Werewolf 12: Game Thread

[Gaspar]

After eating fish for breakfast, there is some brief discussion about who might have killed the fish. There is repeated mention of a man who claims to be a naval commodore. It makes sense, right? Sailors must kill and eat a lot of fish out of necessity. But as you discuss it further and ponder other possibilities, you hear whisperings in your head.

You glance around and try to find the source of the whispering. It appears other people heard it too. The whispering doesn't seem to come from any direction in particular...until you see someone put his head to the ground. You drop to your knees and the sound gets louder. You put your head against the ground too, and the voice seems almost coherent. You can barely make out the following words:

Hello village, this is the Gray Werewolf Announcer. We believe there are three wolf packs.

So after saying over and over I didn't find the announcement interesting someone said something which made two things occur to me:

1. Is the flavor portion of the announcement written by NH (Can you confirm this NH?) or part of the announcement.
2. Could this have been an attempt from one wolf pack to communicate with the other wolf pack?

Obviously if 2, then its interesting as there could be a clue to targets/identities in there. But unless the whole announcement is written by the wolves, I fail to see what communication could be in the message that would be useful.

Anyway - there's as tinfoil hat a theory as you'll ever get from me.

On Bigger, the case in my mind largely rests on whether I believe he was trying to cozy to me indirectly to take pressure off MNG as I was the one of the foremost "Let's look at someone else" voices. Its plausible, but I generally dislike trying to read too much into a day one vote, successful or otherwise. I think I'm still a little hazy.

[Catwalk]

Molach, any particular reason you ignored the case building on Bigger? Would you happen to have any special interests in him not hanging?

[Catwalk]

About Tasunke. Read about him as he seems to be a target and since he claimed his role. First, going to assume he is a watcher. So he is either a village watcher, or wolf watcher. Or better yet, he is either village, in the pack that killed uberfish, or in an other pack. People are attacking him because he chose a poor watch-target. I somewhat agree with poor choice, but not that much. I've often been surprised by who got whacked in the nights when lurking in the past. Also, if uberfish was a very very obvious attack choice, then smart wolves might have killed someone else, because he would have been a baner target as well.

Last game as a baner, I kept trying to outsmart the wolves by not protecting the obvious target. Needless to say, I ended up outsmarting myself as the wolves went for the obvious target every single night (until the end-game).

What's more suspicious than his target is the fact that Tasunke claimed out of the blue with nothing to show for it. It doesn't condemn or clear Sareln and it doesn't clear himself. It's definitely in character for hyper Tasunke from last game, though

[Injera]

So after saying over and over I didn't find the announcement interesting someone said something which made two things occur to me:

1. Is the flavor portion of the announcement written by NH (Can you confirm this NH?) or part of the announcement.
2. Could this have been an attempt from one wolf pack to communicate with the other wolf pack?

Wow, I didn't consider the flavor text at all, I assumed it was written by NH but the whole "naval commodore" thing means I'm going to have to reevaluate that.

Though, maybe it's more short-sighted and an attempt to get posts like these out there:

I have a minor suspicion that Rowain is a grey wolf, based on the announcement.

If Commodore is a "black" wolf, it would make a lot of sense for the "black" announcer to try to discredit the folks who were right on both the white and black wolf by implying a third faction.

Also, I really shouldn't be posting this late...

[Catwalk]

Injera, the Rowain thing can go either way. The obvious interpretation is that it's an attempt at framing Rowain, since he was the only player who stubbornly insisted that the 1-pack theory was the most likely one. As a double ploy, it could be an attempt at deflecting attention away from him for the same reasons. I'm actually leaning more towards it being an attempt at setting up Rowain, it's a cheap shot that might work. Of course, he could still be a wolf being set up by another wolf pack. I'm not going to pursue this theory now, too many maybes.

I highly doubt that the flavour text isn't written by NH, but I assume that will be clarified soon enough. I'm guessing he simply mentioned Commodore because we've been talking about him lots last night and today. It was put in cursive whereas the message was bolded.

[Injera]

I voted fourth, putting him in some actual danger. I actually think this vote is more exonerating for me than my 6-4 vote towards the end of the day.

I agree.

Conclusion: None of these votes look particularly like busing, although I still suspect both Injera, Rowain, and Ichabod to varying degrees (i.e. they could be from another pack).

This is the thing- given multiple packs, we can only judge votes partially. We can stand here all night and say, "Yeah, but I'm a villager and that means you're a black wolf!" (or gray, rose, fuschia, etc) but it won't get us anywhere until we see another color lynched.

Fake edit: xposting with ceiling cat

This is why I think the gray wolf announcement was significant, because it meant the wolves were running out of colors.

[pling]

The announcement seems to me to be designed to keep us talking set-up & not hunting wolves. But maybe there's more twisty twisty logic going on - we've lynched the King of Reverse Psychology already tho I hadn't thought of Gaspar's inter-pack-communication idea till he said it, but that strikes me as a bit of a stretch.

I'm less than impressed with Tasunke's Watching target - I got that post of his in my thread subscription email last night and actually logged back in to ask him why on earth Sareln, despite not having much time. But by the time I did, novice had already asked so I went away again "secure" in the knowledge I'd know by the time I got here this morning. Well, I did, but it seems getting a rationale out of him was a bit like getting blood out of a stone. His "inner villager" doesn't seem to be shining through in either choice or reason, to be honest.

I'm still suspicious of Sareln, particularly in light of how daft "least likely to be a wolf out of all the vets" seemed to me when I read it There really isn't much to go on with Sareln though. And he's famously mis-lynchable so I'd need to build myself a better case before I voted that way

Re: Bigger. I too think there's more to the case than his glib characterisation of it as people he's targeting revenge voting on him. His exchange with Serdoa has a strange tone to it (I'm thinking of post 474 here). I'm finding it hard to articulate what strikes me as so odd, but part of it is the attempt to dismiss it as "oh you're obviously only attacking me coz you're a wolf". Combined with his later "I'm playing a solid village game" post, I'm left with a feeling of someone trying to make sure we get it stuck in our heads that he's one of the good guys.

I'm leaving my vote on Commodore tho. Nothing's changed my mind about how he's looking suspicious - his attempts to derail it onto "oh well you're all just too serious for poor flippant busy me" aren't that good a defence really. And I'm finding it interesting how he's sliding off the top spot again as the lynch gets a little closer - if we're speculating two packs (or more, I suppose, but 2 is still my guess), then the fact that MNG was a wolf when he swung instead of Commodore only means they're unlikely to be pack buddies.

[novice]

I'm finding it interesting how [Commodore]'s sliding off the top spot again as the lynch gets a little closer

Yeah I get the feeling either
a) Commodore's town and wolves are busy being "good villagers" and "considering alternatives".
b) Commodore's wolf and wolves are busy coming up with alternatives.

Basically, everybody's acting suspicious regardless of how Commodore flips... I guess that's why vote analysis is a late game activity.

So... we should focus on how people justify their votes. I have to admit I expected a bit more when Zakalwe announced his case on Bigger. MNG voting for Bigger just seems like a very WIFOM argument - if MNG was sweating bullets then surely any target would do. OTOH, I think Rowain backs up Zak's case with some nice additional arguments, primarily the "Sad to see you go, Uberfish" comment.

Anyway, this is all just idle speculation, I still like Commodore and then Tasunke for the lynch.

Oh and The Announcement is surely just a distraction, if anything it's suspicious that a non-white wolf faction tries this on the day that Commodore is on the block.

[Meiz]

Alright, maybe we do have two wolf tribes, or more. 2 announcers is a bit too much to ignore.

With this in mind, my earlier post doesn't really tell who is a wolf, but rather who might not be in the white pack.

Rowain makes a good case against Bigger. What bothers me regarding him is that there's quite a lot of "Hey, I'm a villager!" posts coming from him. He also quickly gave big praises of my post that suggested that he doesn't belong to same pack with MNG. There wasn't much more on his post, just "Hey look I'm innocent! Whippee!!" :D

He said against Zak: "I'm not sure if you could have gotten Tasunke lynched before his reveal, but there's no way you could have gotten him lynched after his reveal."

As Zak pointed out, he voted before the reveal. Also against Zak:

"The whole point of lynching MNG, for me, was to get clarification on zakalwe. If MNG had been town, I would be looking suspiciously at Rowain and ignoring Zakalwe. But he was not town, so I think we need to lynch Zakalwe. He's just too dangerous as a wolf to leave alive for long."

Not sure I follow. Why MNG wolf = Zak wolf? Simply because MNG's first vote? Thats quite weak. Maybe you are simply trying to encourage Rowain to continue his Zak pursuit

To me this line against Serdoa sounds really scummy:

Come now Serdona - targetting me didn't work for MNG, why would you assume it will work for your tribe?
I think there is enough suspicion on you for me not to be afraid of your accusations, but for the sake of clarification, and the realk villagers reading this:

Bigger

[Serdoa]

pling, to be fair I think Commodore would have many more votes by now if Bigger hasn't painted a target on himself. But he did. Tbh, I have the feeling that the case against both is good enough that it doesn't matter who gets lynched, though I have a preference for Bigger. But thats for the simple reason that I think he is the bigger threat, having much more experience with these sort of games than Commodore.

Apart from the reasons outlined earlier, I have another reason to vote for Bigger: He wrote now two times my name wrong. Now, I know, that sounds stupid at first, MJW does that all the time. But I have my reasons and I'll try to explain them.

First time might have been an oversight, but the second time wasn't imo. I think he was trying to upset me with it so that he could use my rage to brush away my accusations as a "personal feud". That's why I intentionally told him in a serious way that he made an error when he wrote it wrong the first time, to see how he reacts. There are two possibilities, either apologize for it and/or make sure to do it right the next time. Or write it intentionally wrong again, to upset the other. He choose the later, probably expecting me to rage. That's imo wolfish behavior. A villager would simply answer the accusations and explain himself, knowing that he is innocent. A wolf? A wolf has much more reason to try to upset a villager who is suspicious of him, because it is much easier to brush away accusations if the one who accuses you seems to have a personal issue with you. Gaspar showed me that in WW7 (I think - the one were we really upset each other pretty heavily and what I don't want to remember any more than absolutely necessary).