WW26: The Masquerade [Game Thread]

[Half-Nose Harry]

Saul's play today continues to be bizarre. I don't know why his tone and seeming knowledge of the game have changed, maybe he has less time, maybe him being a fool/insane etc threw him off. I originally did think it a foregone conclusion to kill him today, it just seemed to simplest solution to having an incorrect result from a claimed seer.

Muriel, I did vote Percival to start the day off, after saying I thought Saul should be lynched today. If you go and look you'll see that I was on Percival before Saul's claim, and I felt like it warranted exploring again today, especially as others had voiced concerns about him. I'm actually happy with his play today more-so than any other day, as he explored other possibilities other than Muriel and explained his view on things a little better, at least in a way I understood it more. Percival, I haven't suspected you because you have been set on lynching Muriel, but rather because it was practically all you focused on., to the point where it seemed like you just felt like a scum that just tunneled in on one person and could parrot the same lines every day.

Having read through the day, it seems it's not at all as clear cut as I thought in regards to lynching Saul over the false result, as it seems that's not a given to lynch someone who claims seer and has a wrong result. Based on his play, I can't see lynching him today. Yes, he has seemed off today, but he felt villagery to me before the change. The big thing for me is his stance on Muriel day 2. It just reads very much like he had an innocent scan on her that he believed correct.

[Young Will]

ok then, lets try to figure out what Saul's false scan could mean. I only see 4 possibilities:

1) Saul has a a Jester role with random result. This seems the most unlikely to me. It is an extremely unfair role for the village - creating chaos with no chance of getting information from the chaos. And the RB village has shown difficulty of late getting information from complicated roles/set-ups - I just don't think Brick would put us through this. Honestly, if this is the case we are probably screwed anyway so its not worth considering.

2) Saul has a Jester role with that also returns the wrong result. ok, so that means Muriel is guilty, Jon is innocent, and probably Saul is innocent as well.

3) Saul is a wolf. It doesnt make sense for him to put his neck out to lynch Kate if Muriel is a villager as well. so in this scenario both Saul and Muriel are wolves. (still seems unlikely, as he would know how much exposure he had once Kate flipped innocent - but I suppose this could be possible if we are guessing wrong about the # of wolves and Saul felt more pressure to protect his flock). this is a lot mroe plausible than 1, but still seems unlikely to me.

4) scum redirected the role (I'm assuming if a villager did this he would have spoken up to sort this mess out). ok, this requires scum to get incredibly lucky on night 2. To force Saul's guilty verdict they would have to move it from Kate to one of themselves. Ok, even if they somehow were able to read Saul enough to determine he was a power role, why would they redirect him onto themselves? (he could be a tracker, a vig, or other stuff that might cause harm to them). the same is true if they targetted Kate, to redirect any actions towards her. seems way to dangerous. and really a redirect role doesnt make sense, imo, for scum to have in a game w/o a SK.

if 4 is true, though, despite this, there are more implications Jon hasn't realized. Once innocent Kate is lynched, an innocent Saul is not a threat to scum. they aren't going to bother redirecting him, so his scan of Jon is most likely accurate. (if that had viewed his scan as still a threat, they probably would have killed him instead of courage - and even if they didn't, wouldnt they redirect him to an innocent person, and not risk Saul picking a true scum to get a redirected "guilty" scan?)

I think 2 is the most likely scenario, which is why I'm voting for Muriel. If she's guilty, its either 2 or 3 - but Saul should give us more clues to gauge his guilt by then. If she is innocent, then 4 is the most likely scenario and we should lynch Jon. But I don't think that will happen.

[Half-Nose Harry]

I think the best lynch today is Muriel On day one I actually had her as a village lean, she seemed like a villager reacting hotly to suspicion. I questioned her on a few things that didn't sit right with me, and I didn't agree with all of her reasoning, but she gave off town vibes. As time wore on it became apparent that I had misjudged her earlier interactions. I had thought that she was posting as she was to defend herself, but that wasn't the case. Through last night and today it's even more apparent. I get now what Rob was going on about, I just had given it a pass because it seemed reasonable in the beginning. She is so content to just go in circles with whomever about whatever, and say more about nothing to the point of preposterousness. It seems she posts sometimes just for the sake of it, and then points out all of her posts as a reason she should be perceived as innocent. One of her earlier conversations with Widow Edith being a prime example, going around and around in post after post not answering a question being posed to her, just obfuscating. This evasive style, combined with some of the other points I had posed to her was enough for me to suspect her today.

Her last huge post sets off all kinds of red flags. Where she puts several players and her stated reasoning behind it just doesn't mesh with how she's been going through the rest of the game. Take her prior opinions of Percival, and her less than civil exchanges with Rob, and now suddenly they are villagers! Isn't that nice? Short Richard is labelled as a "lower bracket villager". Well, if it wasn't for Muriel, I would want to lynch him today, as I consider him either scum or useless. He has practically no posts, and many of those he has made are just bad. And her reason for considering him to be a lower bracket villager, even after admitting that she finds him neutral to scummy, is because people she thinks are scum want to lynch him. Maybe just maybe people are pointing to him as scummy....because he's scummy? I don't think there's a person in this game who would consider his play to be good, so how can you be suspicious of someone for that? You expected to catch flak for your position on Will, and I'll bite. Yes, I admit I thought he was scummy. As I've mentioned before, even after Bert said he was town I considered that it might be some kind of wolf plot, because I did not have a village lean on Bert, unlike it seems pretty much everyone else. However, after Bert flipped town, Will was cleared for me. Bert seemed to know what he was doing, and I don't believe he would tell us in absolute terms that Will was town unless he believed it to be true, and with his death confirming his villager status we know he had no reason to lie to us. Barring some horrid bastard role of a wolf friendly neighbor or something, Will is town. You say that everything about him screams scum except that Bert cleared him and it's too much to ignore. Assuming you believe that Bert thought what he told us was true, it follows that you believe the information Bert received to be false, so that we have a role in the game that seems unfun at best and unfair at worst. This seems unlikely to me, especially since I now lean towards Saul being a fool/insane seer or something of that nature. Having two screw you village roles is just too much to believe for me. Earlier I made a post questioning you about your position on this and crossposted with you explaining your views. This is your post:

Because I'm not a fucking idiot. Yes, you are right, I didn't know 100% that he is the friendly neighbor. But I knew 99% sure that he is it. To me, the obvious answer is the correct answer. This extends to the entirety of this game. A ton of people here seem to think that people doing villagery things must be wolves trying to get villager credit. Villagers sticking their necks out for the good of the village must be wolves taking unnecessary risks to get villager credit. Works the other way around too, when people act obviously scummy like Rob or Percival, for some reason a lot of you think that they can't be scum because it's too obvious. Same thing with the whole fool/wolf debate. If Saul was a fool, we would have gotten extremely unlucky. The odds of him being a fool are much lower than the odds of him being a wolf, and that's why I think he is a wolf. If I wasn't such a competitive person I would tell you to just fucking lynch me so my point is proven. But I want to win this thing.

I get all that. But:

1) why in the world would you point out what my role is? I figured some people did, was just hoping the wolves didn't. now you've made damn sure they get that information. it seems to me you are desperate to find another candidate, not to find a *guilty* candidate.

2) the odds are higher that Saul is a fool than a wolf. The odds that saul is a wolf and you aren't are astronomically small. What you are proposing makes no sense. why would he stick his neck out and invent a seer role in order to get one villager (Kate) lynched over another (you). that would only make sense if you and Saul both were wolves.

In both scenarios (saul is a fool, or saul is a wolf) it only makes sense that you are a wolf, so better to lynch the sure thing first.

1) Perhaps I overestimate the wolves and they didn't know your role, but in any case I don't think it changes anything. If they know you are the friendly neighbor, they want to lynch you. If they don't know you are the friendly neighbor, they still want to lynch you because they know you are some kind of a power role and we have treated you as a confirmed villager. Whether they know or not changes nothing for the wolves, but it will help the village to have the information available to all of us. Me saying that you might be a wolf wasn't about finding a candidate to save myself. I specifically said to not lynch Will first even if the majority would believe you are a wolf, because it's too much of a risk when we have much scummier targets available. I wanted to have the information on the open, and everyone to know that you aren't 100% confirmed, and that everyone knows specifically the conditions under which you aren't a confirmed villager so they can make their own judgments about it when the time comes. For the record, your explanation for keeping it a secret was good. That plan relies on the wolves not having figured out your role, or else you'd get false reads, so I don't exactly think it was a good plan, but I believe that you believed it to be a good plan. So yeah, I suppose what I'm saying is that I now trust you to be a villager. Which sadly means that I'm going to be attacked over this, but it needs to be said.

2) Agreed if that was the case, but as I've already explained, it's not an exchange of one wolf for one villager. Remember what you yourself said before we lynched Kate? You said that if Kate flips villager, we must lynch Saul AND Muriel. It's an exchange of two villagers for one wolf. I will re-explain the gambit theory from the beginning for everyone:

1. Muriel is in trouble after being wrong about two villagers on Day 2. At this point it seems inevitable that Muriel will be lynched Day 3, and there wouldn't be any need for a wolf plot, they could just ride to an easy win.
2. Muriel throws in a curveball and reveals her role. Now, I don't know if you agree or not, but I thought it was convincing enough that I might not be lynched on Day 3 after all.
3. Saul claims seer and clears Muriel as a villager and Kate as a wolf.
4. Kate gets lynched, was a villager after all.
5. And now, as you have said yourself, the predictable play for the village is to lynch Saul and Muriel in response.

End result? Two villagers dead for one wolf. I've ran the numbers already, but here's the end result at the end of the plan: If 25% were wolves at the beginning, the village will need to lynch a wolf three times in a row to win. If 30% were wolves at the beginning, the wolves already won during the plan. Both of those are extremely good end-games for the wolves.

That said, the part that I don't understand is that if it's a wolf gambit, why did they start it before Night 2 finishes? Wouldn't it be better to start it after Night 2, so that we won't be asking the question "Why didn't Saul die?". And if Saul is a villager, why didn't he get lynched on Night 2 when he said he had evidence that Muriel was a villager? Okay, there was Saul's plan, he tried to underplay the importance of the evidence so he survives the night, which was a tactic that fooled me and could have fooled the wolves as well. That could be the reason. In fact, I suppose, when I put it that way, it kinda makes some sense for Saul to be the fool. But on the other hand, assuming he is a wolf, it could be that the wolves were simply sloppy in initiating the plan. They should have waited until after Night 2 is done, but maybe they missed that. It was a reactionary move and they might have jumped the gun too early before they thought of everything. Honestly, I still think Saul is more likely to be a wolf than a fool, but I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the scenario. Maybe someone comes up with something that tips the scale on one side or the other. You are also welcome to discuss any Muriel-wolf theories. While those are obviously useless to me personally, I understand that they need to be discussed and I'll try not to start arguing with people for bringing them up.

I've bolded the pertinent part. Your explanation here is that you weren't actually shoveling dirt onto Will, you were just explaining to the village that he isn't %100 confirmed. The conclusion you reach is that you trust him to be a villager. Now a day later, and the same set of facts mean he is scum. That's one hell of a 180.

[Agnes The Orphan]

Oh Muriel...

Harry: He is a smart player and always on top of things, but he has not done any scum hunting at all. His game has been a pure 100% reactionary game. Always reacting to the moves and posts others make. Always asking a lot of questions. He is a capable player, he could catch some scum if he wanted to.

Why is he a capable player?
Your reasoning is basically that he is good but isn't playing well, no?
Well if that is the case, then how do you know he is good??? Unless you're meta-ing from previous games, which I certainly don't consider enough for a suspicion like that (where you now base things off that suspiscion, like your feelings on Richard).

As for Saul, why do you think a scum would change their style at that point?
I certainly agree that his last few posts have been weird, I just don't get why you think that makes him scum.
For example, his "It would be a bad idea to lynch me" post (which sounds more and more like a jedi mind trick every time I read it ) - it's definitely weird phrasing, but what possible reason do you have for a scum making this post?
I think by far more likely his explanation. Only alternative in my mind is him cracking under pressure, which really doesn't fit with my impression.

Will? why do you bring this up?

You asked what might have made me lose enthusiasm in this game (or rather, you took a round-about way of implying that I had guiltily backed off from bad play only to declare me innocent).
Honestly, its you.
Or rather, your play and the arguments that have arisen as a result.
I mean, I just can't read them and not feel frustrated and angry - if not for the dual accounts I'm sure I would've said some things that I regret, but fortunately that gives me time to cool down.
An example of this is the whole Will thing - everyone has discussed it and concluded that they disagree with you. You've said your piece, the group (vehemently) disagrees, you backed off. And then, you bring it up AGAIN!
...It's like you want the conflict, like your trying to make an arguement. I really don't understand it - I mean if you're scum and decided that you might as well cause as much chaos before we lynched you, then I get that...but otherwise, whats the point? Like Edith said, killing you would really reduce the vitriol in the thread markedly.
Another example is the whole Edith thing last night - she asked for an explanation - even if you think its obvious/you've already explained it (which I don't) why respond the way you did? Its inflammatory, like you want to cause an argument.

And don't think I want to lynch you to improve the thread - I definitely think you're scum.
But scum or no scum, there's no way I'd play the way you have, and its the reason that when the Narrator asked I couldn't care whether this game lives or dies.

Preview-edit:Half-nose Harry sums up my feelings quite well:

I think the best lynch today is Muriel On day one I actually had her as a village lean, she seemed like a villager reacting hotly to suspicion. I questioned her on a few things that didn't sit right with me, and I didn't agree with all of her reasoning, but she gave off town vibes. As time wore on it became apparent that I had misjudged her earlier interactions. I had thought that she was posting as she was to defend herself, but that wasn't the case. Through last night and today it's even more apparent. I get now what Rob was going on about, I just had given it a pass because it seemed reasonable in the beginning. She is so content to just go in circles with whomever about whatever, and say more about nothing to the point of preposterousness. It seems she posts sometimes just for the sake of it, and then points out all of her posts as a reason she should be perceived as innocent. One of her earlier conversations with Widow Edith being a prime example, going around and around in post after post not answering a question being posed to her, just obfuscating. This evasive style, combined with some of the other points I had posed to her was enough for me to suspect her today.

This exactly.
You don't seem to care about persuading in your however many posts, just obfusticating and arguing.
Also a good catch in the second part.

[Agnes The Orphan]

Will please look at the numbers. After you lynch me and I flip villager, you will have to lynch 4 wolves in a row because it's 5 villagers to 4 wolves at the start of Day 5, if we assume 25% wolves start. It doesn't matter if Saul is a good lynch at that point, he has to be a perfect lynch. But you still won't know whether he's a fool or a wolf or a real seer. The fate of the village would be entirely up to luck, and that's just the first of four lynches you will have to get right. The information you gain from lynching me probably isn't enough to get 4 hits in a row. I have that information currently, since I am Muriel, but I'm still having a hard time figuring out who the wolves are. There's no way I could hit 4 in a row with what I've got at the moment.

...
your argument is true regardless of who we mislynch, and doesnt do anything to establish your innocence.

I agree with this.
You keep on bringing up the math of how we need to catch wolves.
You're right, we do need to get them ASAP, starting with Muriel

[Know-Nothing Jon]

Post #963 by Hard-Nose Harry is very good and moves me a lot towards voting for Muriel. Both because it's a persuasive argument, and because HNH has been one of my top suspects, and good stuff by him means someone else needs to take his place.

I think Muriel spent way too much time today talking about why we shouldn't lynch her, and too little time doing actual scumhunting. Her present cases on Widow Edith and Young Will are very bad. She made a decent case against Sister Mary on day 1, but now that most of the "easy" targets are gone, she apparently finds it harder to make a persuasive case against anyone. She even clears Sir Richard, which is really excessive paranoia if she's a villager. (Fair enough if she doesn't trust Widow Edith, but she's not the only one pushing Sir Richard.)

Part of the reason I've been holding the door open for lynching someone else is that I wanted to see a genuine list of suspects from Muriel, and the one she came up with isn't very reassuring. I still cannot really shake the feeling that she's just a villager playing terribly, but when you disagree with pretty much every single read that someone makes, warning bells should be chiming.

And yeah, we really need to close this discussion or it will just drag on until the game is over, anyway.

[Know-Nothing Jon]

4) scum redirected the role (I'm assuming if a villager did this he would have spoken up to sort this mess out). ok, this requires scum to get incredibly lucky on night 2. To force Saul's guilty verdict they would have to move it from Kate to one of themselves. Ok, even if they somehow were able to read Saul enough to determine he was a power role, why would they redirect him onto themselves? (he could be a tracker, a vig, or other stuff that might cause harm to them). the same is true if they targetted Kate, to redirect any actions towards her. seems way to dangerous. and really a redirect role doesnt make sense, imo, for scum to have in a game w/o a SK.

if 4 is true, though, despite this, there are more implications Jon hasn't realized. Once innocent Kate is lynched, an innocent Saul is not a threat to scum. they aren't going to bother redirecting him, so his scan of Jon is most likely accurate. (if that had viewed his scan as still a threat, they probably would have killed him instead of courage - and even if they didn't, wouldnt they redirect him to an innocent person, and not risk Saul picking a true scum to get a redirected "guilty" scan?)

I think 2 is the most likely scenario, which is why I'm voting for Muriel. If she's guilty, its either 2 or 3 - but Saul should give us more clues to gauge his guilt by then. If she is innocent, then 4 is the most likely scenario and we should lynch Jon. But I don't think that will happen.

I had to read this a few times before I saw what you're getting at. You're saying that if scum successfully inverted one of Saul's results, they wouldn't bother to kill him because his credibility would be shot anyway. I guess that makes sense, considering their backlog of confirmed villagers that need to be killed. In fact, thinking about it now, they wouldn't want to kill him because that would flip him as a "Seer". (If he's a fool he will be flipped as a "Fool", even though his role PM told him he's a seer.)

I'm not sure how to defend against this scenario if Muriel flips innocent, but hopefully it won't be an issue. From my point of view, what I can say is that scum probably don't have a framer, because they'd have to have guessed correctly on Saul's targeting both on Kate on me. I guess they might have a redirector but that's a powerful role, which could for example turn a successful vig kill into a double kill for the wolves instead. But I think if Muriel flips innocent then most likely Saul is simply just a random fool.

Speaking of scum targeting - why do you think they chose to kill first Bert and then Lady Elizabeth before you? I'm not asking to paint you in a bad light, but it's not entirely logical, if they're just trying to eliminate confirmed villagers. It seems unlikely that they were planning to mislynch you. One answer to this might be that Muriel is innocent and they wanted her to keep attacking you, as a useful distraction.

Nevertheless... Muriel, so we can talk about something new tomorrow.

[Agnes The Orphan]

I think that pre-last night it was a bit murky about who suspected Will, and Muriels campaigning would've increased the visibility of the anti-Will case, meaning that the idea that he could be lynched had traction until people started attacking Muriel for posting it, which is what really showed that people believed it (whereas before people were saying things like, "Id vote him EXCEPT that he was confirmed" which left it open). This combined with LE not being raised by anyone as a candidate and the general air of people believing she is village even without believing the meta tell made her a a less likely lynch in scam eyes. (I'm deliberately ignoring theories based on specific alignment of players - like scum Muriel keeping him alive as a target)

[Widow Edith]

Edith: Well, for starters there is the meta argument at the beginning. She was one of those who voted Courage despite the fact that she described the villager PM well, and villagers should recognize this. When we started discussing it, Edith was quick to call "Can we now put the meta to rest and play the game?", hoping that we would be satisfied with just clearing Courage and leaving it at that, instead of going after her, Easy Sarah, and Percival based on that meta argument. She also disappeared for a while here, which is uncharacteristic of her later game.

The gap between my first and second post happens quite often if you look at my posting-times. As I said to Will already

Much later in the game she claims that her vote on Courage was just to show her disapproval of the possible mass identity claims, and I wonder if that was said just because she realized we might bring back up the meta argument later and she could use a safe-guard.

Much later? My second post says precisely where I think LE broke the rules and what I didn't like about it.

I think her reaction to mine and Rob's attacks are the way a scum would react when feeling uncomfortable. Which is a lot different from the way she reacted to Will's.

You mean throwing a temper tantrum and using swearwords are a scum-sign? Yes I agree but wait it was you who used 2 posts to throw several f*** in my direction. Look at this post and the one before but the funny thing is you claims that I'm livid and full of rage in the same post.

About Muriels play in general. It consisted mostly in getting people angry and being proud of it

Finally, stop throwing insults and calling me a moron, or I will respond in kind, and I promise you won't like it at all.

If you are a villager, you are a moron. Do take that personally, it's meant to be. If you are a wolf, kudos to you, somehow you've managed to convince a few people of your innocence even in a situation like this.

You are infuriating. Condecesnding. Patronizing. Self-righteous. My blood boils.

Yes i am. That might be the only fact you will ever post in this game.

About her and Short Richard: Short Richard told the world that Muriel is too aggressive to be a wolf and then turned around to vote Sir Percival.

[Fat Rose]

Will, Saul posted this

Now I am not sure what to think of Know-Nothing. He says he had already caught on to me and was trying to protect me last night? Well, good job it worked. So this looks very good for Know-Nothing now. Well, Muriel shows me I have been wrong before.

on D2 after revealing his scan-result on Kate. There was some talk afterwards of course, but if the wolves looked for some clue and just risked it I can see how they could have correctly guessed Saul scanning Jon. And earlier I think Edith has provided a quote that could make them reasonably guess that Saul scans Kate on N2. But that still presumes that they actually have a Framer or Redirector.

Anyhow, as I stated earlier I don't like how Muriel has changed. Therefore

Muriel