Werewolf CXII - Dueling Wizards III - The Living Thread

[Kuruharan]

~~~~~Our Tale~~~~~

The NIGHT passed swiftly.

Those who slept did so fitfully.

There was a pervasive sense that they were all on the edge of another, strange world that might reach out and touch them at any time.

The dawn came, as it always does.

The group around the guillotine was a bit smaller this time.

A hunt turned up the corpse of Thinlómien.

Oh dear. This is getting serious.

~~
It is now DAY 3. You may all post now.

After doing my review, it turns out Sally is the only one in danger of the chop if she does not vote today.

Living
Nerwen
Loslote
Boromir88
Shastanis Althreduin
satansaloser2005
Eomer of the Rohirrim
Lalaith
Legate of Amon Lanc
Mithalwen
Eönwë
Nogrod
Pervinca Took
Brinniel

The Dead
Morsul the Dark
Inziladun
Thinlómien

[satansaloser2005]

Folks who instigated that temporary five (six?) way tie are in a lot of trouble....

Behold my unamused face. o_O

[Nerwen]

I will look over Lommy's posts if I have time. In the meantime, can we arrange for the Dead to tell us Zil's role? (Can we also agree learning the roles of Night-killed people is a waste of time?)

[Boromir88]

Well that was unfortunate.

So let's figure out this dead thread communication plan now...going through with it or not? And how?

[Eönwë]

So, to my mind, either Nog is on the right track, and I've ended up siding with an evil Lottie, Eomer and Legate trio; or Legate is right and Noghas been trying to sabotage our communication with the Dead Thread.

On which note, I don't like the way Nog tries to bring up the no-lynch thing against me and Legate and Lottie as if it's separate from us wanting to implement the plan, which he clearly disagrees with.

[Eönwë]

Well, it looks like I won't have to look at Lommy's posting toDay after all...

A few thoughts:
1. The Zil vote seems a bit worryingly sudden.
2. However, I also think the early spreading out of the vote needs to be looked at more closely.
3. Let's have the Dead Thread discussion now, please.
4. On the topic of the Dead Thread, over the course of the Night, my suspicion of Nogroddue to his dismissal of the Dead Thread plan has returned. Not specifically his disagreement, but rather his attempt to discredit and derail it without offering any proper alternative (sure, it may be the case that the Dead should be the ones telling the Living what to do, but the Living are still the ones with the power of lynching, and they still need to be communicated with). For example, last Night, instead of either voting for himself (and being revealed) or not (thereby being found out), a B]Boro[/B]-wolf could now potentially try to justify not cooperating (in this case, cooperating being voting for himself for the Night reveal). I find it hard to believe that this possibility would not have occurred to Nog, which makes me suspect him.

Ok, it's very late and I'm very tired, so going to sleep now. I hope to wake up to some good discussion, village!

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by satansaloser2005

Folks who instigated that temporary five (six?) way tie are in a lot of trouble....

Behold my unamused face. o_O

At least they voted, showed their colours and left an audit trail. But there is a point in this game when what you don't do takes on as least as much significance as what you do. Can't help thinking the range would be more an issue for a servant of evil than someone with genuine (though possibly misplaced) suspicion.

[Brinniel]

On the Dead Thread...

Based on the rules, I'm assuming we will find out who received the empowerment vote at the end of each Day regardless of whether that empowerment vote actually has an impact on the lynch. Am I correct on this?

Eonwe, now that I'm starting to wrap my head around your strategy, while I do like where you're going with it, I see flaws. For one thing, last Night there were two in the Dead Thread which means they could vote to reveal a role. How do we know for sure that they cooperated and allowed this to happen? And if they did, how do we know if the role revealed was Morsul or Inzil? The theory of the EW killing their own wolf seems out there, yet the mere fact that it was discussed yesterDay may have prompted last Night's vote to go towards Morsul.

Originally Posted by Eonwe

Then, based on whether the Target (i.e. the person whose role was found out the Night before) is innocent or guilty, someone who is a known innocent (i.e. someone genuinely found out to be an innocent, or if no such person appears, a Night kill, e.g. Morsul - I assume the Dead Thread can come up with a system, but my suggestion would be to cycle through those lynched and definitively proven to be innocent) picks which of the people in the appropriate PREDATOR or PREY list is voted.

The list you are using is an interesting idea as a way for the dead to communicate to the living while still having some flexibility in their votes, but this here takes away that flexibility. You are assuming just because a known innocent can be trusted, that they will make good decisions. The truth is a known innocent can still be very misguided. For that reason, I do not like the idea of having one person decide the empowerment vote.

A strategy is needed, I agree. My main concern is that in our attempt to create a communication system with the dead, we will end up causing miscommunication and even more confusion. After all, while we can direct the Dead Thread and hope for the best, there's really no way to tell for sure if they are actually following the directions at any given time.

[Brinniel]

Unlike Sally, I'm not quite as concerned about the early voters who spread their votes out. While it's no good to spread the votes out too thin, they all voted early enough for others to step in and prevent another tie.

The last few bandwagon votes for Inzil are more concerning and may require a further look.

But I will leave that for another time as it is late and I need sleep.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Brinniel

My main concern is that in our attempt to create a communication system with the dead, we will end up causing miscommunication and even more confusion. After all, while we can direct the Dead Thread and hope for the best, there's really no way to tell for sure if they are actually following the directions at any given time.

Word.

We can never be quite sure if we interpret the dead-empowerment the right way - and the whole point of any kind of major plan is to gain REAL knowledge, not just "it might mean x" (which is the accuracy of our own deductions here). But a rigid system comes with the expense of the Dead-thread becoming an automaton - while still not helping us in any reasonable way.

So the costs far outweight the benefits.

That said, after thinking about it a little I'm actually softening my critique of the plan - or admitting my own guidelines (which I suggested yesterDay) not being as good as I thought them to be.

The problem I didn't quite realize yesterDay is, that the Dead have less to go on with in this kind of a special game because like us on D1 and 2 they'll also struggle with the fact that there aren't that many special roles yet aka. there's less to "read" or to make inferences from.

But even with the Dead being a little less powerful I kind of thought them to be yesterDay, I'd still say it is too little gain from trying to tie the hands of the Dead-thread (and even ours) - and unwise from us the Living as it would create chances for the evil side to hide their voting in their possibly totally reasonable arguments on an interpretation of the empowerment vote that benefits their cause.

Originally Posted by Eönwe

For example, last Night, instead of either voting for himself (and being revealed) or not (thereby being found out), a B]Boro[/B]-wolf could now potentially try to justify not cooperating (in this case, cooperating being voting for himself for the Night reveal). I find it hard to believe that this possibility would not have occurred to Nog

Sorry, but I have no clue whatsoever you are talking about here. So that (probably) hasn't occurred to me at all - or at least I don't understand what you are talking about.

I mean Boro is alive and thus does not vote anything on Nights - nobody votes on Nights, right? If you mean that Boro-wolf would have made a suicide on D1 and then decided not to co-operate in the Dead-thread then what's the problem - he'd be overpowered in no time and his actions would actually target him there etc.

Originally Posted by Eönwe

his attempt to discredit and derail it without offering any proper alternative

Wrong. I did offer an alternative. Actually a viable and most reasonable one.

Let the Dead play as hard as they can and battle it out there with their extra knowledge and try to win this game for us by affecting the lynches and trying to signal us whom they think is the most suspicious person by empowering a vote to someone they think should be lynched.

Ok. I'm in a hurry right now, but I'll be back later...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Wrong. I did offer an alternative. Actually a viable and most reasonable one.

Let the Dead play as hard as they can and battle it out there with their extra knowledge and try to win this game for us by affecting the lynches and trying to signal us whom they think is the most suspicious person by empowering a vote to someone they think should be lynched.

Okay, so in other words, keep the dead "as if they were still alive" by "extending their right to vote", so to say? That, however, offers as much room for failure - especially since they have to boil all their votes down into one. As in, it is just enough if Dead 1 wants to empowere person X because the person they are voting for is clearly a Wolf, Dead 2 thinks the same about person Y, Dead 3 thinks the same about person Z and you have a tie, or somesuch. (Or Dead 1 is voting person X, Dead 2 is voting person Y, and meanwhile Dead 3, who is a Wolf, waits and then empowers person Y who is their packmate.)

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Sorry, but I have no clue whatsoever you are talking about here. So that (probably) hasn't occurred to me at all - or at least I don't understand what you are talking about.

I mean Boro is alive and thus does not vote anything on Nights - nobody votes on Nights, right? If you mean that Boro-wolf would have made a suicide on D1 and then decided not to co-operate in the Dead-thread then what's the problem - he'd be overpowered in no time and his actions would actually target him there etc.

Sorry, as I said in my last post, I meant Zil there. I think after talking about all the havoc a potential D1-lynch-Boro-wolf could wreak in the Dead Thread, I just kind of had it in my head that way. What I meant was this:

• If we'd clearly agreed to the plan to vote for the non-lynchee who's been in the Dead Thread the longest (at least in these early Days when no-one knows anything and in lieu of any clear alternative), then the dead are duty-bound to find out Zil's role. In this case, he's a wolf and cooperates, he's a confirmed wolf; if he doesn't cooperate, then clearly he doesn't have the best interests of the village at heart and should be presumed to be a wolf. If he's innocent then he cooperates and is confirmed innocent.
• By introducing doubt, now a wolfziladun has an excuse for not cooperating of the 'Oh, but we never actually agreed to vote for me' variety, which gives non-cooperation something to hide behind.
• So we have two options for how toDay looks in the Dead Thread:
  1. The plan has been carried out: We have one known role (Zil), and two presumed innocents. Of course, one wolf could be hiding in the Night kills, but it's super-unlikely that the EW would sacrifice two. I don't want to say too much about possibilities and possible deductions etc., but this should give the Dead Thread at least a reasonable chance of knowing what's going on, even if they can't completely communicate with us. As I've said earlier, the plan was not meant to be 100% permanent, but mostly a good solid starting point.
  2. Plan hasn't been carried out: They either have no knowledge at all, or they know have one known (Morsul), one presumed innocent (Lommy) and one true unknown (Zil)

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Wrong. I did offer an alternative. Actually a viable and most reasonable one.

Let the Dead play as hard as they can and battle it out there with their extra knowledge and try to win this game for us by affecting the lynches and trying to signal us whom they think is the most suspicious person by empowering a vote to someone they think should be lynched.

Sounds good, doesn't work (if we're going to go for such rhetoric at this point).

But seriously, the problem is that while this sounds reasonable, and is probably what we should do later on in the game, what does it actually mean for the early Days? If we have a fixed plan (and especially for the Night-voting), it means that either innocents cooperate to prove their innocence, or wolves either cooperate or are forced to out themselves by not cooperating, as discussed with Zil above.

That is a practical (and practicable) plan, while saying 'let them do the best they can by telling us who they think is guilty' has two problems. First of all, it means we in the Living Thread are a lot less likely to get the hard facts (or at least what is being transmitted about the hard facts) about who was innocent or guilty, which at this point is pretty much the only useful information we can get. Secondly, it muddies the waters, and gives the baddies more things to hide behind (and options to create draws in the voting).

Yes, later on, it might be good, but now such a plan is not really a plan, and to say otherwise seems a bit disingenuous.


edit: x-ed since my last post.

[Eönwë]

Oh, and surely empowering the most suspicious person could cause problems?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Brinniel

Based on the rules, I'm assuming we will find out who received the empowerment vote at the end of each Day regardless of whether that empowerment vote actually has an impact on the lynch. Am I correct on this?

I really hope so.

Originally Posted by Brinniel

Eonwe, now that I'm starting to wrap my head around your strategy, while I do like where you're going with it, I see flaws. For one thing, last Night there were two in the Dead Thread which means they could vote to reveal a role. How do we know for sure that they cooperated and allowed this to happen? And if they did, how do we know if the role revealed was Morsul or Inzil? The theory of the EW killing their own wolf seems out there, yet the mere fact that it was discussed yesterDay may have prompted last Night's vote to go towards Morsul.

Well, that's why I was pushing so hard yesterDay for the village to agree to the plan (see the posts I quoted in my last post). If we'd all agreed on the Dead Thread voting for Inziladun, then him not self-voting would out him as a wolf anyway. That's why I was getting a bit frustrated yesterDay at people either ignoring the discussion, flat-out rejecting the idea, or saying we should wait until toDay to discuss it. And I suspect that while some of that was for practical/legitimate/non-evil reasons, there is at least one evil person hiding in that category.

For now, we can only hope that the two did adhere to the plan. If not, then I imagine if Nog is a wolf/EW, he's feeling very proud of himself right around now.

Originally Posted by Brinniel

The list you are using is an interesting idea as a way for the dead to communicate to the living while still having some flexibility in their votes, but this here takes away that flexibility. You are assuming just because a known innocent can be trusted, that they will make good decisions. The truth is a known innocent can still be very misguided. For that reason, I do not like the idea of having one person decide the empowerment vote.

You're right, that's a good point. Maybe they could have their own pseudo-vote (known wolves excluded obviously) and then assign a known innocent to be a tie-breaker, and then all vote for whoever won that? Something like that anyway.

Originally Posted by Brinniel

A strategy is needed, I agree. My main concern is that in our attempt to create a communication system with the dead, we will end up causing miscommunication and even more confusion. After all, while we can direct the Dead Thread and hope for the best, there's really no way to tell for sure if they are actually following the directions at any given time.

Two things I do agree withNogrod about are:
1. We should take anything from the Dead Thread with a pinch of salt. Ultimately, we have no idea what's going on there, even if we can hope that they're trying to help us.
2. Later on, the needs of the game might change, and we shouldn't force ourselves (or the Dead Thread) to stick to a rigid plan every Day/Night.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try early on.


Also, one final thing to clear up: In my first post toDay, I said Boro-wolf. Of course I meant a Zil-wolf. I was very tired when I posted that...

I'll be back later.


edit: x-posted with Brinn and Nogrod

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, first things first. I think we should make sure to figure out the communication with Dead Thread ASAP now, otherwise they won't have even remote chance to communicating anything. As soon as we can get that off the table, we can focus more on Lommy's death and on the lynch yesterDay.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

As I said, I think we should stipulate that the Dead should check lynchees only (except in the case of a Hunter kill). The idea being floated about yesterDay that the wolves might kill one of their own just to have a wolf in the Dead Thread... well, it could happen as a sort of extreme outlier, but I feel that planning around such a possibility means that half the information we get from the Dead will be effectively useless. What do other people think?

I don't think it is very likely either. The only thing that might be a problem, and that is actually an important point, what Brinn said:

Originally Posted by Brinniel

Eonwe, now that I'm starting to wrap my head around your strategy, while I do like where you're going with it, I see flaws. For one thing, last Night there were two in the Dead Thread which means they could vote to reveal a role. How do we know for sure that they cooperated and allowed this to happen? And if they did, how do we know if the role revealed was Morsul or Inzil? The theory of the EW killing their own wolf seems out there, yet the mere fact that it was discussed yesterDay may have prompted last Night's vote to go towards Morsul.

That's a valid note. If we go with the option of a list for communicating, I think it should be enough if the list has some built-in failsafes, including a "none of the above" option.

In any case, the "two-answer list" such as the one that has been quoted from yesterDay wouldn't do, in my opinion. On top of everything, if potential Wolves on the Dead Thread managed to mess up with the vote, we would end up with completely the opposite information really easily (even though that's always a risk).

In any case, if I am thinking of a list, I say we should at least modify it to say, for instance, "none of the above". Ideally, split it into more parts, which should not be that big of a deal now (it would become more difficult once the Dead thread starts to fill up, but at least for toDay, I think that should work. We can always modify the lists later). In other words, we should bear in mind the possibilities of the Dead thread working differently than we want them to, take into account possible "civic disobedience" of the Dead thread and what have you.

So if, using Eönwë's list modified for toDay, it was:

Shastanis Althreduin
satansaloser2005
Pervinca Took
Nogrod
Nerwen
Mithalwen
Loslote
Legate of Amon Lanc
Lalaith
Eönwë
Eomer of the Rohirrim
Brinniel
Boromir88

Then, if we wanted to be super-sure and wanted to take into account the possibility that they somehow revealed Morsul instead of Inzil, we could make it something like first three - Inzil is Prey, 4.-6. - Inzil is Predator, 7.-8. - Morsul is Prey, 9.-10. - Morsul is Predator, 11.-13. none of the above. (These remaining numbers could be somehow modified still if we think of some more specific "none of the above".) Btw the number now is such that it is harder to divide, but I thought since the Morsul option is really there rather "just to be sure", I gave it only range of two people and range of three to Inzil. (We could also cut from the last option, but this is as even as possible and in any case no option should have just one person there.)

It's a draft, but I think it could work like that. At least for toDay. Again, our main goal should be to avoid chaos among the Dead.

I will leave this here to look at, and meanwhile I will try to look at what can be learned from Lommy's death, and hopefully also the voting yesterDay.

EDIT: x-ed with Nerwen, Nogrod and Eönwë

[Eönwë]

Well, technically, Legate, given that toDay is an odd Day, it should be an A-Z list .

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Then, if we wanted to be super-sure and wanted to take into account the possibility that they somehow revealed Morsul instead of Inzil, we could make it something like first three - Inzil is Prey, 4.-6. - Inzil is Predator, 7.-8. - Morsul is Prey, 9.-10. - Morsul is Predator, 11.-13. none of the above. (These remaining numbers could be somehow modified still if we think of some more specific "none of the above".) Btw the number now is such that it is harder to divide, but I thought since the Morsul option is really there rather "just to be sure", I gave it only range of two people and range of three to Inzil. (We could also cut from the last option, but this is as even as possible and in any case no option should have just one person there.)

I reckon that toDay, while not idea, we will probably need to go for something like this. This doesn't give many options for each possibility, but we're early on enough in the game that hopefully giving the extra vote to a wolf/EW shouldn't matter too much.

In which case, we could have something like:

Voted Zil, Zil was PREY
Boromir88
Brinniel
Eomer of the Rohirrim

Voted Zil, Zil was PREDATOR
Eönwë
Lalaith

Voted Morsul, Morsul was PREY
Legate of Amon Lanc
Loslote

Voted Morsul, Morsul was PREDATOR
Mithalwen
Nerwen

Tie, each voted the other
Nogrod
Pervinca Took

Tie, each voted themself
satansaloser2005
Shastanis Althreduin