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

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

My dear, beloved packmates! *joins a big, furry hug* Well done!!! I'm so proud of you *wipes tear*

And our dearest ally! I am amazed. That's what I call resilience! That's how it should be played! You showed all the Cobblers who exist only to become instant knowledge and throw themseves in a kamikaze run on the first opportunity, you showed them how it's done! That was some performance!

*thinks of the Dead Thread and giggles* You should absolutely see what were the Dead doing... and especially who they thought were the Wolves. Close! But not enough, clearly not enough...

I may have forgotten something, but Brinniel was the only I know of who said (yesterDay, I believe?) at some point correctly who all the Wolves were. A pity (well, for the innocents, I mean) that the thought was not followed more closely.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But yes I am. Don't ask who I protected last Night because it doesn't make me look any smarter

As some consolation to the innocents that Wolves can be also oblivious however: the first moment I literally started seriously considering Lommy might be the Ranger was about thirty-five minutes ago when she entered the room with a grin on her face that she clearly could not suppress. That was also the first failure at our home in keeping poker faces, as far as I am aware.

But folks... try sending kill PMs when another person is sitting a meter and half from you...

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Remember when I said I felt like being encircled by wolves? That was me complaining to them!

That was fun

Anyways, it was a really fun game! Thanks, Boro! Thanks everyone anyway! I enjoyed interacting with every single one of you, roles be whatever they be.

And the Dead Thread should absolutely become a thing in every game, in some way or another.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Lommy

So then I thought Pitch would be the perfect candidate for the wolf kill. He was laying low the whole game, ergo could look like a gifted. For not jumping on the Shasta wagon, he was unlikely to look like a cobbler to the wolves. He was obviously innocent. And best of all, he had talked about the wolves possibly trying to mislead the ranger and the bh, which is a point the ranger would have thought about! (Side note spoiler alert: she didn't.)

These were more less the exact points which made me feel quite strongly Pitch was the Ranger (okay, Brinn was my other candidate for the Ranger).

It was nice to realize one was not totally in rust after years of no games, but I clearly noticed I had lost even the slightest touch of self-preservation. Although now that I checked it, I was lynched by the votes of two wolves, the Cobbler and one innocent. So that kind of cheers me up a bit even if I would have liked to play a little more with the living.

That said: I also hope the Dead Thread is here to stay. It is absolutely marvellous for both it's nice feeling but also the quite stressless chance to play the game. Well, to be honest, I guess we stressed even more in the end of D4 than you guys here, but the difference was, we stressed together, in a company, sharing our feelings - which you kind of can't do in the living thread.

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by Legate

I may have forgotten something, but Brinniel was the only I know of who said (yesterDay, I believe?) at some point correctly who all the Wolves were.

I did not enjoy reading those posts. My optimism took a hit for a while, until I realized I might actually get away with going after Shasta.

Originally Posted by Legate

But folks... try sending kill PMs when another person is sitting a meter and half from you...

Preach!

Originally Posted by Lommy

Mac, was that post of yours on Day2 where you made a list and similarly worded your innocent feelings of me and Rikae a deliberate protection lure?

A what? Please realize that you're asking a person who legitimately thought Shasta was the cobbler for Days.

Originally Posted by Boro

And the "dead communication" plots were mostly being stirred by a wolfy-Mac

I just wanted to look like a helpful member of the community!

Originally Posted by Boro

(I'd be interested to hear from the pack what they thought about Nilp that day he voted for Mac).

He 100% fooled me and it took my packmates to talk me out of it. On Day3 I made a post about fake gifted reveals - that was me trying to lay some groundwork to dispute seerNilp in the future.

Originally Posted by Pitch

Her being the seer came as a joyous surprise, to me at least.

Likewise. I didn't expect it.

Originally Posted by Pitch

Mac, you said last game you were always nervous as a wolf, but you looked totally cool to me most of the Daytime. Admirable!

I previewed every post like five times to check whether my tone sounded right!

Originally Posted by Lommy

My N1 Lottie, N2 Nilp, N3 Legate interpretation was solely based on quotes picked from other people's analyses.

Ah yes, I remember. Those were mine.

[Macalaure]

Did any of you save our wolf pm's, btw?

[satansaloser2005]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Did any of you save our wolf pm's, btw?

I have them on my laptop. If the village likes, I could share them later this weekend. 🙂

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by Nog

Fex. we were never going to use any of your lists - and I remember the same feeling from a few other Dead Threads back in time.

Funnily, according to my list, empowering Shasta would have pointed to Sally being a wolf!

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Funnily, according to my list, empowering Shasta would have pointed to Sally being a wolf!

They made a pact to empower the person who was going to be wrongfully lynched. Which I found quite amusing...

Form the previous day and then Shasta.

Although that narration was a blast, because Nilp had messaged me around 2 that he couldn't go on the Barrow-downs, that's when I knew to check and see the server was down. He said he really had to get some sleep since it was afterall 2am for him, but he would set an alarm before the DL and no promises.

So the Dead thread players are counting down hoping Nilp doesn't wake up, because they figured he wouldn't vote for Mac.

With 5 minutes, I'm thinking there's no way he's waking up and making it in time. I had the "It's deadline. Stop posting" typed up and was going to explain with the tie and empowered Shasta, Mac would be lynched, narration and role will follow soon.

I clicked post on that and saw Nilp's vote with the time stamp of :00. I mean it had to be seconds to spare before it turned to :01. And I couldn't believe it. Crazy, crazy time.

[Rikae]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

And our dearest ally! I am amazed. That's what I call resilience! That's how it should be played! You showed all the Cobblers who exist only to become instant knowledge and throw themseves in a kamikaze run on the first opportunity, you showed them how it's done! That was some performance!

Aw, you're too kind! I'm really surprised to hear you guys didn't know who I was - I thought from your day 1 post leaving me out that you'd spotted my cobbler hints and were signaling me, so I was basically trying to steer the lynches away from you (and a few others, but you were the one I was most sure of) from that point on.

My day 1 "possible wolftower" suspicions were Legate, Pitch, Kath and Nilp, and I added Mac to the list on Day 2. I never suspected Sally at all, except slightly when she responded to my attempt at antagonism yesterDay with apologies - but then her vote convinced me otherwise.

And it was absolutely hilarious watching practically everyone else in the village accused of cobblery at one point or another.

Originally Posted by Form

And, uh, I think I'll consider the Excel thing a failed experiment.

I don't know about that! It pointed toward Sally, didn't it?

Lommy, I felt kinda bad for leading you astray like that yesterDay ... I hope you forgive me!

Originally Posted by Mod God

I will point out that Brinn and Rikae went through Greenie's posts and I think were the closest to figuring out her dreams.

Well, my main concern was to squash any talk of known innocents as much as possible, but I couldn't avoid acknowledging Shasta as a possible one. I was so proud of myself for getting Kath off the hook, though!

Originally Posted by Pitch

Honour where honour is due: Rikae, that was awesome! We only began to suspect it was you last Night (actually Mac did), but I should probably have guessed because I'm pretty sure you'd have destroyed me if you'd been innocent.

Aw, shucks! I actually had you in a gray area as maybe 50/50 possible wolf, but that was enough to back off and let you be.

Originally Posted by Lommy

Also, I really liked Rikae's random comment on categorising players based on perceptiveness, persuasiveness and resilience. Where do you guys think you stand?

I actually thought of it because of the way the last game played out, and particularly, lamenting that I was more persuasive than perceptive and I didn't understand why people listened to me.

Originally Posted by Sally

I have them on my laptop. If the village likes, I could share them later this weekend. 🙂

Wolf posts! Wolf posts!

One more thing: I am so glad the dead thread noticed me insulting the cobbler. I was actively trying to make myself suspicious (and amuse the mod and wolves) at that point. Also, when I said "no one wants to lynch the cobbler toDay" I was basically asking the wolves why they weren't trying, haha.

Originally Posted by Nilp

>vote Shasta
>fail at highlighting
>twice
>thrice

That almost gave me a heart attack. I thought it was some kind of trick to get the baddies to prematurely celebrate and expose ourselves!

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

Playing Beast Hunter meant I had to think like a Ranger. So, much of my analysis was concerned with who the Wolves would attack than who the Wolves are. I guess that was pretty much obvious based on my voting record.

DAY 1: Brinn and Lottie (my only two choices) were basically 'people who weren't one of the three Cobblers™, or people who didn't vote for them or Hui'. I eventually chose the former. Screaming ensued.

DAY 2: This one I've explained often enough. In any case I would never have thought of setting the trap for BG's house, so shrug.

DAY 3: Greenie (as well as the dead Form) was the only one not to vote for Form. Didn't expect her to be gifted, let alone the Seer. I had half-expected to die this NIGHT because I hoped the Ranger prioritised the Seer. Apparently, this scenario was closer than I thought.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

To be fair, would I have had a little less busy RL day that Night, I might have still protected someone else, but I didn't have any feasible alternative for Nilp.

Re New Game (heh, literally the source of my first post's image): My disastrous decision-making in this game was due to my RL state, compounded by the deadline (and it is in that order; I felt I was participating fine the first two DAYs I wasn't compromised.) I told A Certain Critter that I would do nothing on DAY 3 because I didn't look in danger of the lynch, but then my physical condition deteriorated. (The Nog and Form-waggons quickly acquiring momentum made me realise anyone with a soupçon of suspicion could be lynched, which would be bad if I weren't around to explain myself.)

So I'd lean strongly towards joining the next game if the deadline were ah, more amenable to my location. Although there's no need to bend over backwards to accomodate me or A Possible Medical Murine--after all, we are a minority (hah).

Also, more cartoon images.



EDIT: I forgot to add that I might be out of regular employment by July, and my freelance thingy doesn't look like picking up anytime soon (imagine having two specialisations, with almost little in common, being nuked by the same thing), so by then I might be more willing to throw myself at anything.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Lommy

Also, I really liked Rikae's random comment on categorising players based on perceptiveness, persuasiveness and resilience. Where do you guys think you stand?

I liked this too! I'd say I'm perceptive but I don't always draw the right conclusions from the things I perceive I guess fairly resilient too, in that I tend to survive at least halfway through and often right to the end, and rarely get lynched. Persuasive, not so much.

Originally Posted by Nilp

DAY 3: Greenie (as well as the dead Form) was the only one not to vote for Form. Didn't expect her to be gifted, let alone the Seer. I had half-expected to die this NIGHT because I hoped the Ranger prioritised the Seer. Apparently, this scenario was closer than I thought.

So Huin was literally the only one who did spot me? *tips Seer hat* I was pretty astonished to read the Form lynch the next morning because a) I didn't really think he was that suspicious, and b) since when do 10 people decide to vote for the same person unless he was a Seer-dreamed wolf or something? I did worry that it would put me in more of a spotlight than I wanted as I was doing okay at the under-everyone's-radar thing until then. Turns out I was more right than I knew.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Still, I guess that's the way of gaming and fortune. All the best laid plans of players and mods...Because had Nilp chosen Lottie night 2, or had the wolves taken the bait and tried to kill him Night 3, Pitch would have been the one sacrificed. If I'm remembering that correctly. They wisely chose Legate Night 4, figuring he was the one most likely to go down in a lynch soon. Also, fortunate that he was the wolf Greenie dreamed of already.

Actually, we had me in the front already the Night before I died. And we even debated switching back to Pitch again, because NightWolfing possibilities and we still had ALL the Gifteds running about! See, that Night 4 was actually a pretty important marker: from our perspective, before it, there were three Gifteds, one of whom was essentially a known innocent on top of all, and the two others of whom we had no clue who they might be. After the Night, suddenly the Seer was dead and the BH was without his powers, which was actually a win. The longer that would have continued, the worse for us - the need to skirt around both BH and Ranger, who could take turns in protecting the Seer, if it came to that (well, it actually happened).

Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund

I was guessing my trap failed for being too obvious, but it was probably obvious for a different reason. I'd also wait for Sally's (❤️) lycan letters, but why was BG the Night 2 kill?)

Among other things, we agreed that we did not have any better Seer leads than her the Space Odyssey quote, and we also agreed that her death will create confusion in several ways, and that she probably was strongly considered innocent by multiple people.

My packmates may want to correct me or add their own perspective, but at least my personal perspective was that very often our Nights were like: look for who might be the Seer - finding only a couple of cases with very wobbly bases - out of those not-so-convincing options, see what other advantages they have in case they are not the Seer.

Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund

Later I'll post my thoughts on the Beast Hunter role, and to answer this:

I am actually curious what you think about the role. It seemed a very interesting role to me and you were a veritable nightmare for us! And I think your reveal was brilliant, or, in other words, the worst thing that could have happened to us. I think Pitch said something that very well summed up my feelings back then on the Game Thread as his reaction to when you did it. A known innocent for the village, but one we can't kill because it almost certainly kills one of us.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

But I second your question: why BG - and if wolves were surprised Greenie was the Seer, why Greenie?

I don't know if we were completely surprised - well, I was, but in the sense that "wow, it worked! We hit the Seer after we kept missing for Nights on end!" - plus, again, speaking for myself, I had no more indication that Greenie was the Seer than anybody else; in fact, less.

But don't take my perspective as very representative. I said it to my packmates and I'm saying again, I am really bad at spotting Gifteds. If you don't place a Palantír icon into your first post or say "dark have been my dreams of late", I won't even look at you.

[Pitchwife]

So I just read through the Dead thread (beautiful calligraphy, Hui!), and watching D4 unfold through the eyes of the deceased brought back all the thrill and madness once again. I wonder how it would have gone if Nilp had stayed asleep - sally and I probably would have looked better on D5 with Mac's role revealed, and I actually considered faking a Ranger reveal if our Night kill had been blocked. But much better having it end with a flourish like this.

Shasta, if you're still reading, you really did your best to swing it for the village on D4. Not your fault the only people heeding you were wolves.

Originally Posted by Legate

My packmates may want to correct me or add their own perspective, but at least my personal perspective was that very often our Nights were like: look for who might be the Seer - finding only a couple of cases with very wobbly bases - out of those not-so-convincing options, see what other advantages they have in case they are not the Seer.

This is basically it. We obviously swallowed Lottie's Seer bait (undecided whether she'd dreamed Hui or Legate) and BG's Odyssey quote (also the part 'Seer: no comment yet' in her list hinting it might be herself). We almost fell for Rikae's Seer hints and killed our cobbler, but then switched to Greenie more or less because she looked too innocent to lynch and had too good reads on people to keep around till endgame. I think Greenie + Brinn + Nilp were our most feared antagonists this game (Brinn was also my alternative candidate for being the Ranger at the end).

[Thinlómien]

I'm actually very glad the game ended when it did - had I made a save, I would have started the Day by revealing, apologising to Sally and Pitch and demanding the lynch of Mac, Kath and Brinn... safe to say, that would have probably undone the redemption I'd have got by making a save.