Werewolf 7 game thread

[Catwalk]

zak, I think you try to derail this by going for catwalk. Reading what he wrote, all I thought was "god catwalk, you really are an awful villager, how can you give that ammunition to the wolves?". And guess who jumped right on it? Honestly, that post screams "villager" to me. If a wolf would actually write something like that, we would not be going from 13:4 to 8:4 as we are doing it right now.

Hey, I'm at least consistent in my play Maybe I'm a wee bit unorthodox, you don't learn if you don't try. And I'm going by Gaspar's advice of "bad theories sometimes produce good results", rather than sitting back completely and letting others decide. I haven't gone through much post analysis at all in my suspicions, going mostly by gut feeling and some of the recent posts that I find highly suspicious.

I can't decipher all of Serdoa's accusations right now, but the sheer massiveness of it is enough to make me feel confident he is indeed a villager. Most likely also a dead one tomorrow, given that we're short a baner. Not that this proves zakalwe to be a wolf of course, but it makes me more inclined to listen to Serdoa's points.

[zakalwe]

he will not stop talking

Actually, I am heading out now for dinner and drinks. I'll check back again later, when I'm drunk, so you can grill me for the truth.

I haven't read that wall of text by Serdoa yet. I hope he doesn't expect me to explain every single post I made in the thread so far.

[scooter]

I felt both your lynch votes were pretty similar. They were based on similar "weak" evidences (the uberfish trying a wolf gambit and the Erebus vigilante and fake edit things) and they were made on similar game moments. Some votes had already been placed on both Uber and Erebus and your vote came in after this votes that made the players lead the tally. But I also suspected Erebus based on the same evidence, so I understand part of this.

This gets repeated a lot against me, but I don't understand it. I'm accused of voting for Uberfish on "weak evidence" - really?? It was Day 1! Everyone was voting on weak evidence. I mean Ichabod, I surely had more basis for my Uberfish vote than your throwaway vote. And many people felt Erebus was guilty for the same exact reasons as me, but I'm the one with "weak evidence" and not the others. This feels like a huge double standard.

This. Oh my F-ing god THIS. I remember scooter from WW2. The whole game - THE WHOLE GAME - it was like he was taunting me. I KNEW damn well he was a 'Wolf, but I couldn't prove it because no one would believe me. It was maddening! What's more, at some point it shifted completely opposite to EVERYONE knowing he was a 'Wolf, and yet no one would do anything! THEY REFUSED TO KILL HIM! I'm sorry for the caps, but I want to convey without question just how infuriating it was to play against scooter as a 'Wolf. That's why I chimed in when Gaspar said 'Wolf scooter makes him want to punch scooter in the face. It makes me want to punch him in the face, and then poor gasoline over his head, just so Gaspar has a place to put out his cigarette when he's done. :neenernee

*ahem* Nothing personal scooter. I'm sure you're a great guy in real life! *cough* Moving right along....

This made me laugh, because I'm honestly a super easy-going person in real life - almost absurdly so... But I'm also intensely competitive, which apparently comes out sometimes in werewolf and pbems .


[quote=Serdoa]
2. scooter answers that he finds this accusation to be untrue and explains the first part of this suspicious post ("It may not be shocking necessarily") by stating that he wrote that because it was for no one shocking that he joined on uberfish as he had lashed out on him 2-3 times in the thread already at that time

3. zak friendly tells scooter that he has reread his posts from day 1 and he can't find anything which could be construed as lashing out on uberfish

4. scooter explains that was all only in his head

Let's address this. Zak's claim that I never really mentioned it caught me off guard, so I finally went back and actually read my posts. I didn't make as clear comments as I thought I did, but Zak's claim that I didn't really say anything isn't quite as true either. Few examples:

[quote=scooter]Ever consider that the wolves mostly ignored your post? Most players barely even responded to it. In fact, if you're a villager, the logical thing for the wolves to do would be to wait and see what would happen and not kick up a stir. I mean, for such a big "gambit" you had it up for a grand total of like 8 hours. Several players hadnt even checked in yet I believe. All it did was kick off the zakalwe show where zakalwe ran around flinging accusations against everyone who'd posted . Come on, you know as well as me that wolves love it when that kind of nonsense happens.

This post has quite a bit of sarcasm in it. When I get annoyed at something, I tend to fling sarcasm. Read up on this game, past werewolf games, and basically all my PBEMs - sarcastic remarks abound.

A lesser example:

@uberfish - I'm not saying ALL the wolves ignored your post. I'm saying that building a suspect list based on reactions is not all that productive since a wolf is more likely to ignore yOur post than a villager... So you don't really give yourself good odds of finding a wolf.

Basically, I made it pretty clear that I was not a fan of Uberfish's reasoning, gambit, or anything about it really. Me using the phrase "lash out" was certainly an exaggeration, but there is absolutely evidence right here that I was not a fan of Uberfish at the time, and the suspicion grew from that very naturally.

-----------------

I really don't think this new bandwagon on Zakalwe is very productive... It simple seems to give Sareln and Twinkletoes more time to fly under the radar and continue contributing nothing whatsoever while they laugh at our village's ineptness. Granted, I'm not sold on Zakalwe's innocence, but he's a safer bet to me than Sareln/TT. Though I haven't read Serdoa's mega-post yet (I'll do that next), so perhaps it will change my mind.

[Injera]

Okay, here's my take on all the players in the game. I wrote this last night and this morning. I've glanced through some of the posts today but this doesn't really take any of that into account.

The Uber Three
These are the players that I began to suspect in Day 1 from the uberfish event. My feeling at the time was that there was definitely a wolf in the camp, and I think that's still very likely.

zakalwe: Formerly my prime suspect, I based this on his initial reaction to uberfish, and what I perceived as a slow-building campaign throughout Day 1 to lynch him. As I've said before, I got the sense in Day 1 that there was a real hesitancy to commit to any votes and it wasn't until zakalwe fully moved on uberfish that everything came out. Normally leading the charge on an innocent like that would be a risky (and thus unlikely) move for a wolf, but in this case uberfish was so obvious a mislynch candidate that just couldn't build steam that I felt is was plausible. I've come to trust zakalwe quite a bit now, however, for two reasons. First, the last couple of days when I've read the posts in the morning/early afternoon I would go through them and see points that I felt were suspicious or interesting, and often there would be a zakalwe post shortly asking or noting whatever had jumped out at me. The second reason is that Day 2 just doesn't fit with my Day 1 narrative as zakalwe as a wolf. Leading the charge on an easy target is one thing; being the first vote on a harder target (remember Erebus didn't really start piling up votes until his string of panicky posts) is a lot more risky, especially after doing it on Day 1 as well. So, he's not a suspect for me any more, at least until the end game. I think it's more likely that some wolves are using him as cover to vote for villagers.

Catwalk: Also led the charge on uberfish, though no one followed him. I'm suspicious of him for a couple of reasons- first, he does seem to be following, or trying to get in the graces of zakalwe. If you look back at Day 1, he went after me the immediate post following my first vote on zakalwe, and after uberfish was lynched went back on me again after I reaffirmed my zakalwe suspicions on Day 2. He seemed to defend zakalwe when zakalwe didn't bother too. (I can't remember, but someone called it "unprompted" which seemed right.) When he moved his vote over again he used that phrasing, "parrot zakalwe's vote" which I think is somewhat suspicious; if some wolves are consciously trying to use zakalwe for cover it might even have been an outright tell. I also find it suspicious that the eventual second candidate ended up being scooter instead of Catwalk at the end of Day 2, though there might be more smoke than fire here; more on this when I get to Serdoa.

TT: He, like zakalwe, initially stood out to me for his initial reaction to uberfish's gambit. He hasn't posted much to judge him by, and most of what he does tends to be non-commital. In the wake of the uberfish lynch he clearly benefitted the most, going from the top candidate to a distant second. On Day 2 he appeared for a short duration and took essentially the safest course possible, simply following the short-term thoughts of the village around. He didn't assume any risk moving his vote around either, as he can simply claim he was following mayor Serdoa around. In fact, he explicitly mentioned this. Given that I feel we should look towards the "quiets" today he's my top suspect right now.

The Absentees:
I think either of these two candidates could be a wolf.

JKaen: There's not really much to say here. Sadly, at this point it's probably best for the village if he just gets mod-killed, wolf or innocent, as with our baner dead and an even number of villagers losing a single villager won't cost us a mislynch. If he returns, we'll have to wrestle over the question of whether to vote for him. If we vote to lynch him we risk a mislynch we can't afford, and if we don't he'll remain a safe distraction for wolves throughout the game.

This is really tangential, and probably not the time to bring it up, but it would be interesting if the village could vote to "quarantine" someone in addition to the lynch vote for circumstances like this. Maybe something for WW8.

Sareln: He's been extremely quiet. Unlike JKaen he wasn't completely absent from Day 2, but at the same time he's not really contributing much at all. A huge chunk of his posts come from tally posts; while these are appreciated, I really have to question how someone going through every post and taking notes isn't going to have more to say in general. Both days he followed the "safe."

The Suspicious Veterans
These players are veterans I've had a bit of trouble reading because they tend to use a bit more experential arguments that don't resonate that well with me. I think there's likely at least one wolf in this group, probably the "head" wolf if there is one.

Serdoa: I never got the sense on Day 1 that he was an obvious candidate for a trusted villager that others did. The best example of my feelings for Serdoa on Day 1 was when he mentioned that the other candidates for mayor wouldn't be able to be around during the voting part. I wrote a post along the lines of, "Is this true, for Gaspar? If so I'll switch my vote to Serdoa." When I actually went to post, though, I got this feeling, "Wait... he seems to want this just a little too much," and left my vote on Gaspar. I was almost ready to trust him but something didn't feel right, and that feeling still persists a bit. I found the late switch on to scooter at Day 2 to be suspicious. At the time he switched votes the vote count was 7 Erebus, 4 Catwalk, 2 scooter with only 14 minutes to go. If he had switched to Catwalk it would have been 6/5.1/2. He would only need one person to join him on Catwalk to save Erebus, as opposed to 2-3 others to join him on scooter. That seems like a lot to ask in under 15 minutes. Now, if his suspicions were scooter > Erebus > Catwalk it's reasonable, and I think that's definitely a plausible ranking, so I don't want to read too much into this right now. Additionally, I found his "*" criticism of scooter to be somewhat ludicious, at best attempting to get scooter talking. There's some things he's mentioned since I've woken up that I would like to comment on too, but for now I need to just get this post out.

Meiz: I might be more suspicous of Meiz than anyone else, except maybe Ichabod. The reason for this is that I just didn't really see the attacks on scooter as being particularly well-founded, though I fully admit there's an experience gap here. It seemed to me he could have made the anti-scooter case against a number of players in the game. Plus, I find the "posts aren't original" argument to be somewhat, I'm not sure the best word here, "vulgar." I found that when it was made against me I went back through my posts and realized that a number of my ideas that I thought were original weren't, at least in the sense that I actually had posted them before anyone else. In some cases that's because I thought of it before I read it, but others also did as well and posted before me. Other times there were things I had thought I might have shared that, in reality, I hadn't; I had just thought it over. In some cases I had ideas that I thought were original that, looking back, were clearly inspired by others' posts; I think that's not uncommon when we're dealing with the sheer quantity of information in this thread.
And the other line of attack was that scooter was not being "villager scooter." There are two things here. First, I think that while comparing past experience can be really key in detecting wolves, there's a limit to how far it can go. I think it's safe to say that everyone in this game is pretty smart, and if they get caught as a wolf/mislynched/win they're going to learn from those experiences and use them the next time they play. Looking at this case more specifically, though, I think that it would be unlikely that scooter's story (unintentional player) would be fabricated as a wolf guise. I don't think that makes him more likely to be a villager, just that his explanations for his limited time are probably genuine.

scooter: At this point I don't have a great read on scooter. He probably belongs somewhere between this group and the "absentee" group. I thought he was laying low but he did seem to occasionally make some interesting points, and I felt where there was criticism of him it seemed somewhat unfair. To be honest, however, a lot of the early discussion Meiz/scooter discussion I skimmed over because it seemed like "inside ball" stuff that I couldn't really judge. Now that he's become more vocal my view on him is pretty neutral. He's the least suspected person in this group.

The Deepwolves:
I don't think anyone in this group is likely to be a wolf; if they are they're in very deep, and I wouldn't think they would have any hesitation in actually voting for a wolf, so I'm not even considering voting for them until later in the game.

Gaspar: I initially voted Gaspar for mayor because his reputation was that he did better as a villager than wolf; that made him a good choice for mayor as it would hedge against a wolf mayor. I also lurked Pitboss 4 extensively, so I might be able to get a sense of a suspicious Gaspar earlier. He really hasn't done anything to trip any guilty wires for me right now.

Ichabod: I haven't gotten any sense that Ichabod isn't working very hard to help the village. His posts have been relatively infrequent, but they're always insightful. Until MNG was eaten I thought he was the most likely candidate to be the baner. In fact, the most suspicious thought I've had about him is "shouldn't the wolves have eaten him by now if he's a villager?"

Roland: I was neutral on Roland for most of Day 1, but like zakalwe he seems to be independently picking up many of the same things I do. I haven't really seen anything he's done to warrant much suspicion, and he's been very vocal and given himself a lot of opportunities to

On veteran players, prior experience:
Being a new player, there are some reads that the more experienced players get simply due to having a greater familiarity with the other players and their history that just don't always jump out at me. It's a small sample size, but I'm getting that feeling about the wolf kill choices as well, that they're being guided by a grizzled veteran that really knows the others players. Honestly, the more I think about it logically the less meaningful it seems, but I figure I should share it since there might not be anyone else the game that could pick up on it.

[scooter]

Sorry for the quoting fail on the Roland quote - can't edit it. Should still be readable though if you look closely.

[Roland]

First off, holy shit Serdoa. I don't have time to read that right now, but it looks like a gem. Gonna have to look that one over when I get home.

Secondly, Meiz:

Had a laugh at this . Ps. Erebus was killed already and he was a villager

I know that. I was taking the posts as they were at the time they were put out there while looking at it with the knowledge we now have (i.e. we know Erebus is a Villager, so comparing his posts side-by-side against Twinkletoes, who is an unknown, might highlight the differences between what makes one post Villagerish, and one Wolfish - if that makes any more sense).

And my point was that I saw Erebus's post as a villager like post (and was right in hindsight), while TT posts do not strike that innocent (not the only reason I suspect him, but Serdoa asked what was the difference between these two)

Ok, so we're essentially saying the same thing here. Looking back on it knowing Erebus is a Villager, his post looks more Villagerish to me than Twinkletoes. So, yeah - we're in agreement. I just didn't know what you were trying to say (whether you thought Twinkletoes' post was more Villagerish than Erebus).

Or did I completely misunderstand the point you were trying to make, Roland?

A little bit, but not a big deal. Probably my fault - as I said I'm a little rushed (trying to cram a couple posts in here after my lunch break). We're saying the same thing, I was just trying to clarify whether we were saying the same thing, or the opposite of one another. Make sense?

@Serdoa, I already mentioned that if both scooter and TT are wolves, Zak will definitely get back to my suspects list. But I don't see a reason to vote him today, since I have much better suspects, Zak has had quite many villager like posts (IMO) and he will not stop talking.

Not Serdoa, and haven't read his Epic, but in my experience zakalwe never stops talking - ever. 'Wolf or Villager, he's always chatting. At least, that's what I remember from past games.

So, just because I want to throw this thought out there because it just buzzed through my head right now (haven't even had time to analyze it myself): zakalwe was the one who said right off we'll have time to discover the "deep cover" 'Wolves later. I thought it an odd statement initially, but when I thought about it I agreed with it, so OK. Someone else mentioned that there's usually a Leader of the Pack in these games for the 'Wolves. Now, zakalwe has always been a strong leader. Combine that with my post last night, commenting on inactive / low activity 'Wolves, and is it completely crazy to think - just maybe - zakalwe is the leader of the pack, covering for the inactives by throwing just enough suspicion their way to keep everyone alive, while leading the Village around (like he's always done as a Villager before)?

It's just a wild theory (third gunman on the grassy knoll type deal), but I wanted to get it out there in case it has any relevance to what's going on. Probably wild paranoia, but oh well. Anyway, I have to get back to work before my boss (father) catches me slacking. :neenernee Damn paperwork.

[scooter]

Random thought: What do you guys think about having the vig claim now? Like I said, I think it's critical that we not lynch a villager today, so exposing the vig to the WW night kill is an acceptable risk at this point. Also, the WW's may very well target trusted villagers anyways, so they could very well ignore the vig. But the main point is that I think we lose if we lynch a villager today, so why not limit the pool of options a bit? Now seems like the right time. Thoughts on this?

[Serdoa]

tl;dr of that "wall of text": zak is a wolf who is good at deceiving

btw: I know that nobody wants to read that wall of text. And for exactly that reason, zak is getting away with it. It is easy to look at Jkaens post and formulate an opinion. It is easy to look at TTs posts and do the same. Looking at zaks post? Whoa, the sheer amount of it makes you not want to do it. You just listen to that little voice that tells you "he had some longish posts, he accused some people, he is zak, sleep on".

I mean, Meiz, look at your "argument" why you don't suspect zakalwe. I have gone through EVERY single post from zak till page 43, read them, put them against each other and your comment on that is to tell me "he had quite many villager posts, fuck off". You have not even bothered to look at the inconsistencies I showed in his posts. Don't you think I have felt exactly the same before? I did, I was sure on zaks innocence already on Day 1. But there are so many posts which do not mash with how zak normally acts, how zak normally is and what zak normally tells. I just can only point at that scooter-post again if you don't want to read my wall of text and ask "Why would villager-zak let scooter get away with 'it was all in my head'?".

Well, anyway. I will try on today and when I am dead tomorrow you guys hopefully will finally look at zak. I mean I know you won't, simply because no one will have time to even work out all those little things which put together tell you that zak is a wolf. I used my WHOLE working-day today for that and I am still not through all of his posts. Just to give you an idea. That may also explain if I sound slighty pissed at having my work dismissed without it being at least read.

[Injera]

Random thought: What do you guys think about having the vig claim now? Like I said, I think it's critical that we not lynch a villager today, so exposing the vig to the WW night kill is an acceptable risk at this point. Also, the WW's may very well target trusted villagers anyways, so they could very well ignore the vig. But the main point is that I think we lose if we lynch a villager today, so why not limit the pool of options a bit? Now seems like the right time. Thoughts on this?

I think it might be better to hold off on the vig claim, though obviously if the vig is in danger of a mislynch a claim is good.

[Catwalk]

Random thought: What do you guys think about having the vig claim now? Like I said, I think it's critical that we not lynch a villager today, so exposing the vig to the WW night kill is an acceptable risk at this point. Also, the WW's may very well target trusted villagers anyways, so they could very well ignore the vig. But the main point is that I think we lose if we lynch a villager today, so why not limit the pool of options a bit? Now seems like the right time. Thoughts on this?

I agree strongly with this. The longer we wait, the bigger the risk of a wolf succesfully impersonating the vigilante. We really want to avoid that, and I'd say it's already pretty likely a wolf will either counter claim or beat the vigilante to it.

My suspicion on zakalwe was very minor until today. I think he's been digging a hole for himself today, maybe that's just me.