Werewolf 7 game thread

[Twinkletoes89]

So looking at that, only Jkaen hasn't posted, but he is travelling so that is not surprising.

I think by posting this count quite regularly, we may have a better chance at finding or at least calling out players trying to hide in the background.

[zakalwe]

That doesn't mean it can't be a wolf gambit, though it seems to me to be a high risk one without much reward

Injera, you said it well there.

I'm more interested in looking at the people who jumped on it opportunistically.

But I fail to see what opportunity I would be seizing as a wolf by being the first one to vocally push for lynching Uberfish. If Uberfish is innocent, like you believe, then here's the situation. A villager claims to be a wolf. As a wolf watching this, how do you react? Ummm, you sit back and watch, rubbing your hands with glee. One or more villagers will inevitably attack the villager who claims to be a wolf, and whatever happens, it won't be good for the village.

Incidentally, this is why it's bad villager play, Uberfish. You're creating a very confusing situation for the villagers, which isn't hard to decode at all for the wolves.

[Ichabod]

We have less then a day left and I'm amazed at the lack of discussion... In the last games we had what? 300-400 posts in the first day? Now we have less then 100. Of course, most of the posting happens in the last 24h, but it still pretty quiet here.

And the person getting the most votes now is Zakalwe, which I don't find suspicious, so it's even worst in my perspective. Zakalwe seems to be playing with his villager style. This post shows what I mean:

@Catwalk. I know what you are saying, and I'm trying to limit myself a little in the sense that I won't pursue fruitless discussions. For example, I could keep hammering at Rowain's poor arguments until he moves his vote elsewhere, but I'll let it go for now.

Everytime Zakalwe played villager, he was always pretty full of himself (no offense meant, zakalwe). He always sounded like he was the one who knew best. When he played as a wolf, he was way more funny and avoided confrontations (at least in my opinion). Even when I suspected him, he would just ask questions, he never said something like the previous quote.

He could have changed his style, but it's hard to fake "being full of himself", especially because it's seen as a flaw of character. Nobody thinks to have flaws of character, so I guess he's not faking.


I was hoping that I could wait a bit before revealing my suspicions, but I think is better if I do it now, so we can discuss more.

I'm finding Meiz to be playing a bit out of character. This post caught my attention:

It's a bit early, but I'm already finding Rowain's, Zakalwe's, Serdoa's and Catwalk's play in tone with the way they would play as villagers. Especially Zakalwe seems once again to try really hard to press people and find clues.

I agree with Zakalwe (explained above) and Serdoa, maybe Rowain too, but Catwalk? I'm finding Catwalk to be one of the most suspicious posters... I find difficult to believe that someone would think Catwalk to be a likely villager.

And after Meiz said that he would think more about the mayor vote, he voted Zakalwe with just a brief explanation. I'd expect a little more reasoning behind it, especially because Zakalwe was under heavy suspicion. After reading the thread again, it seemed to me that Meiz could have been trying to get in the good side of Zakalwe, which is a good place to hide as a wolf.


Erebus sounded a bit strange too, but maybe that's because I don't know his playing style very well. Mostly because I didn't agree with what he said in this post, when he analyzed what people posted after the uberfish gambit:

I agree with others that I originally read it as a joke towards Lewwyn's & Gaspar's "uberfish is always a werewolf", but I didn't comment at first and read everyone elses comments first. Then I slept on it.

For the average villager the biggest issue is we don't know what uberfish's actual role is.

If he's a wolf, then the wolf responses would be damage control, minimizing his actions while trying to convince him to keep playing. [Roland, Serdoa, Rowain, Twinkletoes, Gaspar, Scooter]

If he's innocent, then the wolf response is to either get rid of him now before things get worse or to paint him untrustworthy. [Zakalwe, Catwalk, Lewwyn]

Injera and myself didn't really comment until after the reveal was done, and Ichabods and Meiz comments were rather non-commital.

As villager my first instinct was to vote him off, then to let him stew and see if he just straight quit thus not wasting a lynch on him. I also wanted to see if this was a ploy.

The issue is one of circular logic without knowing Uberfish's role. I saw we leave Uberfish alone for now and watch him.

However, one persons response in particular disturbed me. That's Zakalwe.

Apparently he didn't learn his lesson from WW6 about using up our precious vig-kills when he caused Kuro killed. Or did he.

The always analytical Zak never approached this from the possibility that Uberfish was villager. He never had any doubts and went straight for the throat, a strange play for Zak unless he knew that Uberfish's claim was a farce. As MJW put it: Zak has a reputation to live up to, and I don't believe he did so in this respect. As such he seems very suspicious to me.

But the bolded part is the worst of this post. First, Zakalwe was a villager in WW6 and he has a thing with dictating how others should play. I think Zakalwe acted a lot in character with the suggestion, so this sounded very strange.


But my biggest suspicion is Catwalk. Here's his first post:

I think both are equally important, and judgement is the only thing we can somewhat determine at this point. I would run for mayor myself again (I know I'm innocent, so I'd rather I have the extra vote than anyone else), but last game showed that my judgement was horrible. I think Meiz was a strong villager last game, so he gets my mayor vote.

zakalwe's reluctance to vote himself for mayor until supported is consistent with last game, I don't think that casts any notable suspicion on him. My wolf vote goes for Mr. Nice Guy, both for strange voting and for possibly talking fluff about his activity in order to seem active It may not be terribly suspicious, but it's as good as anything.

I don't like this first posts that cast both votes in a no-joke manner. I already said it in previous games, they seem like if the player is being obligated to vote and it seem to be wolfish behaviour. And MNG was already called on the starnge first post by Zak, so it's not an original lynch theory.

Then, he made the comment about limiting the number of the posts, which seems very useless to me. Why bring it up if there's no chance for the players to agree with it? Not particularly suspicious, but I really can't understand why he posted it...

After that, he was fixated in Uberfish in all his other posts. Her's the post where he justifies his vote:

The confession by uberfish doesn't make much sense. I assume he cares about his reputation, so I think it's some kind of ploy to establish himself as innocent. Given that he seems to dislike being wolf, such a ploy makes much more sense if he is indeed wolf than if he's villager, as it draws massive attention to him. He's trying this gambit for fun in order to make playing a bit more bearable. I can't imagine him doing this as a villager (which he seems to like playing), as it's a horrible villager play. It's also a horrible wolf play, but if he doesn't like playing wolf he doesn't have much to lose.

Stating that the setup sucks doesn't sit right with me, he had a pretty good idea about the setup before game start. So, in a bold attempt at shooting a fish in a barrel, I vote for lynching uberfish.

It doesn't make any sense to me... He dislikes being a wolf, how do you know that? If Uberfish's post is a ploy, why should we believe in Uberfish's post (by believing that he doesn't like playing as a wolf)? I can't make any kind of sense of this reasoning...

But all following Catwalk posts talk about Uberfish, some of them saying that lynching Uberfish is a given:

I suppose we could save uberfish for later, but 3 out of 4 wolves do have powers to use. Even if he's outed, he should be lynched as soon as possible IMO. And if he's only the vanilla wolf, that still forces the wolf team to use a power wolf for killing.

But after insisting a lot in the Uberfish deal, here's his last post:

It seems that most have accepted uberfish's explanation for his confession, which demonstrates that he could very well have done it as a wolf gambit, anticipating this reaction. Especially if he has done something similar before as a villager (any chance someone who remembers can look it up?). He's still top of my suspect list, I don't mind pursuing other leads today since it doesn't look like he will hang.

Serdoa sounds like a villager, busy with a mistaken accusation of me I'll vote Injera for the reasons above (about the uberfish thing).

And the reason why he voted Injera:

I also find Injera's blunt dismissal of the theory that uberfish really is a wolf to be suspicious.

Well, it seems to me that, according to Catwalk, Injera is only guilty if Uberfish is guilty too. So, why stop voting for Uberfish? Because the vote is not getting traction? And Injera wasn't the only one who dismissed the chance of Uberfish being a wolf, so why specifically Injera? Maybe because he's a new player and it'd be easier to get a lynch on him.

So, I'll vote Catwalk for now. I'd prefer to hear more from the players, but I'm more worried about the lack of discussion. This is most grasping as straws for now, but it's better than randomly voting.

[Ichabod]

And here's some questions:

@Zakalwe: What do you think about Meiz?

@Meiz: Why do you think Catwalk is innocent?

[Injera]

But I fail to see what opportunity I would be seizing as a wolf by being the first one to vocally push for lynching Uberfish.

There's a whole host of things that could be worthwhile. A wolf could, as mentioned earlier, discredit uberfish for later purposes. With enough village support for it being a bad play or wolf gambit the wolves have safe place to park votes. It's a red herring for the village to discuss instead of talking about other leads or tells. The more it's pushed the more chaos enters in the village.

More than that, though, wolves need to talk during the day. What's safer than going after the player that cried "selfwolf"?

Incidentally, while my vote is on you zakalwe I do think you're likely a villager. You're just higher on the list than everyone else.

[Erebus]

@Twinkletoes

Well uberfish's post throws a spanner in the works.

I just do not understand how he could be anything other than a wolf. Why would a villager ever post something that would so clearly draw a lynch vote to them?

It makes zero tactical sense in any way. Even if he was a villager, contributions such as that are harmful to the village as a whole and would almost be a worthwhile mislynch!


After spending most of the day away, even with my favouring a post limit, i'm not sure whether to be happy that I have only had to catch up with a couple of pages of text.

There's a reason why I said Damage Control or minimize. The bolded part makes him seem as if he's just a crazy villager who's gone loopy. I.e. minimizing his claim. Not to mention your lack of vote at this point.

The very next post was Uberfish "claiming" that his original claim was a farce.

So I believe that IF Uberfish is a wolf that raises your chances of being a wolf as well. However, most people railed against this seeming bad play/unsportsmanlike conduct and that puts you in the majority.

@Ichabod

I guess I should realize that 9/10 times people repeat their mistakes and not be surprised at Zakalwe's vigilante shot call.


The only way to get anything useful out of this ploy would be to see Uberfish's actual role. I believe he is a villager, but confirmation puts the information sifted into an easier analyzed form.

Uberfish

And on the off chance that he is an actual wolf, this makes things very enlightening.

[Gaspar]

So I promised you guys some analysis earlier. Unfortunately, I think the uberfish gambit, while interesting, has sort of derailed the conversation into this over-analytic he said-she said nonsense. So most of the stuff that jumped out at me has been already touched on in one or more places because there frankly hasn't been a lot of chatter. That said, I'm having a lot more fun this game already and I think that my experience from the last 2 made it easier to see the forest for the trees.

I see this has started finally. But really, good timing as work has been insanely busy with 3 special projects in the last 2 weeks, so I haven't had time to even follow the rules thread, and now I finally will have time to follow this, as much as I ever do.

I don't know.

Roland.

And...

Roland.

Which is it Mr. Roland? Which team are you trying to lead to victory?

I generally frown on picking on people for their opening post, particularly those who I like. But this reminds me of WW4 MNG, and its a definite "sow confusion" move. Wouldn't expect this normally from a wolf, but MNG plays the game a little differently.

Maybe we should try to limit the post count in this game in order to keep it manageable for everyone to read it all. It's a common villager strategy to talk lots and lots in order to get the wolves to either mess up or just not keep up, but it also makes it a royal pain for everybody. I know I was guilty of this last game and it seems like it helped keep me just far enough below the radar, but it doesn't make for a more enjoyable experience for everybody IMO.

And no, this is not a wolf ploy (not that it couldn't have been).

Again, from my experience wolfs have few "ploys." What generally is wolf-play is to try and discredit village leaders and limit discussion so that its easier to slink into the background. Also the logic is off. Villagers want to win. Wolves talk about quality of life nonsense like this (see my meltdown in WW5 about meta, for example, which I used to shame a few of the more vocal villagers.) The place for quality of life discussion is the sign-up and post-game threads. This thread is the place for catching wolves.

Ok, thanks for the explanation zakalwe.

I gotta say Catwalk's comment gave me a bit of a 'Wolfish vibe, too, but I was going to let it go. Being that Serdoa seems to agree with me... well, I can't decide if that means the world's ending, or I may actually be on the right track. Going to withhold judgment for the time being.

As for uberfish, I may not be the best at reading him but I kinda have to think he's joking... right? I mean, didn't he pull this exact stunt once before (in a game I was in, I think)? Or am I imagining it? If he's not joking... yeah, that truly is poor sportsmanship, regardless of whether he's a 'Wolf or a Villager - although I can't think of any reason for him to lie about being a 'Wolf, in which case yay Village! (Rather hollow victory, though.)

Very, very strange. I'd really like to hear an explanation for that one, uberfish.

Now I know its been a while since Roland has played but the Roland I know does not act with this sense of relief at someone stepping off his case. All through this post you just see a giant exhale. The Roland I play with would be taking this as a clear sign that zak is a wolf and going after him in a 47-page screed. This feels and sounds more like "Thank God, zak is off my back." I recognize this from my former starring roles in such films as: Jesus Christ zak, leave me alone so I can eat you and God zak you annoying bastard stop targeting me so I can get on with eating the whole village.

More to the point - the way Rowain reacts to zak typically is the way I expect a villager to react to him. The way I react to zak typically is the way I expect a wolf to react to him.

The same reason behind voting randomly for lynch on the first post. I decided to give both votes randomly w/out considering the new importance of the mayor in this setup. So a bad reason.

No Vote

I'm not sure what to make of Uberfish's post, but am not too proud to take free kills. In the meantime though, I want to shake the tree a little and see what Scooter has to say.

This struck me as off as well. Typically Sareln and I look at things pretty close to the same way - we worked very well together in WW2 and we got on pretty well in WW5 even though we were on opposite sides. I generally think it unlike him to not consider the difference in mayor role here and I also see the reacting to pressure looking for relief vibe as opposed to the reacting to pressure suspecting the accuser is up to no because I know I am innocent vibe.

Its early, so I think there's a lot more to be said but I wanted to get some day 1 observations on the board before reacting to the sure to be chaotic day 2. I'm going to move my vote to MNG because he's the only one with any momentum on him. But I'd like to hear a bit from all the people I discussed above.

[scooter]

Apologies in advance for this being shorter than normal for me. Just a busy day.

Excellent posts by Gaspar and Ichabod. Lot of good stuff in there and some interesting suspects. I'm going to vote for MNG, on sheer lack of content so far. This chaos from the uberfish thing has provided excellent cover for wolves if they choose to accept it, so I can't help but wonder if most of them are enjoying this. So I'll vote MNG for now. I'm by no means stuck on that though - I just don't see much evidence for anyone right now... Which is understandable as this is day 1.

[uberfish]

This chaos from the uberfish thing has provided excellent cover for wolves if they choose to accept it

Lol what? Before I ran my gambit there was nothing but low content posts and it's trivially easy for wolves to blend in with low content posts.

[Roland]

I think by posting this count quite regularly, we may have a better chance at finding or at least calling out players trying to hide in the background.

I don't recall it ever helping to find a 'Wolf in the past, but I'm not against the idea if someone wants to keep tabs on it. Personally, I've learned the hard way that all the analyses of anything other than actual post content gets you nowhere, so I'm going to avoid thinking too much on anything else.

I agree with Zakalwe (explained above) and Serdoa, maybe Rowain too, but Catwalk? I'm finding Catwalk to be one of the most suspicious posters... I find difficult to believe that someone would think Catwalk to be a likely villager.

Gotta say I agree with Ichabod here. Catwalk has been tripping my radar since the beginning, and though it's nothing concrete - and hampered by the fact that I have never played with him - he's my best guess at a 'Wolf for the moment. There's still plenty of people whom I haven't made my mind up about, but going for any of them would be ignoring the "obvious" just for the sake of it (not that I find Catwalk to be an "obvious" 'Wolf - just that he's one of the only people tripping that signal for me).

I'm ever so mildly suspicious of Meiz, but I think it's more white noise than anything else, so for now I'll back burner it.

Which brings me to Erebus. In your first post, I was following along and starting to think you were a Villager, until you accused zakalwe of being a 'Wolf. So far, aside from being confrontational (which is 100% zakalwe, no matter the side) he hasn't done anything to come off as a 'Wolf to me. He's acting like every other time I can remember him acting as a Villager, so for you make a stab at him caught my eye.

Then you come out with this:

The only way to get anything useful out of this ploy would be to see Uberfish's actual role. I believe he is a villager, but confirmation puts the information sifted into an easier analyzed form.

Uberfish

And on the off chance that he is an actual wolf, this makes things very enlightening.

and I'm left very puzzled. This doesn't strike me as very pro-Villager at all. Granted, I'm sure part of that is uberfish coming off as a Villager when he explained his gambit (and I've seen first hand how he acts as a 'Wolf trying to play a risky gambit, so I can directly contrast the two). However, I simply have never felt comfortable with the idea of lynching someone for the sake of proving them innocent. If you honestly believe they're innocent, why would you even suggest voting for them?

I have to say, while Catwalk has been slowly creeping up on my list, you've surpassed him in two long strides. Therefore, I'm going to have to vote for you Erebus.

Now I know its been a while since Roland has played but the Roland I know does not act with this sense of relief at someone stepping off his case. All through this post you just see a giant exhale. The Roland I play with would be taking this as a clear sign that zak is a wolf and going after him in a 47-page screed. This feels and sounds more like "Thank God, zak is off my back." I recognize this from my former starring roles in such films as: Jesus Christ zak, leave me alone so I can eat you and God zak you annoying bastard stop targeting me so I can get on with eating the whole village.

Funny how you're the only one who thinks I let off zakalwe too easily, especially when thus far you've contributed virtually nothing? Hell, I've been trying to be restrained a bit this game (because, as was noted, I do tend to fly off the handle a wee bit easily), and no sooner do I post my initial response to zakalwe than I get at least two people saying I "overreacted"! So, maybe I took that to heart a bit, and am trying to pull myself back just a tad? Or how about the simplest answer: his reply was direct, to the point, and succinct - not at all verbose like yours. I asked for explanation, he gave one, and in my mind it left no room for alternate interpretation. He was pressing me to see how I'd react.... which may be what you're doing, now that I think about it....

So yeah, before I derail on another tangent... :neenernee I did say you were the reason I signed up for this, so I suppose I should take your accusations on the chin with a bit of humor, yes? Anyway, reading your post (for about the third time now) I'm seeing a lot of fluff disguised as analyses. Maybe that's being overly harsh, but I honestly have a hard time gauging any real point to what you were trying to say... except, once again, history comes to mind, and maybe that's exactly what you're trying to do here - stir the pot. Still, in the past I've at least been able to see some sort of point you were trying to make. I can't seem to do that right now, so call it piquing my interest at the least.

Lastly, though, I have to address your parting words.

Its early, so I think there's a lot more to be said but I wanted to get some day 1 observations on the board before reacting to the sure to be chaotic day 2. I'm going to move my vote to MNG because he's the only one with any momentum on him. But I'd like to hear a bit from all the people I discussed above.

First of all, there is much more to be said. We still haven't heard jack from Serdoa, Sareln (excusable to a point), Jkaen (to be completely expected), and probably a couple others I'm forgetting. I'll echo whoever said there is far too little discussion going on, and add that despite what zakalwe may think of uberfish's ploy it did do one thing very well - generate discussion, which is no doubt part of what he was going for. Then things got sidetracked into arguing over whether he was a 'Wolf or a Villager, and then over who else might be a 'Wolf or a Villager based on their stance on the former, and then it all just died off. It just feels too quiet to me.

Secondly, how do you know Day 2 is going to be chaotic? If anything, I should think Day 1 is usually the most chaotic (perhaps depending on one's perspective of "chaos"), but why should Day 2 be "sure to be chaotic"? Is there something you're not telling us? I'm not usually one to put much stock in the idea of "obvious slip-ups" (if it's too good to be true, it must be, and all that), but I have to say I found the comment a little odd.

Finally, you talk about wanting more discussion and then park your vote on the safest bet out there? I mean, granted we really do need to get MNG talking, so I can understand wanting to exert a little pressure, but to say it's because he's the only one with any momentum? Huh? Unless I'm mistaken, zakalwe was still pretty high on the lynch tally, and a few other names are starting to pop up as well. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but it just seems to me the only "momentum" behind MNG is the fact that he's been dead silent, and his initial post seemed to be pretty stock MNG joking (although it certainly pushes the boundaries at that, even).

Anyway, I suppose I should fire off my list of "suspected innocents" (in no particular order):
zakalwe - seems pretty standard Villager play to me, based on what I've seen in the past
uberfish - gambits are his thing, but it was the reasoning behind it (and the fact that he came out so early with his reasoning, before too much chaos could build up) that makes me think he's innocent
Injera - strikes me as a newbie Villager ala Mardoc and Jkaen (i.e. trying hard to be a good contributor, but in an obvious fashion)
Ichabod - seems to be as helpful and level-headed as usual

And my top suspects would be (in order):
Erebus
Catwalk
Sareln
Gaspar