TIG CXVII: GAME Thread:

[Morsul the Dark]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Sorimon I just looked at the admin thread G55 clarifies Kath had one more dream. Vote Lommy let them decided they have extra information

^^^^

[Morsul the Dark]

To Legate’s point one possible way to make the DT a bit more interesting/fun and make the ghost a bit more balanced is to infodrop two pieces of information. One true one false. The DT would then have to discuss which they think is true based on the information they have on hand and the live thread.

For example:

Morsul and Greenie both get 3 votes day 1
The info drop is;
No wolves voted Morsul day 1
No wolves voted Greenie day 1.

Well now the DT has to decide which group of voters is more innocent seeming and could potentially clear them. But also if they choose wrong they might lead the village astray. And of course the live thread will always have to be wary relying on them too much.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I agree with Legate's basic premise: that the infodrops are the main source of potential imbalance. I think G55 did great with figuring them out as the game went along, and I think the hardest thing to provide feedback on here would be HOW to find that sweet spot of "some, not too much" info.

And it is not just about that, the chief problem in my opinion is the "sudoku effect" combined with the unpredictability of how things unfold. I'd be curious to hear more about how did G55/BG experience this having less space to maneuver in for making the infodrops as the game continued.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I think a Ghost with no info (or only whatever info the Dead may possess--say via the Seer) wouldn't be completely useless if, say, the Ghost had a vote--as distinct from the Dead or perhaps in place of the Dead. That would make for an overall weaker Dead thread, but that's not NECESSARILY a bad thing.

That actually sounds good. I think (my memory is hazy) there were similar things in the past, along the lines of that the Dead did not really vote, but they sent a representative who then cast the vote for them. Another option would be to give the Dead two votes this way - one cast by the Dead Thread itself, counted last and therefore with no chance to break a tie, and one cast by the Ghost, at any point they decided, counted just like a normal Living vote. This would have the added value that the Ghost's info would be one Night old (which could be important as we have seen in this game, when the Dead already had Kath and her dream, while the Ghost was still fairly supportive of the notion of the Living that Pitch may be a Wolf).

Originally Posted by Formendacil

(Speaking of which--I was really pleased with the Living for not trying to "direct" the Dead this game. I mean, yes, we were clueless and maybe needed some direction, but it was pleasant to be the Dead without having the Village shouting schemes at us. So kudos for that!)

I must second this. In any case I think all the phantom-schemes are just a complete perversion of the game. Then again, there was not really so much the Living could force the Dead to do in this game that would be of use to them.

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

To Legate’s point one possible way to make the DT a bit more interesting/fun and make the ghost a bit more balanced is to infodrop two pieces of information. One true one false. The DT would then have to discuss which they think is true based on the information they have on hand and the live thread.

For example:

Morsul and Greenie both get 3 votes day 1
The info drop is;
No wolves voted Morsul day 1
No wolves voted Greenie day 1.

Well now the DT has to decide which group of voters is more innocent seeming and could potentially clear them. But also if they choose wrong they might lead the village astray. And of course the live thread will always have to be wary relying on them too much.

This is absolutely terrifying idea, but brilliant in my opinion, and it would be great fun. I am only afraid that while it looks like fun in theory, there's no telling how it would look in practice and whether it would be a fun chaos or just nerve-wrecking chaos.

Most importantly, it, too, would be prone to reveal too much, even more than the normal infodrops. Especially since you would know that one is false, so you effectively are giving TWO pieces of info instead of one. Once the villagers disqualify or confirm one part of the info, they also learn the negative information via the other piece.

Again, it looks good in theory and in isolation. But I think with the infodrops, the key is to imagine what it would look like with them on, say, Day 5.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by G55

Lommy: Deliberately Confused

Deliberately confused about who's a wolf and why the Night kills happened, yes, but I was not lying when I said I couldn't decipher the ghosts' messages. I think Boro and Morsul must have some inhuman powers to have parsed many of them so easily!

That being said: Form, Huin, and Lottie, you totally made the game! The ghost was so fun.

Even though next time, I think it is too powerful. I haven't yet looked at what kind of hints the dead got, but I would probably take those out altogether, and leave the ghost just a messenger of the dead thread's opinions/ a visiting known innocent who gets to express their opinions. Also, I had the same thought as Huin did: there could be a rule like that once a particular quote has been used once, it cannot be used again, because I think it would be both more challenging and more fun if the same quotes couldn't repeat over and over.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Part of me wondered if the reason you could not express it in public was because the Downs would censor all of the batexcrement and bovine feces?

Oops, this game was genuinely very swearing-inducing because it was so crazy. Also I can see I have been haunting other corners of the internet because these days the autocensorhip gives me trouble it didn't before - but I think it's just fair. Also "bat excrement" is a pretty good expression if I may say so myself. But here I was just randomly implying that the wolves could take advantage of Morsul's plans and conveniently without having to think it through and explain how exactly...

And I second Legate that the dead being the tie-breaker by default made this much harder for us. In a normal game, an early misguided innocent vote such as Morsul's for Pitch can doom the whole village. In this game, the village could afford making that kind of mistakes while we had to think really really hard. Partly this is because we were a little time zone impaired (I did say the DL was fine but if I'd known I was going to be a wolf with Legate who's on the same time zone, I may have protested...) but it's not just that. Basically we concluded we needed two innocents to vote for the same other innocent (in a village with only 4 innocents left, that's a tall order) or else we can't really bandwagon on anything, or it's going to look really bad for us, because it will look just like that, two wolves bandwagoning. Especially if we are the ones voting early. A 3-3 situation with the dead as the tiebreaker was something we could not have, because the dead likely had more information (they did indeed) and we would have been in deep trouble if the game continued.

Incidentally, that's why I voted for Legate. I didn't want to bus him, but since I was unsure about our odds of winning on Day4, I figured that my voting him would be the only thing to give one of us a fighting chance if there was one more Day.

My Day4 plans were rather phantomesque and absolutely too ambitious - I was trying to convince Boro that I was wolves with Pitchwife (hence my somewhat more wolvish behaviour than before and also letting Pitchwife off the hook for believing Sally) while trying to convince Pitchwife I was innocent and the wolves were Legate and Boro. I was hoping this would result in a situation where (after Morsul's vote for Pitch), me and Pitch would have voted for Legate and Legate and Boro (and Soriman if he was around) would have voted for Pitch, and it would have been game over and wolf victory. Well that was obviously too complicated to work and I see I overdid the "making Boro suspicious of me" part. (Or then Pitch was just too convincingly innocent. I didn't take that into account!)

Anyway I was very afraid that Legate and I would vote and go to sleep early and after we were gone, Boro and Pitch would have a nice little chat and decide we two were the wolves and we'd be done for. (Hence my opening up on Day5 about my pessimism when casting my Day4 vote, switch a few words and it was absolutely genuine.)

Also if anyone wants to know why Boro on N5? Morsul and Boro were almost as good as known innocents to me; I didn't think they'd be under heavy suspicion on the last Day. I obviously had no idea Pitch had been dreamed innocent. I thought the last day would be me vs Pitchwife, and given the events of the previous Day, I wanted rather Morsul and Soriman to decide than Morsul and Boro (whom I had deliberatedly but perhaps short-sightedly convinced of my wolvishness). So I decided to go for Boro - I also thought that if he was around, they could have a nice long chat with Morsul before us Europeans would wake up and they would get to set the tone of the Day, and I didn't want that. Furthermore, I knew Morsul would vote before I'd have a chance to even read the thread, so I thought I didn't want to give him Boro for company who might convince him to rather vote for me than Pitch. Also apologies to Soriman, who albeit having expressed great sharpness for a newbie at times, I thought was going to be much more manipulatable on the last Day than Boro.

(And also, to be honest, I was tired and I didn't have much faith in my chances of winning alone, so I thought I can at least do myself a favour and kill Boro so I don't have to argue with him for the whole miserable last Day. Well... then I ended up arguing with him even though he was dead. Also since Boro had been trying to get killed the whole game, I thought only fair that we'd off him before the end. By the way, Boro, you were a recurring Nightly headache since N2 - we were like "ok so Boro is an ordo pretending to be a gifted obviously - no, wait, but if he was an actual gifted wouldn't he pretend to be an ordo pretending to be a gifted??" )

Anyway, you can only imagine how surprised I was to log in on Day5 and find out Pitchwife was declared innocent via the ghost and Morsul had already done me a huge favour (or so I perceived it) by going defensive even though no one had really suspected him for Days. I was like "well, looks like I will have a fighting chance after all..."

[Thinlómien]

By the way, I have to say that Legate and I have lived together for 8 years soon (geez we're getting old) and there have been many werewolf games and it's never been a problem until now! We'd never been wolves together before and being in the same room with your fellow wolf during the Days and being unable to communicate... that's the worst thing ever. Especially Day4 and Night5 (when we were not allowed to communicate because one of us was dead and one of us was living) were absolutely insanity-inducing. Fortunately the Moddess was kind enough to listen to my rants so I was just texting her while Legate was sitting literally next to me.

Also wolves living together does have the advantage of extra Nightly plotting time. On N4 we came up with a rather complicated, very subtle scheme how to communicate to each other during the Day on the thread - and it turned out to be so complicated and subtle that we missed/misinterpreted each other's communication and it was absolutely useless.

[Pitchwife]

Now I've had a decent amount of sleep at last - staying up till after 1am twice a week when you're working isn't healthy at all, and I feel for our Finns for whom it was even worse. Also had a few peeks at the Dead thread - I'll read the whole thing one of these days, but let me say I just loved Formy's colourful expletives ("By Manwë's blue nether regions" ).

I think I'll start these comments by apologising to Hui for that braindead vote on D2. That was definitely another episode in the continuing series of games featuring Ordwife as the Honorary Cobbler (although TBH I didn't see another option, as I still thought sally was being framed at the time, and I didn't want to vote Lottie or Boro). Also great job picking the Ghost quotes!

Next has to be ++Morsul for MVP. Never ever again pretend you're not smart! You played an awesome game, and I'm sorry it took me too long to trust you on D5 - we could still have won. (Also I hope the car thing will sort itself out.)

Wolves sally, Lommy, Legate - well played, like I said, you deserved to win. I don't think I would have suspected sally without the Ghost info, not until she contradicted herself about her Seer dreams. And it's funny I suspected Lommy on D1 and Legate on D2, but then you, Lommy played the Deliberately Confused part well enough to keep me in doubt. (Btw when I saw your triumph howl post after the final narration I knew exactly how you must be feeling, and I was so happy for you I almost didn't mind losing. These are the moments we play WW for, aren't they?)

Boro - excellent work as a Ghostbuster, and you deserve to be MVP along with Morsul. Having to convince you of my innocence on D4 was tough but fortunately it all went well.

Kath - sorry for my part in drawing you out and getting you Night killed, but I'm glad you dreamed me when you did!

Lottie and Form - you both rocked the Ghost roles, it was both helpful and fun to have you haunting us (especially the troll quote)!

Greenie - wish we could have had you around longer, even if you suspected me for suspecting Lommy who actually was a wolf!

Soriman - that wasn't bad at all for a first game! I hope you enjoyed your first foray into this bloodthirsty and mind-twisting corner of the Downs, and we'll see you again!

G55 and BG - thank you both for modding such a great and fun game! I loved the narrations, and the Ghost role was a fun addition to the game.

As for the balance issues that have been discussed, I concur that Ghost + infodrops + tie-breaking Dead vote is a bit much. I'd say

• either keep the Ghost and eliminate the drops, so the Ghost can only communicate the speculations of the Dead and dreams of a dead Seer (I almost wrote Songs of a Dead Dreamer here), and also limit the use of quotes
• or keep the drops and eliminate the Ghost, and also make the Dead vote count as a normal vote, or have the Dead empower the vote of a living player, as in the last game.

[Morsul the Dark]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Next has to be ++Morsul for MVP. Never ever again pretend you're not smart! You played an awesome game, and I'm sorry it took me too long to trust you on D5 - we could still have won. (Also I hope the car thing will sort itself out.)

A. I’m just waiting to schedule the repairs since the shop is closed until Monday and I couldn’t call them in time yesterday, the fault is very clear so their insurance is not fighting it. So easy peasy.

B. Oh I am very smart(self pat on back) I’m just not a schemer. The “say whatever is your head damn the consequences” thing isn’t an act. A regular remark from my boss is I tell my direct reports too much. But why lie to the people that work under me. They should know the score . So when I get called out for these deceptions and schemes that’s way too much credit and not in my wheel house. Heck my best defense as a wolf is to pretend to be a simple cobbler Ha

[Blind Guardian]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Heck my best defense as a wolf is to pretend to be a simple cobbler Ha

Then good thing the only cobbler we had in the game was a CobblerMod!

[Galadriel55]

But the real question is... Wolves, why did you kill Form after all?