[Forum Game] Werewolf XIV: The Vengeance Factor

[Stabbity]

So Ketchum, how did you feel about the demise of the late Sartanian King Caspius? Just reward for warmongering or wronged victim? ;)

[Norrel]

Stating everything everyone else does is antitown is antitown.

I haven't been saying that everything everyone does is antitown. I have been saying that any attempt to a) pass off fluff as dialogue or b) prevent debate is antitown. The fact that everyone has been doing so does not mean that the criticism or the accusation is invalid. Again, you are attempting to stifle debate by accusing someone whose only crime is attempting to constructively contribute. That is the exact opposite of what you want to do.

Keep in mind that this is not real life. People have time to think and deliberately make decisions. Nobody's going to be mean or defensive or any of that crap if they're actually guilty because, guess what, they're not actually guilty. Nobody actually killed anyone, it's a game. So what we have to go on is game theory: every time someone posts, they are doing it to gain something. If you are attempting to stifle debate, you are doing that for a reason: either you are incompetent or you are mafia. There is no other explanation. Stop looking at the tone of a post and start looking at an intent: is someone attempting to distract you or is someone attempting to discuss something?

This is mafia 101. Everything else is secondary to that main question. Who's helping and who's harming?

[Norrel]

What next? The quiet one is anti town? :o

Yeah, refusing to contribute hinder's the town's ability to make decisions and is antitown. It is equivalent to fluff except harder to spot.

[Norrel]

Leaving my suspicions with Norrel, who got a "tell" on someone new based on one message. My fellow ambassadors, I am fully convinced that Norrel is a Sartanian Saboteur. He speaks like one, reminds me rather of Selene actually.

This is ridiculous. You're a smart guy, you should know better. I'm not going to explain the basic premise of this game anymore. If you continue to go after people because they are being inflammatory and you are town, you deserve to lose. Thomasgriff is probably town, yeah, but I at least have a reason to go after him (and have learned a lot about the other player's reactions to my accusation, more importantly). You have no reason, as does everyone with a vote on me. Literally no reason has been stated.

[Lefanis]

Sorry about the late update. My grandparents are moving house, and that kept me busy.

Update incoming, plus the next turn will be sunset tomorrow, rather than today, to compensate. Use the time wisely, townies  ::)

[Lefanis]

Vote D'espana- Sonya
Vote ThomasGriff- D'espana, Fury, Norrel
Vote Norrel- Arrandal, ThomasGriff
Vote Penchant- Dishman

After Minerva's death, allegations were thrown thick and fast. No one really knew anything about the killer, and everyone pointed the finger at others. All they knew was that the killer had to be part of their group, to have had access to Minerva's chamber. So the Ohnarians blamed the Arcaeans, the Arcaeans named the Cathay folk, the Cathayans blamed the Sartanians, and the Sartanians blamed the management, and no one could stop talking about it all day, in fact they kept discussing it long after the sun had gone down.

Finally, the diplomats decided to have a vote on it, and gathered in the palace hall, arguing this way and that. One of them, Norrel, kept saying he was from "Denmark", so some decided he was a bit addled and voted for him. The others decided the Cathayan ThomasGriff was more suspicious, and voted to hang him instead. Their waiting attendants had helpfully already made a pedestal to hang whoever they chose. Finally, ThomasGriff it was, and he was hauled off to the gallows for execution.

ThomasGriff didn't protest too much, and seemed resigned to his fate and he was strung up, mouthing "Goodbye cruel world" as he made the drop.

The excited diplomats, happy they'd caught the murderer, began celebrating their victory, but one of the smarter ones went up to ThomasGriff's cabin to investigate his belongings. Two possessions stood out amongst the rest, a crossbow and and a copy of The Prince, and a little note from the Cathayan ruler, asking ThomasGriff to "hunt down peace in this war". The investigating diplomat groaned. The killer must be still out there!

ThomasGriff was just a diplomat/hunter!

A little later the diplomats went to their own chambers, troubled that they'd executed the wrong man. Arrandal went to the special room assigned to him, after Minerva's death, he was the leader of the Sorraine delegation now after all. After the murder of Minerva, he'd been assigned extra guards just in case the assassins tried to take him down. Nonetheless, he felt uneasy about it all. He locked the door, just in case.

A few hours later, Arrandal awoke with a start. He could hear a scuffle going on outside his door, it was clear someone was trying to break through the door! Keeping his cool, he found the panic room he'd been shown behind the sink, and slowly crawled through the orifice into the cave, sealed the door behind him and kept going. Finally, he reached the end, and pushed the hidden door in front of his, to arrive in the praying area of the palace.

In front of him was a man dressed all in red, half his face obscured by his hood. Arrandal's breath caught in his throat. This was no guard, he quickly realised.

The figure lowered the his hood, and turned to face Arrandal. A slight smirk was on his face, and a curved dagger in his hand.

"Weren't expecting me, were you?"

Arrandal turned pale, and went for the knife in his belt, but it was too late. As his hand came away from his stomach, it had already turned red hot with blood. Arrandal fell to his knees, one hand over his wounds, trying desperately to keep his guts from spilling over the clean white floor.

The figure was already walking away, making good his escape. Arrandal tried to cry out for help, but only a whisper escaped his parched lips. Drawing on the last bits of strength he had, Arrandal began crawling towards the door of the prayer room, leaving a horrid mixture of blood and intestine behind him. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. As he was about to push through, his last strength ebbed away, and he dropped, never to wake.

Arrandal the ambassador has been killed!

[Lefanis]

Deadline is BM sunset. Votes and orders after that will not be considered.

[Fury]

I would have said ThomasGriff's unvoting of Norrel was a ruse but unfortunately I was not around to see it or monitor until the end of voting. Guess we'll have to chalk that one up to an upcoming but new diplomat.

Ambassador Norrel's words and terminologies are strange but someone working that hard right from the beginning is less likely to be an assassin. I'm not sure if he's even an Ambassador now but someone let him in and I guess we're stuck with him for now.

My apologies Ambassador D'espana for suspecting you but well, there were signs and the only way to confirm them is to:

VOTE D'espana

[Ketchum]

Ambassador Stabbity from Cathay has interest to resume war, based on his tells so far.

VOTE STABBITY

[Dishman]

Alas, I feared we were looking at one who was too green to understand the subtleties of paranoia. I feel that at least one of the votes cast for the poor departed ThomasGriff is guilty. With several abstentions it is hard to tell. Some hiding in the forefront, some hiding in the back.

Ambassador Penchant is still silent. I fear he only talks to his victims. Or perhaps Stabbity? Regardless, I will stand by my earlier vote until he (or another) shows reason to change.

VOTE: Penchant

[D'Espana]

Ambassador Stabbity seems interested to resume war, indeed, but I am not completely sure that we want to hang him just for that. Today being the summer solstice, we will have a longer day before the night comes. I think this will be our best bet to get a decent conclusion, at least with the little information we have.

Ambassador Fury, I am still hurt by your doubts, but I understand what you are doing. I can just hope to be able to realize something that we have not taken into account, something that may help us to locate the assassin. I will speak up again when I have reached a conclusion. In the meanwhile, I will also offer a prayer to the Dragon Gods for the departed souls. Anything we can manage to obtain from Their Mercy is very much needed right now.

[Stabbity]

Nonsense. I want Ohnar to recieve the proper spoils if war as victors and victims of aggression.

VOTE PENCHANT

[Norrel]

I'm going to reread everything so far, show all my tells and give reasons.

For the sake of terminology: town tell means I think they're with us (duh), null tell means they aren't contributing enough to give me a read (and this is why fluff is antitown, since it prevents people from getting reads), and scum tells are people who have been sabotaging the town's efforts, either consciously or just because they don't know wtf they're doing.

Town tell:

Dishman. He has been solidly contributing and I am sure that he's with us. By far the most-town sided player in the game apart from myself. I would be exceptionally surprised if he was scum.

Fury. I have a light town tell on him and could very well be wrong. He's at least tried to contribute though I would have preferred to have some reasons beyond psychological impressions. Nonetheless, better than almost everyone else.

Null tell:

Penchant. He hasn't contributed whatsoever,  hasn't even really presented much bs fluff. I would be down with this lynch.

D'espana. No contributions whatsoever beyond fluff. I would be down with this lynch.

Sonya is extremely null. Not even fluff.

Scum tell:

Ketchum. He was willing to side with me against Thomasgriff but was unwilling to accept the fact that he would have responsibility for this, instead attempting to get an instalynch on me if we were incorrect, when he was still apparently willing to go along with the lynch for the exact same reasons. He's played the game enough times to know how dumb this statement would be and it cannot be anything other than deliberate sabotage. I would put odds of his being scum in the 70 or 80% range.

Stabbity. He wanted to lynch me because I had a tell on someone, not because he had his own tells. By far the most anti-town play anyone has attempted thus far. He's less experienced with the game though so I am willing to cut him some slack, but I still read scum on him.


I would suggest that everyone reread the entire thread up until Thomasgriff's death with the knowledge that a) he was a good guy all along and b) that the scum chose to kill Arrandel, a pretty perplexing ploy as Arrandel hadn't been contributing or in any way helping the town, which leads me to believe that our scum is fairly inexperienced with the game and wasn't able to choose a better target, of which there are several.

For this reason I want to choose a null tell to lynch, not a scum tell. A scum tell is at least contributing in a backwards way as they allow us to better understand our situation. Sonya, Penchant and D'espana have done nothing for us whatsoever and will likely continue to not contribute. This actually hurts us more than deliberate sabotage.

As Dishman is my only confirmed town read, I'll follow his lead on which null tell to lynch.

VOTE PENCHANT.

[Dishman]

Hmmm, I've never liked the bandwagon even when I'm at it's head.

I'm starting to lean toward Norrel and Fury working together with either Penchant/Sonya as their silent partner. Norrel and Fury for both trusting one another after lynching an innocent. Norrel's vote for Penchant may be throwing a fellow assassin under the carriage (a bus) so to lead the trail away from himself. This is assuming 3, but still applies (less so) if there are 2 assassins.

Norrel has been instrumental so far, such action could be expected of a master deceiver. It would also be crippling to see such a useful member swing as an innocent.

For now....
UNVOTE: Penchant
VOTE: Fury

[Norrel]

Hmmm, I've never liked the bandwagon even when I'm at it's head.

I'm starting to lean toward Norrel and Fury working together with either Penchant/Sonya as their silent partner. Norrel and Fury for both trusting one another after lynching an innocent. Norrel's vote for Penchant may be throwing a fellow assassin under the carriage (a bus) so to lead the trail away from himself. This is assuming 3, but still applies (less so) if there are 2 assassins.

Norrel has been instrumental so far, such action could be expected of a master deceiver. It would also be crippling to see such a useful member swing as an innocent.

For now....
UNVOTE: Penchant
VOTE: Fury

Bandwagoning is useful so long as everyone is willing to both take responsibility for it and outline independently why they're doing it. They're only dangerous if people bandwagon without input, just going along with the flow.

The reason I trust Fury after killing Thomasgriff is because the mafia didn't vote for Thomasgriff. I have the impression that our mafia is hiding among the silent-types and not even pretending to be useful, given how few people are actually being useful in the slightest. With only 3 votes to lynch, the mafia could easily just spread out, be silent and hope that they don't get it.

The people who voted for Thomasgriff were willing to expose themselves and accept responsibility for a potential innocent lynch, something that everyone else was not willing to do. This is part of the reason why I find Fury to be a town tell - he was willing to be aggressive. Casting a vote with intent to lynch is a town tell, not a scum tell. Please realize this when you make your decisions. The bad guys are hiding behind the useless votes that wouldn't be counted, not the critical votes that decided the day.

I was never very sure about the TG lynch but it told us a lot. I was perfectly willing to lynch an innocent with a minor scum tell in order to learn it. Sue me.

By the way, scum almost NEVER backs up their allies in an upfront manner, especially in an amateur game like this. They tend to ignore them or brush them off to the side, or even throw very weak accusations at them.

Do you have any response whatsoever to my suggestion that we lynch a null tell? Or about the rationale behind my tells? It seems odd that you would immediately disregard my tell on Fury without explaining why - I thought it was pretty decent tell tbh but now you're using it as reason that he's scum?