dark anyway - do we go random? Ask for volunteers (at least we don't get a gifted - but then I guess it narrows the wolves' choice for who is gifted, so maybe that's a poor strategy)?

Precisely. So why suggest it?

Might as well pick Nilp since he's already got a vote?

Ah, now we come to the other problem: this plan seems to me virtually to ensure that we occupy two or three days with organising pseudo-lynches of randomly-chosen players, instead of, you know, trying to find wolves.

Really doesn't seem the best option to me...

edit:x'd since Nilp at #40.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by the phantom

Just to flesh out the Living-Dead communication thing... (and I see you're posting again on this very matter, Legate)

When someone is lynched they are then dead for the following night, meaning the Dead can check the lynch victim immediately and give us results (via the bonus vote) the following day.

Let's say we lynch Lottie and ask for the Dead to check her. The next day the leading vote receivers partway through are clearly McCaber and Legate, with Rikae, Morm, and Boro casting votes for Legate, and Nerwen, Green, and Eomer casting votes for McCaber. We can then tell the Dead thread, "If Lottie was evil give your bonus vote to Rikae or Nerwen, if she was innocent give it to Morm or Green, if you didn't check her give your bonus vote to someone else.

That way the Dead can impact the voting in any way they wish (push the lynch toward either of the two leaders) and simultaneously give us the information they gained about Lottie's role. If they give the bonus to Rikae then Lottie was evil and they wanted to lynch Legate over McCaber. If they give the bonus to Nerwen then Lottie is evil and McCaber is who they want to lynch. If they didn't check Lottie at all but want to help lynch McCaber then they give their bonus to Eomer. If they didn't check Lottie and don't want to lynch either candidate they give their bonus to someone else hinting that maybe that person's suspicions matched their own. Etc.

This is certainly worth considering, though it's problematic that it requires two separate lots of votes to be coordinated- it seems to me to be that a baddie on either thread might mess up the vote in an accidentally-on-purpose way. But the alternative of course is having *nothing* to go on...

I'm not sure what to think about the Lovers. Even if they knew who they were, would the WWs even attempt to off them with the Seer and Ranger still alive? Though the back-from-dead could be quite nice later in the game (so an early kill would negate this possibility), I think the Baddies fear the back-from-dead less than a living Seer/Ranger.
Now the Hunter... When I've been a WW I tend to avoid the Hunter like a landmine, because one shoot-from-the-hip Hunter kill can totally bring a solid Baddie squad crashing down. But in this game it's probably worth it to off the Hunter as soon as possible because odds are he'll kill an innocent. If you leave the Hunter alive a couple days the odds are probably worse for the WWs (plus he'll have more to go on), so as far as intentions go, I figure they'll attempt to kill him early or not at all (unless they're quite certain he has an incorrect pick in mind).

You talk as though the wolves would be able to pick and choose, tp. I mean, at this point in the game "vaguely gifted-ish" would be all they'd have to go on. (Unless the secret role changes things somehow.)
Edit:x'd with Firefoot.

[Boromir88]

First and foremost...woot! What an anniversary and to see you all back!

Reading through the thread and just going to be commenting as I go...

We purposefully tie the vote Day 1 and 2 so we don't lynch anyone.

Well, strategy-maker, I think tying our votes could be useful to attempt to coordinate and leave it in the hands of the Dead who should know more. But to do so today would mean we wouldn't get an active Dead thread until NIGHT 3. It takes 3 Dead to start it, and to have no lynch today would set the Dead thread back 1/2 day.

Granted it would guarantee we didn't lynch the Seer and gives the Seer 2 more dreams (where even if the wolves kill the Seer NIGHT 2, that puts the Seer in the dead thread with 4 dreams instead of 2...hmm, need to think about that). Since there is a delay in finding out information, the best case is to do what it takes to ensure the Seer gets as many double dreams as possible.

Ugh, I love fake reveals when you can immediately know the true from the false...it's going to be a pain with delayed information. I suppose it's too optimistic to think, a fake-reveal from one pack, would be as much of a pain to the rival pack as it is to everyone else.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by phantom

When someone is lynched they are then dead for the following night, meaning the Dead can check the lynch victim immediately and give us results (via the bonus vote) the following day.

Let's say we lynch Lottie and ask for the Dead to check her. The next day the leading vote receivers partway through are clearly McCaber and Legate, with Rikae, Morm, and Boro casting votes for Legate, and Nerwen, Green, and Eomer casting votes for McCaber. We can then tell the Dead thread, "If Lottie was evil give your bonus vote to Rikae or Nerwen, if she was innocent give it to Morm or Green, if you didn't check her give your bonus vote to someone else.

That way the Dead can impact the voting in any way they wish (push the lynch toward either of the two leaders) and simultaneously give us the information they gained about Lottie's role. If they give the bonus to Rikae then Lottie was evil and they wanted to lynch Legate over McCaber. If they give the bonus to Nerwen then Lottie is evil and McCaber is who they want to lynch. If they didn't check Lottie at all but want to help lynch McCaber then they give their bonus to Eomer. If they didn't check Lottie and don't want to lynch either candidate they give their bonus to someone else hinting that maybe that person's suspicions matched their own. Etc.

O esteemed Mod, a clarification about the Dead Thread extra vote?

Originally Posted by Rules

After there are THREE residents of the Dead Thread, every DAY the dead get to vote on giving one of the living an extra vote. The dead are subject to the same deadline (heh heh) as the living. The living will not know who among them will get an extra vote until it is revealed in the closing narration of the DAY.

So do the dead vote for a living player or double that player's vote? I interpreted it as the former (the Dead Thread vote being simply a ++person-of-their-choice) but the way I understood phantom's theory above, he seems to have interpreted it as the latter (the person chosen by the Dead gets to vote twice). The wording of the rules could mean either.

And while we are on the subject of rules -

Originally Posted by phantom

All this Dead bonus vote stuff aside, I mainly just don't want the Seer or Ranger to die early. The double-dream and double-protect is amazing!

The Ranger only gets their double protect after they're returned from the dead, right? So it won't last long since the Ranger's identity becomes pretty obvious once they're resurrected. And I assume they can't resurrect twice?

...wow, I'm being positive today.


EDIT: x-ed with Nilp and Mac