Realms Beyond Werewolf 2 : Game Thread

[scooter]

Sigh.

Honestly, I wanted to just keep my mouth shut and not even contribute today for this reason exactly. Lewwyn, maybe this is why everyone is being quiet today, because offer your opinion and stick your neck out and someone will happily stick a rope around it.

You are 100% convinced that I am a werewolf, so everything I say goes through the werewolf glasses. If I jumped on the "yeah lynch Roland!" bandwagon right away, then you'd say I'm a werewolf who's happy to lynch Roland. If I say not to lynch Roland, I'm a WW trying to protect one of his own. If I'm skeptical about Roland, but I don't see a better alternative (this is my exact predicament), then I'm accused of hedging my bets like a werewolf. I can't win no matter what, so why do I bother posting? Maybe... just maybe, there's other villagers who feel like I do? I mean we're at a critical juncture and no one wants to post, kinda odd right? Honestly, Sareln brought up some really good points in his response to me, but what am I supposed to do anymore? Who else should I vote for? I'm not going to take the wimpy way out and vote for myself, so I don't know what to do. We all know Roland is going to come out of the woodwork about 20 minutes before the deadline to vote for me, so I'm probably toast either way.

You (Lewwyn) have been 100% convinced that I'm a werewolf for days now, and it's clear that there's nothing I can do to change your mind. My posts have had no conviction? Seriously?? I've been one of the most opinionated people all game. Just because I don't know who to lynch today, that means my posts have had no conviction? Look, I think Roland is the most likely bet. Look at my post history, a big part of the reason I'm on this hot seat was because I disagreed with him so frequently, and on more than one occasion I was vocal about the fact that no one was questioning him. This caused Roland to threaten that because I was so vocal, I was next on his hit list. Within 24 hours I was suddenly on your suspicious list too.

I mean if you guys want I can do the drama queen thing for the rest of the day too - vote for myself and then shut up. Then you can decide which person you want to lynch, which will most likely be me in that case. Just remember this - I have never lied to you guys all game, Roland has lied to you so many times that we've all lost count. I have never voted for myself and gone "fine, vote me off, see if I care!" and taken my ball and gone home. Remember on yesterday's day cycle, Roland also refused to contribute and his only post all day was to vote with 45 minutes to go.

So what am I supposed to do? What can I do to convince you I'm not a wolf? Anything I type, even if I agree with you, will make you think I'm suspicious, so maybe if I'm a wolf, I should do the intelligent thing and play the quiet game like Roland rather than being one of 2-3 people who are willing to help today. And that somehow makes me suspicious? Lewwyn - take off your blinders for a few minutes and recognize that I'm genuinely trying to contribute here, just like I have done all game long. There's no ulterior motives.

How about a deal? If I can give you proof of at least 5 posts of mine that prove you wrong on your "his posts have no conviction and he just hedges on every post" accusation, you agree to not lynch me, and if I can't prove you wrong in the next few hours, I'll vote for myself. Deal?

Lewwyn - consider one more thing. If anyone agrees that I'm not suspicious, they will get painted as suspicious just for defending me. That's just the way it works in this village.

[scooter]

Lewwyn - I don't think you're a bad person here by the way. I know you are a villager, I know you are genuinely trying to make the right decision, and I know you aren't stupid either. What I'm frustrated about is you made up your mind about me back when you were agreeing with everything Roland said, and now that you are having second thoughts about Roland, it seems hypocritical to not reconsider that maybe I've been skeptical of Roland all game long and you are finally coming around to seeing my way about things. Wouldn't that make you consider that maybe I'm not a nutcase werewolf?

Sareln and Gaspar - I feel like both of you are suspicious of me because I was suspicious of both of you at one point. Be honest with yourself, are you doing that? If not, that's fine, but one thing that is crystal clear (and has happened over and over again) in these werewolf games is that when A suspects B and is vocal about it, B naturally suspects A, and often the thought process is "well I know I'm a villager, so if he's suspecting me, that seems suspicious." A werewolf would also naturally "suspect" someone who suspected him, only because it attracts the least amount of attention for them. Please examine the evidence. When I've been suspected, I've written extensive posts defending myself. When Roland has gotten suspected, he's decided to refuse to post. Which person would you rather have in your village?

I've been a bit of a maverick in this game because I didn't buy into the "party line" of the trusted circle, and I feel like I'm being punished for that. Take a step back and seriously consider what I've done in this game, and tell me how you could honestly believe that I'm a werewolf. And please don't use the "you got so defensive!" line, because that's the most ridiculous line that ever gets written, because a villager and a werewolf would both defend themselves and you know it.

[Lewwyn]

OK. You've convinced me. You're seriously reminding me of the TT + Zaklewe situation in WW1.

I expect Roland to attempt something at the last minute. I will be asleep in 2ish hours. From there out it's in all the rest of your hands. I wrote my post based on evidence over emotions. It was hard, but I believe what I wrote and lynching anyone else at this point would be counter productive.

Good Luck Scooter I hope you survive the lynch.

EDIT: cross posted with your second post there Scooter

[scooter]

Thanks for acknowledging that. If you look at evidence and honestly still believe I'm a WW, I can live with that, because innocent lynches happen. I just feel like with my case, that hasn't actually happened.

One more note I'll mention - is that I have the most to lose if Roland turns out to be innocent. Think about it. If Roland turns out to be innocent, I am darn near guaranteed to be lynched tomorrow unless something enlightening happens in the night phase. Given that, I'm still willing to vote for him rather than making a case against someone else, so take that as a good bit of conviction. I think when I add that perspective, it should (hopefully) make sense why I was hesitant, because if I'm wrong, I'm probably signing my own death warrant. Despite that, I still had the guts to put down my vote and try to kick-start discussion while many other people who aren't very much suspected have quietly stayed in the shadows.

[Gaspar]

scooter, none of this is personal to me. The only personal vote I've cast in this game was on Day 2 when I kept my vote on Meiz because I didn't want to get lynched. Also, while I had become fairly certain Meiz was a villager, I was 100% certain that I am a villager.

As for your defense - look, we don't have much to go on this game. Seer's dead. Owl's dead. In fact, for all the crucifixion that Roland's taken today, he's the reason we have any non-scried kills. You argument that staying quiet is the only way to stay because your words get twisted around is quite frankly, bollocks. We've got two bad lynches this game. Meiz was killed on day two. He was, I would say, moderately talkative. Not as post-happy as yourself or a couple others, but assuredly, not silent either. On Day 5 we lynched Ug, as best I can tell, mostly because he was too quiet. There's no blanket "this will keep you above suspicion" strategy. If there was, everyone would employ it.

Frankly, it seems your primary motivation - and this has come through in your posts both on Day 5 and Day 6 - seems to be not to get lynched. Fair enough, nobody wants to get lynched. But my primary motivation is to catch the werewolves. So you'll forgive me if your impassioned plea isn't convincing me of much of anything. I don't personally care whether you get lynched or not. I only care if you're a villager or not. And bottom line, everything about your game to this point has been hedging. You wanted to hedge on Day 1 because you weren't sure about Sandover. You wanted to hedge on Day 3 because there were lies in the way that the scry was made public. You wanted to hedge on Day 4 because you bought the counter-seer claim.

To this point, the most damning evidence I see of Roland is that he's been wrong a lot. Scooter has been wrong every step of the way. Hell - THAT is the most convincing evidence to me that you're a villager. But I don't believe Roland is a wolf. I believe he's a villager who's frustrated and burnt out on the game and made a lot of mistakes. And yes, he's taking his ball and going home. But when the day is out - and we find out he's a villager, we're one step closer to losing, and the question that's been hanging over your head since day 1 is still there. That's the mistake we made on Day 5. Lynching Ug taught us nothing. Lynching Serdoa at least would have answered a long-standing question, even if either one could have ended up with the same result. Let's not make the same mistake today.

I'm going to follow up in another post because this has become a Roland-esque wall of text.

[Roland]

I intended (after Sareln's opening) to post something longer last night, but I just didn't get around to it (I went to bed somewhere around 9 PM, I think). This morning I come on to find Gaspar adding his weight to things. Basically, they've summed up my defense at this point, and even what I would say as a possible candidate other than myself. I could throw out several accusations at this point, but I don't have the time (nor, right now, the desire) to try to make an in-depth analysis as to why. I'd look very closely at those who choose to lynch me today, and who's waiting until the very end. As someone pointed out, we may learn more from those who don't speak this late in the game than from those who do.

As for me, what can I say? Everyone seems to think I'm this brilliant 'Wolf, when as far as I can tell I've done a piss-poor job of accomplishing much of anything. However, if you TRULY think I'm a 'Wolf, tell me why I would sell out not one, but TWO 'Wolves on Day 1.

Sandover: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=145
Selrahc: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=212

Do you really think a 'Wolf would be willing to throw 1/3rd of his teammates out on the first day, just to gain people's trust, while keeping himself so completely in the spotlight as to be scrutinized for every single action he does - and screwing up as much as I have (or at least as much as you all think I have - maybe I'm a little defensive, and so I don't think ALL my actions have been poor)?

Lewwyn's not the type to change his mind. I could show you PMs and private chats from the first couple days regarding Meiz. He paints me as the one who kept the charge up, and that the "original" plan was to switch to Serdoa - and yet, I have irrefutable evidence that I not only tried to talk both him AND Luddite out of Meiz before the vote was cast, but that I had doubts near the end and wanted to switch, but was voted down by the Masons. Obviously I can't post the direct words here, but it's food for thought: Lewwyn has been known to be blind to all other possibilities once he sets his sights on someone. He's almost impossible to sway - and he'll freely admit he's that way. Lewwyn, in all honesty, if I didn't know you were a Mason I'd say you were a 'Wolf with this latest gambit, but frankly I think you're just royally frustrated by the way certain things have gone down and you're lashing out because of it. I doubt I can sway you from lynching me, but others have raised some very excellent points about me - and why I'm a Villager.

As for scooter, if he's a 'Wolf he's done a piss-poor job of it all game long. His entire position is based around antoginizing me and reiterating the same lies over and over again. He's worse than Serdoa in his actions of twisting my words, and frankly I'm done dealing with him. He's a Troll, and nothing I say or do is ever going to change his position about me. Everyone's best bet is to simply ignore him.

No, scooter, I'm not going to vote for you. You're only looking to draw that response so you can drag me further down with you. I'm done playing that game. If you are a 'Wolf, I'll save you for last, but frankly you've been so brazen and hostile this entire game there's almost no way you could actually be a 'Wolf and survive this long. 'Course, I'm always wrong - right Lewwyn? Maybe that means you actually are a 'Wolf.

Frankly, I'm just too tired to care anymore. Lynch me or don't. You're not going to find a 'Wolf here, so all you're doing is sabotaging your own chances of winning. If that's what you want, fine. Otherwise, look somewhere else. ANYWHERE else, at this point, is better than me, because I am not a 'Wolf. Multiple people are chiming in that maybe it's time we started looking at all the people who've been sailing under our radar this entire game. Maybe it's time you listened to them? Don't take my word for it, though, just start lynching the people speaking up in my defense, because they must be 'Wolves! They're the only ones who could possibly know I'm innocent. Right?

You're all shooting blind in the dark. I have nothing to add at this point, and no reason to bother. The bandwagon has started on me, and it's too late to try to find a replacement, not that anyone has the guts to choose someone else anyway. So stick to your convictions, and bravo to anyone who has any alternative theories.

Oh, and to Gaspar and Sareln:
Thanks for your defense, and your votes of confidence. At least you both understand the situation. Sareln, although I'd be OK with lynching scooter based entirely on the fact that I don't like him (in-game), I'm starting to wonder if I'm wrong about him being a 'Wolf - and instead simply want to rid myself of him regardless of whether he actually appears 'Wolfish, or is just an outright hostile and antagonizing player. I've tried my best not to be blinded by emotions (especially after Day 1), but I can't say I've done well with it regarding Serdoa and scooter. Of course, then I look over Day 1, and see their ardent defense of Sandover (didn't scooter go so far as to try and lynch me then?), and it reminds me of why they got put on my list in the first place. Serdoa, at least, has worked to change my view of him. I can't say scooter has done the same. Frankly, I just don't know, and I'm hesitant to vote him off because I know how tainted my view of him is.

Anyway, this was longer than I thought I'd be capable of, given time constraints, so I'm going to end it here. Hopefully I'll have the chance to check back later, before the end of the Day.

[Gaspar]

At this point in time, there are 11 players left:

Gaspar, Lewwyn, scooter, Serdoa, Mr. Nice Guy, haphazard1, Irgy, Dantski, Sareln, Roland, Rowain

What do we know about each? I'm going to skip myself, because 1. I know I'm innocent and 2. Obviously I'm biased.

Lewwyn - Mason, has to be innocent. Votes emotionally.

scooter - has been contrarian all game. Has at been on the wrong side for at least some time of every successful lynch. Adds constructive posts to the thread. Is super-extra-wicked defensive about his lynch prospects.

Serdoa - has played much the same game as scooter. His impassioned pleas on Day 5 have lowered him off many players radar, despite being a top wolf suspect throughout the "seer/owl" phase of the game, mainly do to be unbelievably uncooperative during that phase.

Mr. Nice Guy - extremely inconspicous, has voted quickly and with conviction however.

haphazard1 - also been contrarian, though without scooter's walls of text.

Irgy - Owl scried innocent, has been an intermittent contributor
.
Dantski - seer scried innocent, so must be. Absolutely of no value to team village this game, what crack you must all be smoking to vote him mayor.

Sareln - overwhelming likely to be a villager due to the events of both days 1 and day 4. Particularly is cleared due to being the target of uberfish's last gasp attempt. He really can't possibly be a wolf.

Roland - enough has been said about him in the last few pages. I don't believe him capable of the quality of acting that he's been accused of. Exhibit A: Look at how he crumbled under the seer lie. If he had been a wolf, do you think Selrahc would have called him on his lie almost immediately? He's just not good enough a liar for the die you're casting him. He won't defend himself at this point because he feels betrayed and wants out of the game. I'd be very surprised (and impressed) if he turned out to be a wolf.

Rowain - Hard to say, has also responded emotionally to many things in the game. Has absolutely been up my ass all game. I do believe he's mostly just resented the trusted network. But, he's not proven himself innocent by any means.

So what does this leave us with?

Your candidates for wolf come from scooter, Serdoa, MNG, haphazard1, Irgy, Roland, Rowain. So 3 of those 7 are wolves. (Well at least 3. With fire&ice's ever-changing ruleset, they could all be wolves for all we know. )

I believe that Roland is innocent. Of the rest of the group I'm most comfortable plumping for haphazard1. Irgy I'm not positive of, but he was owl-scried during the part of the game where Kyan had been told the Owl sees all the werewolves at night, before f&i changed the rules in response to pressure in the thread about the game being imbalanced. So Irgy is probably innocent.

That leaves us the following candidates:

scooter
Serdoa
MNG
Rowain

Even if you add Roland into that, a scooter lynch in my mind is 60% chance of being successful. Let's face it, there are a number of villagers whose names have been cleared well past the point of reasonable suspicion. So this really isn't such a hard choice. Look at that list and tell me you have a better approximation of who the wolves are. Stop dicking around and vote for someone who really might be a werewolf. If Roland gets lynched today and turns up innocent, you're not all only going to look like asses, you're going to feel like assholes too. If you lynch scooter (or one of the other names) at least you can feel like you've had that suspicion for quite sometime.

[Gaspar]

Updated tally post:

Mayor:
Dantski (5) : Irgy, scooter, Mr. Nice Guy, haphazard1, Serdoa
Lewwyn (4) : Roland, Rowain, Sareln, Dantski
Sareln (1) : Gaspar

Not yet voting (2) : Dantski, Lewwyn

Lynch:
Roland (5) : Roland, Irgy, Mr. Nice Guy, scooter, Lewwyn
scooter (2): Gaspar, Sareln

Not yet voting (4) : haphazard1, Serdoa, Rowain, Dantski

Sequence of Actions:

1. Roland votes Roland
   
2. Gaspar votes scooter
   
3. Irgy votes Roland
   
4. Mr. Nice Guy votes Roland
   
5. scooter votes Roland
   
6. Sareln votes scooter
   
7. Lewwyn votes Roland
   

[scooter]

Okay Gaspar, that's a fair thought process, so I'll try to respond to a few things here. First one minor point from your second post that I'll hit real quick before getting to your other one:

scooter - has been contrarian all game.

I seem to have gotten this reputation as simply being a contrarian. That has never been my intention, and I honestly believe I've been misrepresented in that statement. I'll get to that further down, but from my perspective, I have simply been in the minority more often than not, and I've been vocal, rather than those who have quietly voted. I feel like that combo has gotten me the label of contrarian, which I'd like to dispute, but I'll talk more about that further down in this post.

Frankly, it seems your primary motivation - and this has come through in your posts both on Day 5 and Day 6 - seems to be not to get lynched.

I don't mean to totally separate this from the rest, but do keep in mind that I was never under serious suspicion before then, so I never had any reason to try to prevent being lynched. Continuing:

Fair enough, nobody wants to get lynched. But my primary motivation is to catch the werewolves. So you'll forgive me if your impassioned plea isn't convincing me of much of anything. I don't personally care whether you get lynched or not. I only care if you're a villager or not. And bottom line, everything about your game to this point has been hedging. You wanted to hedge on Day 1 because you weren't sure about Sandover. You wanted to hedge on Day 3 because there were lies in the way that the scry was made public. You wanted to hedge on Day 4 because you bought the counter-seer claim.

Okay, this is where I really feel like I'm being misrepresented. I've said this before, but I never was interested in defending Sandover or uberfish, as I've been labeled as having done. If you look, I was being consistent in my belief on the wisest way to play this game. I believe that when there are two people claiming a power role with reasonable uncertainty as to which one is lying, that the best course of action is to vote for neither of them and then test them both in the ensuing day(s). With Sandover/MJW, I still believe that I was making the smart call there - to vote for neither just in case we were wrong. I even mapped out a plan that I believed would have had us lynching the real baner by the end of day 4 or 5, which meant we would have had a 100% wolf lynch on that day rather than a 50% on day 1, which is a great deal since the baner is totally irrelevant for the first 5-6ish days. To me, it's simple mathematics. Day 4 was the exact same. I was skeptical of the counter-seer claim, but I was adamant that potentially lynching the wrong guy was not worth the risk. I'm a big numbers person, so to me when I'm voting for a lynch, I try to go for the highest overall chance of lynching the right guy. That means to me, going for a 50% shot one day and a 50% shot the next day is strictly worse than a 40% shot one day and a 90% the next day.

My point is, I wasn't hedging, and I wasn't defending two wolves. I was attacking what I felt like was playing against the odds. Thankfully we won on both of those, but honestly, if the same scenario comes up in WW3 you will see me making the exact same argument. Side-note: if I'm a wolf, how crazy would I have to be to attract so much attention to myself on both of those days by rallying AGAINST the lynching of two wolves. That would be a beyond stupid thing to do. A moderately intelligent werewolf would have quietly piled on, using that vote as leverage to defend themselves later. Selrahc and uberfish proved that by the way - Selrahc cast the deciding vote to lynch Sandover, which would have worked brilliantly for him if the owl hadn't followed him by sheer luck. uberfish led the charge to kill Selrahc, which would have gained him huge credibility if sunrise hadn't lucked out and scried him.

Also - to represent me as simply fighting against the majority isn't fair, because I frequently brought people to the table as suspects. Early on, I suspected sunrise, and I was the first person in the village to make a big case against him. I can go find the post if you want. In hindsight, I was wrong, but little did I know that the trusted network all thought he was the devil! So I sure wasn't the only person thinking that, but I compiled what I thought was a good case against him, and for a time it got a lot of support until the momentum against Meiz started. I also made a pretty extensive case against Ug, which also turned out to be quite wrong, but you know what they say about hindsight. The point is, I've hardly been one who is more focused on myself than about lynching werewolves, and the fact that I've seemed very defensive is only because in the last two days, I've had a mason who was completely convinced I was a werewolf for reasons I felt was unfair, you suspecting me as a werewolf for reasons I can at least understand, Sareln suspecting me as a werewolf for who knows what reasons, and now Roland is calling me a troll. So yeah, I've spent a lot of time defending myself, but in the midst of all this I still had the guts (or perhaps insanity ) to write a post yesterday on what I felt was suspicious activity about Roland. I'm less enthused about that particular part of evidence after Sareln made some good points, but Roland seems like the best bet to me (in the midst of a bunch of people who seem really inconclusive) for who is one of the other 3 werewolves.

To this point, the most damning evidence I see of Roland is that he's been wrong a lot.

For what it's worth I disagree with that, I think the strongest evidence against Roland is how frequently he's lied this game. I don't know what happened with the whole thing where Lewwyn says that Roland says I made a seer claim, but it seemed awfully odd to me that such a huge mis-communication could happen between two people who seem to talk very frequently, so to me I was more inclined to believe Lewwyn there, which seems like another bizarre lie. Personally, I believe it's the werewolves who are the ones who should be doing the lying rather than commonplace villagers. It makes me wonder if he was able to lie so easily to the village at whole, how easily he was able to lie to the trusted circle or how easily he's able to lie in his mannerisms too. So to me - that's the strongest evidence against Roland. You usually can't go wrong lynching someone who has been proven to lie a lot, because when someone has proven they are good at lying, you tend to not trust them.

[scooter]

Also, I'd like to change my mayor vote from Dantski to Lewwyn. I just want a confirmed villager in there, and I really don't think Dantski is paying good enough attention to what's going on (why sign up for this kind of game if you barely try?). I was avoiding the Lewwyn vote halfway because I felt he wasn't willing to consider he might be wrong and halfway because hey, I'd like to stay alive . I feel better about the part about being willing to see the other side, so I will not be changing that mayor vote even if Lewwyn decides to suddenly vote for me.