I don't quite follow. Playing a game with friends doesn't mean I can't trick them. It's the spirit that counts. Tricking them so everyone can have a laugh about it when it comes out is a different thing. Tricking characters and not necesarily players is also important.
And I don't think I ever said smarter or more manipulative. Sorry if I sounded like that. I was trying to point out that the NPCs brought more to the game than just sheer numbers of military troops. And, as we've seen in this thread, both sides have tried to play the other, so I think it's all fair in the end. :-)
Tricking people is fine. Stating that you tricked people also is. While I realize that wasn't your intent, some of your previous statements, along with some of Artemesia's, were more along the lines of "some people [such as the Blood Cult] were total tools and we totally molded their minds to our will". Notably when you said that all of Mesh' accusations were true, when I, as the leader of the Blood Cult, would have put extreme relativity on a lot of the accusations. For example, they said they persecuted the Cult because it wanted to help the daimons. On the other hand, I'd say the Cult helped the daimons because Mesh and Hetland persecuted it and it wanted some payback. The actions were the same, but not the reasoning behind them, and the reasons influenced how the cooperation was done and were a big part of the debate.
As for Gustav's comment, it goes along these lines. OOC, I had serious doubts that the Light was there to save us, regardless of what the daimons said as I knew that if it was the case, the daimons and the others would lie about the Light in order to protect themselves. However, IC, they were total douchebags. I couldn't bring myself to act IC contrary to IC info and therefore on OOC motives only. But I dreaded myself every time I acted on that IC information, fearing I might lose my favorite continent because of it. So I kept playing with a very negative attitude towards the Light, more because of what they said themselves than what others said on them though, while OOC very well knowing that my character was likely not on the right path.
