Tol-in-Gaurhoth CXIV – The Evil Breath of Morgoth in Dor-lómin, game thread

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Urwen

I think I am gonna take a page out of Pervinca's book and 'disappear'.

Uh, does this mean you want to quit the game? I understand it might be a little overwhelming for someone who hasn't played it before, but you can still consider. (I wanted to say "We don't bite" but err... some of us might, it's sort of the point. )

Originally Posted by Lhuna

I don't know about you guys, but I think determining who joins Cobb55 in the QT shouldn't be a main factor for a wolf kill.

Ditto. Also, Rikae and Galadriel55 are two adult people who had an argument during a game where such things happen regularly, not to mention when one of their role was to deliberately sow chaos. The wolves, nor anyone else of us, are not required to nanny the dead. Come on.

Originally Posted by Boro

Excluding Rikae's vote, Pitch's vote for Brinn, looks the most innocent to me. It came before the really either "wagon" developed.

And why would a vote look innocent simply if it's early? A wolf might want to get the voting business out of hand and slip out of scrutiny early too.

Originally Posted by Boro

sally's vote strikes me as a little suspect. In the spur of the moment with such little time, I think everyone would have to accept G55's ranger claim. But if Brinn's not a wolf, sally's vote is the most suspicious.

Wait, what? You say that "everyone would have to accept G55's ranger claim" (I agree), then you still go on to say that this still depends on Brinn's role? I mean, unless you have a good reason to think a ranger claimant is lying, you do vote to save them regardless your own role and that of the other lynch options? Even if you are a wolf because it's "what an innocent would do" + as solid reason to vote someone as they come. I don't think Sally's vote says anything about her role, or Brinn's. Except Sally probably isn't the seer who dreamt that Brinn is the real ranger. (Addendum: I see Greenie basically said this much too.)

Paranoid!Mac is back and even more paranoid. Is he trying to look so paranoid that we will let him off the hook? I'm not buying his "perhaps the wolves framed me" theory. Setting someone up might be a nice bonus for the wolves at this point, but I very much doubt that was the main reason for them going for Rikae.

Not sure either what to make of Boro's conviction that innocent!Rikae laid a trap and Brinnwolf walked into it. I need to reread Rikae's posts to see if it really looks like that. While I agree with Boro that the wolves are unlikely to be motivated by the want to frame someone (as I said about Mac), I think it's somewhat dangerous to operate on the basis that you know who the wolves suspected to be a seer. I mean, Mac seems to be convinced it's him not Brinn that the kill points at. Personally I am unsure because I haven't still reread Rikae's posts. But perhaps Boro or Mac has been reading them more carefully overNight.

Originally Posted by Brinn

Scenario 1. The wolves thought Rikae was gifted. But if they though them the seer, then they know that they didn't dream of me. Really, people. Are some of you really suggesting that a wolf-version of me would be dumb enough to go after Rikae because I thought they were the seer? I don't know if any wolves would be so jumpy this early in the game. In a village of 20+, it would be very lucky indeed if the seer dreamt of a wolf on Night 1.

Yes, but it's also entirely possible. I see you're arguing you'd be more chill and take the risk of not killing them if you were a wolf (fair enough), but perhaps you disagreed with your packmates and you weren't the one to send in the kill? Or perhaps you didn't realise how easily the death would be traced back to you?

Originally Posted by Brinn

Scenario 2. Rikae's death was a way to frame me.

Here we go again.

Originally Posted by Eönwë

First, about my vote: there's not much more to say other than that I was on very limited time and had only managed to catch up to post #212, which was the most recent post when I arrived (as mentioned in my post). I did do a refresh just to see votes before making my final choice, but at that point we were still on page 6 and no-one had more than 2 votes so it was all still open (and I really didn't have time to look to see if I'd x-posted or not).

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by Eönwë

One thing I'm wondering about is the very very late timing of the G55 reveal. The options, at increasing levels of bluff, seem to be:

She was trying to get an innocent Brinn killed.
She wanted us to believe (1), but actually thought Brinn was an Infector and knew it was too late.
She wanted us to believe (2), but actually thought that Brinn was innocent and wants us to suspect her by assuming (2) is true.

I think she just wanted to 1) save herself possibly (and in doing so, sacrifice Brinn which just says she didn't think her a particularly likely wolf), 2) possibly flush out the real ranger, and 3) cause chaos. Why not do it earlier? Maybe she didn't think she'd actually get lynched, or it didn't cross her mind until then. I wouldn't spend too much time on this.


edit: xed with 2x greenie and 2x legate

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Wait, what? You say that "everyone would have to accept G55's ranger claim" (I agree), then you still go on to say that this still depends on Brinn's role? I mean, unless you have a good reason to think a ranger claimant is lying, you do vote to save them regardless your own role and that of the other lynch options? Even if you are a wolf because it's "what an innocent would do" + as solid reason to vote someone as they come. I don't think Sally's vote says anything about her role, or Brinn's. Except Sally probably isn't the seer who dreamt that Brinn is the real ranger. (Addendum: I see Greenie basically said this much too.)

Indeed. Can you explain that, Boro?

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

As for Legate returning to the fake votes, I want to scream NOT AGAIN, but then again, perhaps something interesting can be gleaned from them, if one has the stomach...

Well, I just thought, after all the hassle that thing caused, it would be absolutely the silver lining of it all if we just forgot they ever existed and let them rot there...

[Huinesoron]

#-1:

Originally Posted by Pitch

Folks, can we please refer to Rikae as they/them/their? Thank you.

Thank you, Pitch, and sorry, Rikae. I've gone back and edited my first post toDay (solely for pronouns and verb-agreement); will look at my yesterDay's posts later.

#-1.5:

Or is that -0.5? Anyway, while doing that I found that I'd highlighted Rikae as the first person with what seemed to me a solid reason for voting Brinn. So that makes sense.

#0: There's a medium chance I may be suddenly unavailable starting ~2 hours before DL. Since my alternatives are 'vote early and maybe get to be here anyway' and 'don't vote early and maybe miss the vote', and to maintain full transparency, what I'm going to do is state my 'prospective early vote' around 2h15 before DL, and write up (but not post) a quick post making it official. If I can't read or write anything, I should at least be able to snatch five seconds to send that vote through. If I can spend actual time on the thread, I'll just scrap the stored post and take the last couple of hours into account. It's not great, but it's the best compromise I can find, and I figured I'd say well in advance.

Okay, on to the overview. Before I'm accused of being "helpful" again (Is there a term for the opposite of "damning with faint praise"? I feel like I'm being praised with faint damning!), I will say that these 'look at everything' posts are actually just my notes while catching up; I share them in the hopes that a) if my suspicions hold up we can catch the wolves and b) other people might spot things I missed.

I'm seeing a very quick division of the "why Rikae" discussion into two sides: Zil in #287 blames her place on the Brinn-wagon, and Lottie in #288 blames her fight with G55. Both of these seem reasonable (after all, if I'm right about Brinn's innocence, I'm sure the wolves would love to make her look guilty and get her killed!), but the fact that they come so close together makes me suspicious. Could this be a pre-planned exchange between two wolves? If they actually killed Rikae for a third reason, framing the discussion this way could keep people from noticing.

… actually, as Boro points out in #293, Zil and Lottie were the two people Rikae called out as suspicious for being on the "anti-Brinn wagon". So that could be their reason right there. (Lommy mentions the Wolves seeing Rikae as a possible Seer in #298; I'd say that confirms she's not in a Zil-Lottie pack, at least).

Originally Posted by Pitch

This, I feel, is a distorting abbreviation of what I actually said. I said that there was probably a wolf among those suspecting me (i.e. Rikae, Brinn, Kit & Lottie), but didn't suspect Rikae specifically (rather the contrary). The paradox was I was getting non-wolvish vibes from both of them. I admit my post was pretty condensed, but was I so unclear or are you deliberately misreading me?

Ah, right. My mistake was reading 'there's probably a wolf here' as 'I think any of these could be a wolf, but don't know which'; I didn't connect the fact that the later part was you whittling down that list. I get it now.

#309 is a worrying post from Legate: he manages to imply lynching a wolf would be a bad thing, and straight up say that lynching the cobbler was 'unfortunate'. I've leaned innocent on Legate from the start, but I think that was mostly from the GLP; given that that was being stirred up by a cobbler, I think I'm going to have to consciously shake my impressions from it free.

Originally Posted by Lommy

Of the people who were "on the table" when I voted, I thought Pitchwife looked the most innocent, but I didn't have much of a preference as for Gal vs Brinn. I suspected both of them a little, but neither was my top suspect. (Gal looked maybe more suspicious to me than Brinn, but more likely of the two to turn out to be a mere cobbler if evil.) Since the last few votes (looking at the tally, I think Rune and Ka's for Brinn), it clarified the overall situation to me that it's likely to be Gal vs Brinn in the end and I was okay with either. So I thought I might as well cast my vote then (and not later) and decided to vote Gal whose bandwagon seemed to me to have less momentum. What I meant by "let's make this more interesting" was "let's see if anyone rushes to save Gal, or joins the bandwagon after me to save Brinn". Adding a new vote candidate 15min before the dl when 2/3 of the village had already voted would have been the opposite of making it interesting…

Hmm. I think my issue with this is that keeping the vote evenly split didn't make things interesting. I can see how it kept things interesting, but 'make' sounds like you laying the groundwork to claim credit for whatever the result turned out to be.

#314 & #315: More back-to-back Lottie/Zil posts, this time backing each other up in their suspicion of Rune, but in a "he's not suspicious, just suspicious" way.

Originally Posted by Legate

Huinesoron's first post makes me wonder, because on the one hand, the way he's describing his Nightly activity as scribbling this post - which he clearly did - makes it more likely to be an innocent's endeavour; but on the other hand, I am just returning to my misgivings yesterDay and wondering whether he's exactly not being "helpful" here (perhaps WW with enought time on his hands, can imagine) plus subtly steering the discussion back to the "threesome" - and perhaps to Pitch, his yesterDay's suspect. If Pitch was innocent, it would be a safe way for a Wolf to keep on track with consistent suspicion onto a Day that starts the same way as the previous one: with the Village having nearly zero info.

What did I say? I'm "helpful"! I think a fair reading of my post will show that I wasn't specifically focussing on Pitch; it was just that he kept coming up! If I'd spent a chunk of the post trying to re-justify PitchWolf-GalaWolf as PitchWolf-Cobbler55, I could see this argument (as a wolf framing an innocent wouldn't have new evidence to go on). But other than a one-line mention that it didn't straight-up clear him, I think everything I said about him was from later, unrelated posts.

Ultimately, while I try to take a blank slate approach with these long posts, my suspicions don't go away just because it's a new Day. That sounds like what I'd expect from a wolf.

… in that spirit, then, and given my worries a few posts up about Legate, I'm going to set aside my innocent-lean on him and blank-slate this post (#318). And… overall, it looks like something from an innocent, not a wolf. I don't agree with his suspicions of Brinn, but it reads like he honestly has them (and as he says to Lottie, even 'don't suspect' isn't the same as 'know is innocent'). His multiple digressions onto wolf psychology could be wolfish distraction, but we've seen enough of this from all corners that I think it's just the equivalent of Day 1 banter.

Boro's #324 has more of the 'Brinn is very wolfy (but for no particular reason)' feel I've been getting from so many people. This is why I don't trust the Brinn-wagon: it feels like somewhere early on in it, a wolf managed to shape people's perception of Brinn so that everyone started seeing her as sketchy but without solid reasons. Pitch's 'just asking questions' posts (I think I mentioned 2 or 3 in my earlier post) seem like a prime candidate for the culprit.

Interestingly, Boro also notes a Zil/Lottie suspect pair. And is then followed up by Zil yet again (see #290) discussing suspicions he had which were proved wrong. Not analysing them any further, just talking about "wolves" we know aren't.

#327 gives me pause, because of the reminder that Lottie was the person whose suspicions I most agreed with on Day 1. If she's a wolf, then does it follow that I'm straight up wrong about PitchWolf? Maybe.

My main problem is that Lottie doesn't seem wolfish to me in isolation, just in her interactions with Zil. So I don't really know what to make of that.

(I'm closing on 2 hours into this and my brain is glazing over.)

I'm in two minds on Kitanna's study of the low-posters. On the one hand, spotting quiet wolves is a worthwhile endeavour, particularly since they had G55 vs Rikae to hide under yesterday. On the other hand, their lack of posts surely makes it unlikely that you're going to find much evidence? And yet somehow Urwen, who has not really engaged with the thread at all, gets a full screen of commentary.

Mac in #331 does some very nice looking analysis of… why G55 might have gone after Rikae. I'm not sure why this matters? He can't be leading into a 'maybe the wolves thought the same way', because his theory rests on G55 thinking he was a wolf. So… I'm confused.

Boro repeats the Brinn-wolf theory, leaning on the 'trap' comment (which was Rikae's catch, and we know Rikae is innocent). Which… yes, it's still a plausible argument, but it was never the main one used yesterDay. I think any discussion of Brinn's near-lynch which doesn't take that into account comes worryingly close to attempting to hide it. (And Boro didn't vote Brinn yesterday…)

Brinn and Eonwe both pop in with lists of possibilities, which both then use to say 'there's so many options we can't tell, so why think about it?'. Unlike Lommy yesterDay, I don't think I can look at this and think 'one is innocent, one is guilty'. Quiet!Eonwe still worries me a bit, but I'll call this one a wash. I'm going to note his Boro-Pitch theory here to look back on; I don't think I'm following it correctly right now, so I want to read it again later.

Originally Posted by Greenie

Nooooooooooooooo!

"A little bit of Werewolf on the Downs
A little bit of Cobbler makes me frown…"

(Got to admit, I didn't know those lyrics went to that song. I've learned something today!)

THE Ka's analysis of Rikae's 'wolf-bait'... something that jumped out at me was this quote from Pitch replying to me(?):

Originally Posted by Pitch

I don't think I've seen that many people suspecting Mac to a significant amount (Rikae, of course, myself a bit, who else?), more like saying he's creepy & scary no matter what. Anyway, it's always good for a wolf pack not to get all entangled in the same skirmish but spread themselves out in several combat zones, so to speak.

Coupled with this from THE Ka:

Originally Posted by THE Ka

This one… I’ve been trying to read for awhile now. I’ve even agreed with them on occasion when they’ve given small isolated replies.

I think that's exactly what I feel. When Pitch replies to me, addressing a concern I raised, I nod along and go 'yes, good point, I understand now'. But when he's not specifically trying to answer someone's suspicions of him, he just sets off so many alarm bells.

I've just refreshed and seen Legate's #345 'endless scroll' comment, and I'm feeling the same myself. But there's only five posts to go…

Greenie draws out what I was thinking about 'all the options' from Brinn by saying it looks like she's saying we should ignore the night-kill as implicating her. This is the sort of reasoning I'd expect to see on a legitimate Brinn analysis; I stand by my statement that most of yesterDay's logic was just 'she feels bad' stated in different words.

Lommy is right that Boro's 'the first vote on Brinn is least suspicious' line is suspicious in itself; it's not like there wasn't a lot of suspicion on Brinn at the time! And… I'm up to date!

Now to remember what I've said over the last, uh, three hours… :O

Okay. Pitch and Lommy were my main suspicions yesterday; they don't look as bad (so far) today, but neither am I totally comfortable with them. Zil looks dodgy, Lottie looks dodgy but only when paired with Zil. Boro is giving me bad vibes but nothing I can articulate, and I don't like Mac's 'what if everyone thinks I'm a wolf' theory much at all.

On the innocent side: Greenie has does good work on (actual reasons) why Brinn might be suspicious, and Legate is still striking me as innocent. Brinn herself… I agree that the evidence is piling up, but I still think the Brinn-wagon was suspicious as all get-out, so can't see how she could be a wolf.

Hopefully I can stay current and non-wall-of-text-y for the next few hours.

hS