Realms Beyond Werewolf 2 : Game Thread

[Roland]

One quick thing to add:

Regarding Dantski, I see no harm in letting him slide for one more day. I agree that a Villager who does nothing is at the very least dead weight, if not an outright liability. Having said that, it's still early enough for him to make a contribution, for better or worse. He may well have some strong insight that helps us flush out a 'Wolf. He may well slip up, and show his fangs to us early on. Or he may continue his gambit of staying in the shadows, whatever his reasons - and thus force our hands swiftly and firmly. I have my convictions about another, and I've done my best to explain them. I understand everyone's sentiment about low-class Villagers, and Danstki in particular. I weighed all that before I made my decision, and I still came out to the same conclusion.

Having said all that, I propose this: I am not in favor of lynching Dantski. While I agree he has added nothing to the discussion, at this point I strongly believe we have a chance to nail a 'Wolf on the very first day. If I am wrong, and we lynch a Villager, I will quietly throw in my vote for Dantski the next day (should no one else present themselves as a better target). I gave him the benefit of the doubt - this day. If he chooses not to step up and embrace that, and grace this Village with something actually useful, then I say hang 'im. At this point, though, I just cannot put myself behind such a notion - not with what I believe to be strong evidence pointing towards a more likely candidate.

One more thing:
You say that all of Sandover's words are typical Sandover. Fine. I can accept that, willingly and without argument. I'll think on it tomorrow, and sleep on it tonight, but hear me on this. You say the same of Dantski, and yet you are so quick to decide his fate, when the biggest reason behind lynching him is that he has presented NO evidence - for OR against. Consider that, and consider this: what if Sandover's prior history, his past actions, provide the perfect cover for him to act as he has? What if he's a 'Wolf, with only the slightest hints to that fact shining through, hints that are easily written off as "that's just Sandover?" Uberfish, in my mind, was that very same person in the last Village - and look how that turned out. On the other side of the coin, look at Cull - the least helpful Villager ended up being one of the saving graces for the whole town.

Do not be so quick to judge for so little an offense. It may come back on you tenfold.

[Gaspar]

Man alive, Roland. That's a freaking novel. I'm not criticizing, I certainly commend your passion, but man, that is a freaking novel. That's all I have to say about you specifically, I'm 99% sure you're a villager, so I'll leave it at that.

Ok, so, I've thrown away a couple of joking posts and slightly less joking votes and haven't contributed anything. Sorry bout that, been a bit of a rough couple days, just got back from vacation at work and I always have a hard time balancing my play with my work. Anyone who has paid much attention to the forums since I returned to this community can see that I won't be a quiet player in the long term, just need to hit my stride. (For reference, see my PBEM12 thread!) (Yes, that was just a cheap attempt at boosting thread views there.) (Sorry.)

Back to the lecture at hand - I think we're reading waaaaay too much in what's gone on the last 36 hours. Re-read day of WW1. Whole lot of bouncing around with a whole lot of nothing meaningful. Now the events of that day had a bit to do with the final outcome, but more than that, they were frequently misused by the village team to make erroneous assumptions. If I get no other point in this post across let it be this:

Stop reading so much into the day one posts. You can twist any words anyway you want, but little has been revealed yet.

So let's recap what has happened in day 1 that is meaningful:

MJW outed himself as the baner. He's probably actually the baner. He has not in anyway showed himself to be clever enough to be the devil or whatever nonsense has been suggested otherwise. If he's a wolf, good game, but I feel very comfortable he's just a panicky baner.

</end truly meaningful stuff that's happened so far in day 1>

Beyond that, we learned some things about everyone's personality. Most of those things, we already knew. While I will not stake any of my credibility on Sandover being a villager, my immediate thought when reading his early posts was this was exactly what I would expect of Sandover, the villager. Direct, blunt, aggressive. Its who he is. He's also deceptive, for sure, so I certainly wouldn't eliminate him from wolf conversation. I do however think the game is more interesting with him in it, for what its worth. I would vote to hang him in a heartbeat if I was convinced he was a Werewolf, though.

I really don't want to talk much about the mayor vote, I wish we had another day or so before we had to make this decision, because in my mind, the ideal mayor is someone like Athlete in WW1, who is patient and reasonable and good at building consensus. The worst mayor would be a wolf. The second worst mayor would be someone like zalakwe in WW1, who was very prone to over-analyzing stuff and then jumping to conclusions and sticking with them. If zak was mayor in WW1, the wolves win the game. At this moment in time, I don't know enough about the players to make that decision. I have my vote on sunrise atm, but solely so I have it somewhere.

And that leads to the last point I want to make. Roland is being EXTREMELY critical of people throwing their votes around. That is a very valid early days strategy, IMO. Shake the tree a little, see what falls out. The odds are extremely high we're going to accidentally lynch a villager before the game is out. I feel comfortable that none of the villagers want to do that, but we have to accept that its likely. So throwing an odd vote around, even if it ends up in a dead villager, is completely worth it if it flushes the wolves out. Those sorts of strategies are part of what won WW1 for the village. So let's not be overly critical because someone changes votes a lot, or even votes without 37 readings of thread first. I've voted for each role twice, and I'd say the likelihood is solid I'll change at least one more time before the day is over, and I'm a villager who wants to win the game.

[Kyan]

Hey Roland, welcome to the party! I follow your logic and agree with you really. My initial votes were simply to force people to come say hi in this thread. It worked and i can now re-assess. Unfortunately, this will be my last opportunity to access this forum before the lynching deadline so i'm going to just have to trust your judgment for now.

I change my vote to Sandover.

I haven't made a real vote for mayor yet, so i'll put forward a vote for luddite. My reason for this is we seem to be thinking generally along the same lines.

[sunrise089]

Because Selrahc posts more I trust him more than sunrise now. I change my vote to him.

No worries, but I have a bit of a catch22, right? If I want to be mayor, and people have been nice enough to vote for me based on my not asking for the job, I can't exactly start campaign spamming. If I don't want the mayor and I post that it, I think, may seem weird and people may start overthinking the meaning behind it.

The reality is, I like Selrahc and think he would be a good mayor, and would be fine taking my chances he's not a wolf. Of course I know I'm not a wolf, so me being mayor would be nice in that sense, for the added insurance. The flip side, besides a possible risk of death, would be being forced to break a tie on t1. That part of the job wouldn't be too pleasant at least for me, as I hold no personal grudges even against the dastardly wolves from last game, and on day 1 I'd stand a very good chance of breaking the tie in favor of a villager lynch, which even if not really my fault wouldn't make me feel very good.
________________

I still have no vote to lynch because I don't think anyone is a real suspect at this point. I think there are some good arguments for sandover, dantski, and rowain, but I still think each is more likely to be a villager than a wolf. I'd rather not vote and therefore shift the group's path, even slightly, if I have almost no confidence in my vote yet.

[Gaspar]

Despite my own personal wall of text on the matter, I decided I should follow my own advice. Voting for Kyan was a joke, voting for Rowain was to see what happened. I have my answers there. Let's get an answer to a new question:

Sandover

[Lewwyn]

(For reference, see my PBEM12 thread!) (Yes, that was just a cheap attempt at boosting thread views there.) (Sorry.)

Haha I check everyday, several times a day actually.

As for whats been said:
MJW - panicky Baner
Sandover - Aggressive suspect
Rowain - Possible suspect

I voted for Rowain over Meiz. These were my two personal choices. However, I suspect Meiz over rowain. Because of this Rowain has become more and more unlikely to me. Dantski also feels like not enough information.

Sandover, Sandover, Sandover.... where to begin. I was flattered by the mayoral vote. No lie. I am really with you because of the no scrying MJW thing. Totally on the same wavelength with that. However, some of your reasoning about why is more suspect. Its like wanting to do the right thing for the wrong reason. I'm not sure if its just the wolves playing both sides or whatnot.

A comment on Roland's walls of text... they're big. they're wordy and the only way I feel he could write that much and not slip up is if he actually is a villager. Otherwise he's the craftiest darn wolf ever.

Now what I said about bandwagoning earlier. Villagers have to do it, even if it ends up that a villager is killed. Maybe its the equivalent of swinging for the bleachers, but this game is a homerun derby. You either get it right or you strike out. I have greater faith that Roland is a villager than Sandover... As such his choice of Sandover becomes more appealing than Sandover's choice of Rowain(and I've already said I suspect Meiz more than Rowain). Given that Meiz has no votes on him I'm stuck again between Rowain and Sandover because as I said before spreading votes out is not gonna win.

Forgive me Sandover if thou art a villager. I hope we can still be friends

[Rowain]

As a rule, we should vote for someone who doesn't vote right away on the first day and waits for the crowds to pick a target, but doesn't mind stirring the pot to try and direct the crowd. Out of our top 6 posters to date, only one fits that description: Rowain.

And had I voted right away on no data at all and switched around you would accuse me of switching votes and more.

But Mr. Nice Guy if I survive you will find me to wait with the vote till i have enough Data for myself.

The seer may (or may not) want to scrye MJW for a seer-baner team or scrye the mayor for our security at some point. So why not make MJW the mayor? Then the seer can get a 2-for-1 if that's what makes the most sense to him.

So you support my idea of making MJW Mayor and getting him screened but still think I'm wolf .

My 2 main suspects at the moment (after reading Rolands posts) are Lewwyn (he has been absolutly against a MJW screening) and sandover.
Edit: Have to think about the latest development of Lewwyn if this makes him more wolfish or not.

[Sandover]

2) Scanning MJW is most likely a waste of a Seer's turn, for several reasons. I've already given my reasons as to why I believe MJW above, and for those reasons I don't feel we have much to gain (confirming a strong suspicion versus revealing an unknown) from scrying him. Even if we do scry him, however, we not only have a potential for two "Seers" looking into him, but no viable way to get the information out into the open. We don't know for certain that there is a Fool out there, but we don't know for certain that there isn't. Personally, I'm inclined to err on the side of caution, and assume that there is. Therefore, even if we could get the Seer's information out publicly without revealing the Seer's identity, we would never be certain his information is accurate. This, unfortunately, applies equally to our future Mayor at this point.

Yes, it is a waste. Glad more people agree with me.

So, what does he do next? Immediately fires off at a new target. Meiz, at least, reserved judgment after he finally decided not to lynch MJW. But Sandover? He goes straight from one target to another, with the most minimal reasoning behind it. He then later on throws Miez, a former follower, into the same pile as his accused - and tacks on a third candidate for 'Wolf! Accusatory much? At the very least, this inflammatory reaction set my nerves on edge. This early on, to be trying to tie multiple people to one another as 'Wolves working in tandem, with only the most circumstantial of evidence to go by? Something just doesn't sit well with me here - perhaps it's simply my cautious nature, perhaps it's something deeper.

You haven't read my PBEM3 thread, have you? Accusation and confrontation are my middle names! Accusing people are a good way of gaining infor early on. You can't possibly claim it's my fault MJW outed himself, can you? I was looking for wolves, not the baner.

Sandover:
- Throws out accusations, backed by just enough evidence to make them sound meaningful, without getting too deep into the reasoning behind it.

It's day one. Where am I supposed to find more evidence? Again, just being me. Your friendly wolf hunting neighbourhood bully!

- Tries to earn favor with an early candidate for Mayor, before everyone got distracted by the whole Baner debacle, before everyone got distracted chasing after two people in the invigorating, intoxicating hope of catching a 'Wolf on the first turn!

Ehm, what? I wouldn't call promoting Lewwyn as giving an early candidate, considering the amount of votes already present on either Selrahc or sunrise. My hesitance to vote on sunrise came from realising the possibility that might be a bandwagon set rolling by a wolf. I will change my vote to sunrise, however, if it turns those two are still the only candidates later during the day.

- Sows just enough chaos to subtly direct the Villagers towards lynching someone, and then disappears.

Good morning guys, I just woke up.:wink2: Or well, it was probably more like an hour ago considering how much has been posted in this thread since I last checked it! Anyway, of course I disappear when it's daytime in the US - I live in bloody Europe! You and I even talked about why I wasn't online much in LoL few months ago.

Can we get a clarification on this? Does this mean that the devil can mislead the seer, and make him think that MJW is the baner when he's really a wolf? That would be quite diabolical, and a really good tactic from the wolves. It would cause the seer to reveal himself to the wolves.

My point was that, if MJW is a wolf, the devil could feed him correct information about the roles of some people, to make MJW look credible in a situation where he'd claim to have contact with the seer. My gut is telling me isn't a wolf, though.

You make an interesting case, and the only caution I have is that if you haven't followed him in PBEM3, today in this thread was pretty vintage Sandover. His style is fairly in-your-face-ish and a bit stubborn (he knows it's true too :P)

And here it is. Thank you Scooter.

Forgive me Sandover if thou art a villager. I hope we can still be friends

Yes, we can. Roland almost convinced me to vote for Sandover!

I also recall someone (I'm pretty sure it was Roland) saying something along the lines of my posts not being very elaborate, but I seem to have lost the quote. Anyway, if I were to make one post of the same quality and length as what Roland wrote, I'd be sitting here for somewhere around four hours I reckon. I can't express myself very elaborate in english without spending a lot of effort. I struggle even in my native tongue, so I tend to stick to short to-the-point types of messages. That's all you're going to get from me, no matter how many votes I get.

Also, when I think about it, I believe Roland (and someone else, who was it again?) made some excellent points. Lets lynch Meiz?

[Rowain]

Time for another tally:

Mayor:
6v: Selrahc (Sareln, Roland, sunrise089, Serdoa, haphazard, Cyneheard)
5v: Sunrise089 (scooter, Ug, Irgy, uberfish, Gaspar)
3v: MJW (Rowain, Meiz, Mr Nice Guy)
Lewwyn (sandover)
Luddite (Kyan)

Changed Votes:
MJW from Dantsky to Luddite;MJW from Luddite to sunrise;MJW from sunrise to Selrahc; MJW from Selrahc to No vote;
Scooter from Selrahc to sunrise;
Rowain from Ug to MJW;
Meiz from Nice Guy to MJW;
Gaspar from Luddite to sunrise;
MrNice Guy from Selrahc to MJW

Not voted: Dantski, Lewwyn, MJW, Selrahc, Luddite

Lynch:
5v: Dantski( Luddite, Irgy, scooter, Cyneheard, Selrahc)
4v: Sandover (Roland, Kyan, Gaspar, Lewwyn)
3v: Rowain (Serdoa, MJW, Mr Nice Guy)
2v: Mr Nice Guy(uberfish, Ug)
Irgy (Sareln)
Lewwyn (haphazard)
Meiz (sandover)

Changed votes:
MJW from Selrahc to Dantsky; MJW from Dantsky to Rowain;
Kyan from Ug to Dantsky; Kyan from Dantsky to Sandover;
Sandover from MJW to Rowain; sandover from Rowain to Meiz;
Gaspar from Kyan to Rowain; Gaspar from Rowain to sandover;
Irgy from MJW to Dantski;
Meiz from MJW to no vote;
Mr Nice Guy from Ug to Rowain;
uberfish from Selrahc to Mr Nice Guy;
Lewwyn from Rowain to sandover;

Not voted: Dantski, sunrise, Meiz, Rowain

I hope I didn't make any mistakes.

[Meiz]

Phew, finally managed to catch up and read the walls of texts. Half of the workday well spent!

I had some funny thoughts yesterday before going to sleep. "If Roland hasn't posted anything meaningful in the next 10 hours, I'm going to cast my vote on him. Surely he must be wolf, being quiet like that!"

Ok, scrap that theory! . I now feel 99% confident that he is an innocent. So congratulations in advance, if you are revealed to be a wolf after all! . That's actually one of the reasons why I didn't vote right away after reconsidering MJW. Of course I don't want to throw accusations on a whim, but I also wanted to see if there's someone trying to go unnoticed.

Just to clarify, I also live in Europe, GMT+2 time zone. Please don't expect me to hang here in the middle of the night!

But anyway, onto some points.

First of all, unfortunately it seems like my theories have raised some suspicions among you. I really don't know what to say for defense, because I still feel that it's not a complete waste to identify MJW's true role. Not immediately by us, but at least by our real seer. Why leave a question mark hanging? Still, I'm not going to be fanatic about this, and there are some good points why Seer turn would be wasted by this. I just don't see why that's a compelling reason for blaming me to be a wolf. Is it really that bad idea?

I think haphazard1 summarized it well:

Our Seer has to scry someone on Day 1 -- why not MJW? This will either confirm he is a jumpy Baner, who the Seer can then work with, or that he is a wolf. The Seer could not reveal this directly without risking Fire&Ice's fate, but that would be true of any Day 1 scry which revealed a wolf. So why not take the chance of proving he is the Baner and can become a trusted ally?

Scrying MJW either finds a wolf (useful info) or confirms the Baner so the Seer and Baner can work together (very useful info). Scrying someone random either finds a wolf (useful info, but not as useful as revealing MJW as a wolf-pretending-to-be-the-Baner) or a villager (varying levels of usefulness, but all probably less useful than confirming the Baner).

Two things here:

1) Why ignore MJW in hopes of finding a different wolf (assuming MJW is one)? Any wolf eliminated is a positive for the village, and an early elimination would be hugely positive. No need to go checking for other candidates when we have not finished confirming the one we have. And if we scry MJW and do not find a wolf, we get the very nice outcome of confirming MJW is the Baner, so the Seer and Baner can work together. Scrying MJW seems like a win-win for the village to me.

2) Why this emphasis on the Seer finding the Masons? There is no "decent" chance of this, it is only 10%. I am suspicious that you keep emphasizing this to distract from the more advantageous choice of scrying MJW -- something a wolf might do to maybe draw out the Seer or a Mason?

However neither of them can safely post any results without giving themselves away - they need to find someone they can trust which they can only do by scrying, a failed attack or a trusted vote (Masons).

They need to find a trusted contact asap.

And that trusted contact could be the Baner -- if the Seer/Fool scry MJW and he actually is the Baner. If MJW turns out to be a wolf, they are no worse off than if they randomly scry a wolf (30% chance) and they pick up a useful piece of information about MJW. Combined with watching who did/did not support scrying MJW, that will make choosing future scry attempts a lot less random.

I am not seeing much downside to scrying MJW. Yes, there is a small (10%) chance of scrying a mason and getting multiple trusted allies, and a bigger chance of getting some other villager for one trusted ally. But compared to the possible benefits of a confirmed Baner ally, or of a confirmed wolf pretending to be the Baner plus knowing who opposed scrying that wolf.... I think the benefits of scrying MJW exceed the possible alternatives.

Again, there are other suggestions for Seer scrying, but are these really so bad ideas that anyone suggesting it has to be a wolf? . Maybe I'm missing some logic in here...

Well, I'm still proud to stir up discussion, because as mentioned several times before, silence in the village is an advantage for the wolfs. I'm sure these discussions will prove to be beneficial later when we have more knowledge.

---

Ok, now to the Mayor business.

As much as it pains me (truly) to say this, our best candidate for Mayor is MJW. Now, you may think I'm crazy for saying this (frankly, I do too, despite how much thought I've given it), but hear me out. I've explained the basis for my reasoning above - if the Mayor is a 'Wolf, he'll be found out soon enough. If not, he'll be a prime target for the 'Wolves, short of someone more important - like the Baner. By combining the two, we guarantee ourselves a Mayor who is not a 'Wolf, while at the same time lending potentially constant protection to the Mayor, and (much more importantly) the Baner. Now, this latter strategy does come at the cost of "wasting" our Baner's ability each and every night, giving the 'Wolves free reign, but on the same token, the Baner's usefulness doesn't really show until much later on anyway. IMHO, the Baner is probably the most important role we have - it's been said it is possible to win without a Seer; all you need is greater cunning than your opponents. It's a risky gambit, but at this point, everything's a gambit - risky or otherwise. I'm not saying it's the best plan, but it's A plan, and one that I've given a fair amount of thought. I would, however, strongly encourage further discussion on the idea - it's always possible I missed a big loophole that would favor the 'Wolves, and we don't want that.

Excellent summary, this is exactly the reason why I have voted MJW as our Mayor. I agree that he doesn't seem to possess the features of a good Mayor (well, you can't have everything... ). But now that the Baner "is out" (we don't know it for sure), Mayor role for any other villager seems like a death warrant.

Btw. I really wish I'd have the ability present myself and my theories as clearly as some of you, but I'm afraid I possess the same "handicap" that Sandover mentioned. Just writing this message takes so much time, and I still feel like it sounds just stupid

---

As for voting, Roland suggested us to make our own conclusions and I have tried to do that (wayyy too much time spent reading these messages, when I should be working!). In my opinion Sandover has acted the most wolf like so far, so he is really high on my suspected list. I find his "in-your-face", "stubborn", "blunt", "aggressive" or whatever - style also causing a lot of unnecessary suspicion and panic among the villagers.

But I do understand that these accusations might be meant to fish information, which is a valid tactic for day 1. Did I pass? :neenernee

Sareln and Serdoa don't have much to say, do they? Are we really going to let them of the hook, by just focusing on the people who have something to say? I might just have to follow my own advice and vote for one of them. Let's start with Sareln

As for Dantski, I think it's really unfair to vote for the last poster. He has at least somewhat participated on the conversation. I also see that he is a bit uncertain on the mayor role, so let me straighten this for you:

1. The Mayor Elections

Unfortunately I have no clue what the job description is here so I'm lost. Selrahc seems a sensible choice but no more sensible than some other people who are clearly good at articulating their thoughts. Since I don't know what the purpose of the mayor is yet, I'll refrain from any vote.

If there is a tie in lynch voting, the Mayor decides who will die. If Mayor dies, we will hold another vote for the new Mayor.