Tol-in-Gaurhoth CXV: On the Borders of Mirkwood - Game Thread

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

Hi, Form. (Was going through my last game looking for my old lynch tally template and stumbled upon this.)

Also, I'm semi-consistently here and have taken coffee. A bottle of highly caffeinated soda is also at hand to give me a chance to stay awake till the deadline. Just waiting for some topic to chew on.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund

Hi, Form. (Was going through my last game looking for my old lynch tally template and stumbled upon this.)

I offer a completely nonbinding and nonmonetary apology for my past transgressions, Nilp, and submit that it is past the Statute of Limitations to secure any recompense from me.

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund

Hi, Form. (Was going through my last game looking for my old lynch tally template and stumbled upon this.)

Also, I'm semi-consistently here and have taken coffee. A bottle of highly caffeinated soda is also at hand to give me a chance to stay awake till the deadline. Just waiting for some topic to chew on.

If Nilp is a wolf I'm not sure I'll ever find him. Maybe I'll just vote him today and get him out of the way. I'm sure he won't mind.

[Nogrod]

Okay. I'll try to go through the Day again. It's pretty bad if we have just, basically three names (?), circulating around in some vague manner only two hours before the DL. It's a fair chance none of them is a wolf and the lycanthropes lean back on their armchairs taking one more sip of wine just being pleased.

Some fresh openings would do good at this point.


EDIT: X'd with Pitch

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, I had considerably busier day than I thought, but now caught up.

For the amount of posts, there is not that much content - which on the one hand is good because of easy read, on the other hand, it gives precious little information to go with. Apparently, we need a controversy like that with the pre-voting argument to start something at all. Speaking of which...

Originally Posted by Kath

At the risk of rehashing a debate from last game, are we doing stating who we're thinking of voting for again? I've got to disappear for a while and was about to do just that because it became habit!

I think this is not such a bad idea also in terms of helping the Dead Thread figure out where to cast *their* votes, once that becomes relevant. (Even though they can retract, so that should not be such a big deal. Still... I can already imagine the chaos if everyone on the Living Thread waits for the last minute to vote, as is bound to happen, and the Dead massively tumbling over each other like in PJ's movie to get the right person they want to make the Medium.)

Otherwise: I see Hui has become the most inquisitive mind here. That is a marked difference from his performance in the previous game. Of course, he might have "learned his lesson" and adopted a bolder Wolf tactic than last time, but from the overall way he's doing it, I would rather think it a sign of innocence. On a related note...

Originally Posted by Rikae

hS is a man on a mission. Not sure I agree with his conclusion on Form, because I don't agree with Form on discussing wolf plans preemptively. I suspect if the wolves decide they should sacrifice the NW to activate their powers, they won't particularly care whether or not we considered the possibility. It'll come down to how believable they can make the bussing. Form's response looks to me more like filling in the gaps after the fact to defend what was initially just talking to talk.

I basically thought the same what Rikae said - unlike others, Form's conclusion did not seem to me like a conclusion of the debate. I don't think discussing "what the Wolves would do" is anything so problematic per se. But I was rather wondering at the overall framework of what Form was doing there: whether it was just a talk, or whether he was rehashing something that he and his packmates have been debating overnight. Innocents may not tend to go so deep into the subject by themselves.

Originally Posted by Kath

Another thought on the Medium ... potentially they could end up being chosen before they had voted. There are quite a few players who like to hold their vote until the very last minute (Shasta springs to mind) so some serious chaos could ensue. If anyone seems keen to get into the Dead Thread toDay I'd be more inclined to call Cobbler than Wolf because it looks like the potential for confusion is pretty high.

Essentially I would second this. Since nobody seems to be doing it, however, that also makes me think that we either have a very careful Cobbler (as opposed to the previous game), or else it's Nilp. Which is kind of a dead end because, as it's been remarked before, Nilp would have Nilp'ed himself probably no matter what he was.

But if we do have a quiet Cobbler, the WWs themselves may also be less bold. Well, this is Day 1 - let's see how things continue.

Originally Posted by Loslote

One thing that occurred to me is, if we find someone that we think is the NW, would there be value in leaving them alive for a couple of Days? That way, they wouldn't be able to use their powers, and might slip up and lead us to their packmates. On the other hand, if that occurred to me, it'll have occurred to the wolves, and a wolf on the hot seat might deliberately try to fake being the NW in order to buy themselves more time. So I guess my conclusion after all of that is, probably we shouldn't hesitate to lynch the NW.

I think this whole discussion is somewhat pointless: if we think we have a Wolf, then we should lynch them, as on top of everything we have no way of verifying whether they are not only the NW, but whether they are a Wolf in the first place, until they are dead! So that should not be a question. It would be nice if one could put suspicious people "on ice" that way, but that is what ultimately wins Wolves the games.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I would laugh if Kath and Hui were co-wolves again, but I think they both have a bit different vibe from the last game (Kath is more straightforward/carefree, Hui less cautious/diplomatic) which makes me feel better about both of them.

I agree on the second, but I actually think Kath acts exactly the same as in the last game, and was about to say how nice it is that she posts stuff that seems sensible... until I remembered that back there she was a Wolf (and I did not suspect her at all exactly because she posted sensible). So in this case, I rather feel like I should raise my alert threshold on her and I will be watching her.

Okay, back in a bit with some thoughts on everybody, because I realise this may pick up now...

EDIT: x-ed with a horrible bunch somewhere back on the previous page! (around Nilp's time remark) What's happening!!

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Speaking of votes... I have no idea how to vote. I have nothing that resembles a suspicion, and I haven't played at all recently enough for anyone be triggering "ZZ feels off" sensations. Given the odds and given that it's a legitimately empowered voting option, I think I might join Sally...

Don't you dare, or I will vote for YOU.

Seriously, abstaining from voting is about the stupidest approach one can have to this game if innocent. The vote is the only weapon we have. Sure, it can misfire. But you should certainly NOT abstain if innocent, that just makes the wolves' (and the cobbler's) votes carry more weight. (Sally I understand because she's sick and unable to keep up, but no such excuses for anyone else.)

[Boromir88]

The day began not at all the way the town expected. They were supposed to be here to discuss and choose a new leader, but were now expected to vote and kill one of their own.

"I'll make it easy today" said one of them and Nilp went to the gallows and put the rope around his own neck.

"Stop that. You're not sacrificing yourself." said some of them.

"Who are we to stop what he wants?" said some others.

As the day wore on, some suggested trying reason, some were in favor of abstaining and sharing s'mores. But for most of the day no one stopped Nilp from keeping the rope around his neck...until the very last minute.

Enough people started yelling at Nilp to get his head out of there, and despite some resistance, he stepped away.

Some started pushing Form up to the front, then another group started shouting for Huey. Nilp thought he heard his name again and ran up to try to grab the rope again, but he was stopped. It was finally decided Huey, who despite a frantic final minutes seemed to accept his fate.

The town waited around for a several minutes to see if Huey would change into a new form. He did not. The villagers hung their heads and returned home.


The Dead

Boro (Town Recorder) - Night 1
Huinesoron (Villager) - Day 1

The Living

A Little Green
Blind Guardian
Brinniel
Formendacil
Kath
Legate of Amon Lanc
Loslote
Macalaure
Nogrod
Nilpaurion Felagund
Pitchwife
Rikae
satansaloser2005
Shastanis Althreduin
Thinlomien

----

It is Night 2. Silence in the town.

Wolves talk and send kill.

Seer send dream.

Ranger guard.

Beast Hunter set your trap.

[Boromir88]

The wolf-pack was in high spirits after getting the innocent Huey lynched, but they really wanted to top off the night with a successful kill. The pack debated through most of the night about who their victim would be. There was even talk of benefits moving to a vegetarian diet, being close to Greenwood the Great! But alas it was not so tonight and their victim was chosen.

They approached the residence and found their target lying fast asleep on her bed, as pure and innocent as the wind-driven snow. Better yet, it appeared she was completely defenseless and the pack would not go hungry tonight.

"She appears to be having such sweet dreams" said one of the werewolves. "Do you think we should wake her?"

Another werewolf tapped her on the shoulder "Wakey, wakey, candied snow flowers and Lottie-pops!"

Loslote awoke, startled seeing 4 snarling figures looming over her. She did not attempt to run however, seemingly knowing what was about to happen. "I am not one of the people that you seek. Dine well. Keep my bones to pick out bits stuck in your teeth! Hate to have one of you discovered for being messy eaters." she giggled sarcastically.

When the village awoke the next day, they knew there was one less of them and discovered Lottie was no longer with them. And they wept for their loss.

The Dead

Boro (Town Recorder) - Night 1
Huinesoron (Villager) - Day 1
Loslote (Villager) - killed by pack Night 2

The Living

A Little Green
Blind Guardian
Brinniel
Formendacil
Kath
Legate of Amon Lanc
Loslote
Macalaure
Nogrod
Nilpaurion Felagund
Pitchwife
Rikae
satansaloser2005
Shastanis Althreduin
Thinlomien

-----

It is Day 2. Werewolves cease chatter.

Townspeople, bring me a lynch in 24 hours. The 2 villagers in the dead thread will have to both vote for one of you for there to be a Medium. If one of you is chosen as the Medium today, it will be revealed in the end of day narration.

[Kath]

Oh dear. Sorry Hui! I think I should have gone with voting Blind Guardian given it was the jump onto the vote that I found suspicious, but when I voted yesterDay it didn't look like there was time for more names to be added to the pile.

And Lottie is an interesting kill. She didn't really stand out to me yesterDay so it will be interesting to look at her posts and see what the wolves might have thought they spotted.

[Blind Guardian]

I typed this at the end of yesterDay. Will fix formatting later.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Also,*BG*hopping on the*Formy*train with reasoning borrowed wholesale? *ping*

Originally Posted by Brinniel

For her opportunistic vote.

I've been keeping a spreadsheet with all my thoughts about ya'll in it. The first person that I ever suspected was Form, right from his first post. I just didn't say anything. Then at the last minute (while on a dying cell phone) I realized that was a bad idea. Oh well.
I probably shouldn't even say thing because one of my last games (years and years ago) I go lynched solely on my explanation of why I voted as I did.

I sorta suspected Huey yesterDay but I also agree with his vote for Formy. And I stand by my vote. I don’t know if it's a good call yet or not. Time will tell. Something feels wrong about Formy's posts and I am going with my gut feeling.

Originally Posted by Kath

Having just skimmed through, the biggest thing worrying me here is the way Blind Guardian just jumped on Hui's vote. It felt very like a newbie wolf following the footsteps of a more experienced packmate.

I know I am Innocent but now I can say with certainty that Huey and I aren't chatting Wolves, cause it's confirmed that HE'S not a Wolf

Also I'm not a newbie Wolf. I've played as a Wolf before and I remember it VERY well because it ended up VERY badly for me. Everyone voted for me (over something really stupid and not at all a slipup) and I ended up crying in my room for an hour.

[Rikae]

I remember thinking at DL yesterday that Lottie's posting might attract wolf attention, just because she was so certain and vehement it made her look very innocent.

Actually my mental note was "if Hui is innocent and Lottie's still alive tomorrow, I should probably wonder about *her*".

Edit: x'd with Kath

[Kath]

Originally Posted by Lottie

Or I guess you could try Formendacil's "talk to them" strategy...seems a little fishy to me though.

Originally Posted by Lottie

So basically what I'm saying is, if someone strikes me as sounding particularly Boro-like, I'm gonna suspect them of being the NW.

Hui has some suspicion of Lottie based on this - thinking she might be a wolf framing him for acting that very way. He mentions Pitch as noticing Lottie talking about possibly not killing a wolf, and me for saying he's acting that way. Lottie in return thinks he's innocent.

Pitch soft-defends Lottie in post 99.

Originally Posted by Lottie

I don't really want to lynch Huin toDay, I've gotten a general innocent vibe from him. I agree with others that Form, Pitch, or Nilp could have potentially been cobbler hinting, though I would say the Nilp hint was a little more ambiguous. I'd be okay with voting for Form or Pitch, but I'd rather vote someone I think is a wolf than someone I think is a cobbler.

Originally Posted by Lottie

So who would I be willing to vote? I get good vibes from Greenie, Rikae and Brinn, and pretty good vibes from Shasta and Huin. I haven't seen anything that makes me question Blind Guardian or Sally. So, I'm not going to be voting for any of those people. That leaves Kath, Nog, Mac, Legate, and Lommy as alternatives to the Three Cobblers.

Originally Posted by Lottie

Actually, Legate's last post pinged my radar. Sounded very careful and practiced. Too late in the Day to vote him, probably, but I want to take a look at him for toMorrow.

Then votes Legate.

Originally Posted by Lottie

I don't know that I buy this from Nog, either. Also on the list of people to take a closer look at.

Well, obviously not a lot to go on. Her tone was quite ... certain, is the way I'd put it, in pretty much all of her posts. Maybe it just read as though she actually knew things rather than just suspecting? Could be a ploy from a Form-Legate-Nog wolf-pack (but please, please, no to that). If she's the Seer and had dreamt one of them it's so early in the game it's worth the risk, and if she's not the Seer they could claim set-up.

[Kath]

And to answer this because I noticed my stupid moment ...

Originally Posted by Pitch

I don't get at all what Kath is talking about here, 'the wolf becoming the Medium'. The Medium is one of the living, aren't they, so how would a lynched wolf become one?

This is because it took quite some while after this to realise that it is the person who is chosen by the Dead Thread votee who is called the Medium, not the votee themselves.

[Blind Guardian]

I'm trying to be a bit more active today and get my thoughts out since I won't be around much tomorrow at the end of the Day. (I plan on voting by 12PM AZ time (MST without Daylight Savings)

Right now I'm trying to find a reason for why the Wolves killed Lottie. My first thought was she was killed because of how she voted.

Lottie was the only person who voted for Legate. Legate in turn voted for Form.

I find this a tiny bit interesting. If Legate is the NW and the Wolves now want the NW active in the Dead Thread this can be their hint hint to get us to lynch.

On the other hand...Legate didn't say anything yesterDay that makes me suspicious of him. Legate wanted to vote for me, but actually voted for Form because:

Originally Posted by Legate

It is possible he [Form] might be a Cobbler, but I still find him more suspicious by default than Hui.

The only thing that may be even slightly suss of Legate is that he did a breakdown post of all of the players and what he thought of them. This could be a Wolf way of sending his thoughts to other Wolves during the Day. Which is a major stretch.

[Formendacil]

LOSLOTE:

I'm not sure if I'm surprised Lottie was killed or not. I was looking over things during the Night phase hours, and she was on my Question Mark list as someone who had said a lot (she posted 22 times yesterDay, the most in village), but was only quoted or referred to 25 times--the 7th most in the village.

Granted, this is coming from my rather subjectively-determined way of recording things, but in general there is a correlation between the amount someone posted and the amount they were spoken of. For example, Huin posted 18 times, good for a tie with Shasta for 3rd-most, and he was quoted or referred to in 54 posts, which was the most--and that seems about right, since he ended up being the lynchee.

One post of Loslote's that I flagged as being a bit odd was 154 of this thread, where she does not mention me, she does not mention Nilp, nor Pitch, nor Sally. Sally is easy enough to explain as having not been around, but when I was still considering if she might have been a wolf, I wondered if what was generally a comprehensive post (i.e. it's the "here's what I'm thinking about everyone post") why the rest of us were missing. Could be that Nilp and I had both been quite active--and she HAD posted about Pitch.

Anyway, does that mean anything now that she's dead? Probably not, though MAYBE if the wolves were looking to kill someone that had left no suspicions back in their direction and they were looking chiefly at people's "here's what I'm thinking about everyone posts", there is a wolf or two hidden in those absences.


HUINESORON:

My records of who mentioned/quoted seem a bit less useful here, since he turned out to be ordinary, and I'm not seeing anything yet in the people who mentioned HIM that reveals anything. As already noted, he was very active yesterday, so there's references to him. The flip-flop on me mid-post, resulting in his vote for me, was weird, but the real value there is in how it got leapt on and became the driving factor for his lynching. Frankly, I was Don Quixote against the Day 1 Windmills and then the Mad "What if we lynch no one" scientist (which, once I thought it through over several posts became a hole I was aware I was digging), so a vote for me as I grew more ridiculous over the course of the day seems more justified (even I know it was wrong) than the backlash to that vote became.

If I had the money to wager, I'd lay it all on the proposition that there was a wolf among those who voted to lynch Huin.


GUT REACTIONS TO HUIN'S LYNCHERS:

Shasta, Rikae, Nog, and Kath.

Shasta has a relatively high post-count (tied for 3rd at 18), but this is somewhat deceptive as a guide to his activity level, since his modus operandi was to make quick, one-paragraph replies to specific people/topics. He rarely posted in great depth--but he was involved. My gut inclines to say he's not an ordo... but that could just as well mean Gifted as Wolf.

Rikae disturbs me, but I don't know why. Just a different vibe/posting style?

Nog DOESN'T disturb me, and I actually think that's suspicious--as though he's trying too hard to be mellow and disinterested. That makes me think Gifted/Wolf again, but I lean Wolf.

Kath seems just a bit off-kilter, but I don't know why. She's the only one of these four that I think a possible cobbler right now.


OTHER THOUGHTS:

I mentioned that Loslote had struck me as having a somewhat off-kilter relationship between her number of posts and number of quotes/mentions. No one else was as drastic here, but Shasta also stood out as having posted a lot (as noted, third most) but didn't garner much attention--only 18 quotes/mentions by my count, good for 9th place. This might just be because his posting style inflates his post count relative to how much he actually said.

Pitchwife said relatively little (11 posts/9th most) but got a higher amount of attention (28 mentions/quotes - 4th most). I don't have a theory right now for what this might mean.

Kath also said fairly little (9 posts/10th most) but got a good amount of traction (26 mention/quotes - 6th most). She actually NEVER mentions Pitch that I recorded (but I think she doesn't bold names as much as some of us, so I could have missed them in my tally) but *IF* my tally is right, could this mean they're both Wolves? Pitch voted for her and she voted for Huin: could Kath have been subtly avoiding creating any ties to a fellow Wolf while Pitch made sure to set up a bit of an alibi for down the road that was completely safe to do? Kath was never in any danger of dying.

Then there's the lurkers: obviously, we all hope Sally is well enough to give us some posts, but there's also Mac, who has the same number of posts as Sally! Somehow, despite posting as little as Sally, Mac was even more under the radar: 7 mentions/quotes to Sally's 12. Of course, that could just be everyone wishing Sally well, but it still goes to show that if anyone flew under the radar, it's Mac.

Well--and Greenie. She was next-to-last after Mac and Sally in posting and tied with Mac in mentions. Of course, low posting correlates with low mentions, so this isn't a proof of Wolvishness, by any means, but it IS the stratum where a Wolf would love to hide, so worth investigating.