Werewolf XCVI: The Dark One and The Order of Righteousness (GAME OVER EVIL WINS)

[Autumn]

That makes sense Dubb, the lesser amount of wolves. I think the village did have a lot of chances to make this work. Danny getting killed early was a blow but we survived that.

I think htat the village strayed away from jail because it was *really* difficult to have anything to go on without voting records. This was a strangely low activity game and that was one reason. We had had great success with the jail early on but it meant we had no leads on wolves. That's a frustrating feeling when you're used to relying on voting records.

And knowing that we were down to just me as bodyguard andthat I couldn't stop the DO, I thought the jail was mostly compromised. Eventually we'd elect a wolf king.

[Autumn]

What happened the day Lathum "IDed" me as BG? Or rather the night before.

[lerriuqs]

Originally Posted by Autumn

That makes sense Dubb, the lesser amount of wolves. I think the village did have a lot of chances to make this work. Danny getting killed early was a blow but we survived that.

I think htat the village strayed away from jail because it was *really* difficult to have anything to go on without voting records. This was a strangely low activity game and that was one reason. We had had great success with the jail early on but it meant we had no leads on wolves. That's a frustrating feeling when you're used to relying on voting records.

And knowing that we were down to just me as bodyguard andthat I couldn't stop the DO, I thought the jail was mostly compromised. Eventually we'd elect a wolf king.

But we didn't...even today. We were going to elect path...The jail opened up that king avenue nicely.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by Autumn

What happened the day Lathum "IDed" me as BG? Or rather the night before.

I think it was just a guess. I never IDed you to anyone in game except for Danny.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I just want to say the conversation I had with Tyrith when Schmidty duked to him was high comedy.

I reacted over the top on purpose about it, but I really do think it's a really poor move to make in that spot.

I would like to hear about this conversation. I didn't get much of it but what I got told me Tyrith was not pleased to say the least.

[RendeR]

The big key for me staying out of the limelight was getting trhe support from CR early on. he cast a positive look on me and as the seer it seems like everyone bought into that. I kept my mouth shut and played on as if nothing had happened.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Autumn

What happened the day Lathum "IDed" me as BG? Or rather the night before.

Nothing at all. I made a fake play hoping the BG would (you) either come out or guard CR leaving the wolves free to go elsewhere and kill CR the next night. the fact you were the BG was just a gut feel.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by lerriuqs

But we didn't...even today. We were going to elect path...The jail opened up that king avenue nicely.

Sure, but if we had continued relying on the jail day in and day out it would have made the king an inviting target and we would have run out of cleared characters.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I would like to hear about this conversation. I didn't get much of it but what I got told me Tyrith was not pleased to say the least.

just general WTF frustrated convo.

[RendeR]

Dubb, love this game, though I had the best role overall to play with. It was SO hard to keep myself from making smart ass comments that would have blown my cover.

I did drop a few hints here and there....I thought the "Young padewan" thing might make someone look twice but it just got glossed over =)

[Autumn]

In addition, on jailing we only got away from it with Lathum's fake reveal. If we had jailed KWhit instead of lynching we would have gone on believing Lathum's reveal or forced the seer to reveal himself. without the confusion of the spell on Saldana I think the lynch worked well for us and we probably would have gone back to the jail.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by RendeR

The big key for me staying out of the limelight was getting trhe support from CR early on. he cast a positive look on me and as the seer it seems like everyone bought into that. I kept my mouth shut and played on as if nothing had happened.

That didn't factor into anything for me, but with so little activity and little voting record I just felt like there was no reason to suspect or trust anybody, really.

[Lathum]

And for those of you who though me outing myself was a bad play I disagree. At the time Autumn's idea for the seer revealing was getting some traction. We knew the DO was back and we could kill in jail, but the village didn't, so we were worried people would follow that plan.

I had to leave for a few hours so Render and I had a frantic AIM conversation about if I should or not. We decided that if the seer comes out we get nothing since II either likely would have been scanned, or would be at some point soon. Odds are I wasn't going to make it to the end, so may as well take someone with me and maybe out the seer.

at the time I thought KWhit was the seer, I took a shot and missed, but the result was taking out a villager and wasting 2 days of history with runaway votes and meaningless cultist discussion, plus I got to make the play with Autumn that got us CR, so IMO it was a very good move.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Nothing at all. I made a fake play hoping the BG would (you) either come out or guard CR leaving the wolves free to go elsewhere and kill CR the next night. the fact you were the BG was just a gut feel.

Ah, well very good gut call. I had been in fact guarding Chief, and while I thought you might be BSing at first, the fact that you tagged me made me think you really had seen me.

I could only guard every other night so I wasn't much use at that point and just tried to keep everyone unaware of that and misguided as to where I was guarding.

[Lathum]

I chuckled quite a few times imaging Kwhit reading my reveal and being like, WTF!

[lerriuqs]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Ah, well very good gut call. I had been in fact guarding Chief, and while I thought you might be BSing at first, the fact that you tagged me made me think you really had seen me.

I could only guard every other night so I wasn't much use at that point and just tried to keep everyone unaware of that and misguided as to where I was guarding.

And I tried to drop a couple hints to get the wolves looking my way - hoping they'd take me out and give CR another day or two...Didn't work I guess.

[dubb93]

You stay up all night trying to scan Saldana. You are unable to get any type of reading.

That is the PM CR recieved the night he scanned Saldana fwiw.

[Autumn]

It was a fun game, Dubb, thanks for running it. My first time being a roled villager. Danny and I definitely made the wrong choice having him guard the first night. If we had gone with my first instinct we would have gotten a block in there. I tried to atleast get something out of the rest of the game, and made a good gut call guarding Chief before he revealed.

[Abe Sargent]

Good job wolves

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by dubb93

Before any balance issues are discussed I would like to state I decided to balance this with less wolves(3 to start with the possibility for 4). I also decided to throw in more night kill options/brutals b/c I didn't expect the village to lynch except in a sure thing situation(I was wrong here).

I also gave the village 2 seer mechanics and the ability to mulligan every lynch vote(they didn't take advantage of this). I also gave the village a very powerful Prison Guard role(and another CoT mechanic if played right). They also had an uber powerful BG who died well before his time.

My newspaper mechanic was a complete failure imho and I will not go back to that one again.

The village started out great when they were using the jail mechanic. They were able to redeem two wrong lynch votes in Pass and Abe and instead of being lynched both of these two were eventually freed, cleared, and elected king. I still am not following why the village abandoned this path when it was working so well for them.

I agree that for the most part the game was balanced. I think having two Brutals/cunnings is very rough, but since it was not guaranteed, I think the ruleset was balanced.

[dubb93]

Early on I had intended to send pieces of story to players throughout the game. I wrote two out before the game started but I never got around to writing any more. I wish I would have now, here are the two I sent out during the game. The first one was sent out to Tyrith and the second one went out a day later to RendeR. I had intended to write more to send out to roled players.

“Do not be afraid”, it said through the dark.

“Who is there!?” you half screamed startled. Was someone in your house?

“Do not be afraid for I offer you power beyond imagination.” It was at this point you realized you didn't actually hear the voice. You thought it. Are you going crazy?

It came at night. You were one of the most well respected scientist in all of Metou back then. Back before you died. Dead is how you choose to think of it.

Over time you would learn that the voice you heard in your head that night was actually a body-less entity. The being stole your life that night. It stole your career. It took everything. It needed your knowledge and in return it offered you protection. Offered. Not like you had a choice. It took your knowledge and in return it provided you with abilities beyond comprehension. In just a short time you went from being one of the most well respected scientist in your field to a monster. No mortal could match swords with you. No mage could stand up to your magical abilities. No seer could peak into your mind. You had become a monster.

Over time you would learn that you are not the first person to be called The Dark One. This thing has been moving from person to person since the beginning of time. It craves power. At first it would take over the greatest warriors and offer them the knowledge of great warriors prior to them. When it became obvious that would not work it began offering the brightest minds in the land the power of these warriors in exchange for their knowledge. Then it came to you.

This “thing” will stop at nothing to enslave all of Metou. Over time you began to hope it will accomplish this goal while it is still inside you.

The Dark One. Ever since you first heard the name you were intrigued rather than scared. In school you asked questions that made your teachers uncomfortable in regards to The Dark One. You spent your whole life being the outcast. You were so obsessed with The Dark One that it got in the way of relationships.

As you grew older and it became increasingly obvious you were smarter than everyone else around you the teasing became worse. When you finally became a scientist you dedicated your life to the study of The Dark One.

Oh the secrets you have learned. You and you alone know that The Dark One is in fact not immortal. Instead The Dark One is more like a parasite that latches itself onto a target until it no longer has any use for them. When it leaves its host, the host dies, but the parasite is able to maintain the knowledge and strength of it's previous hosts.

You have found evidence to support this theory.

You also know that when the parasite was young it would target the greatest warriors and offer them the strength of previous great warriors before them.

You know this failed and the parasite has recently been targeting the greatest minds and offering them the strength of great warriors of the past.

And you know that you are next in line to benefit from this parasite.

Parasite.....You would hardly call it that.

[Autumn]

That would have been fun, Dubb, to add something like that to the game. I like the roleplaying aspects of this, though anyone annoyed by Dr. Doom in the last Marvel game probably doesn't.

[Abe Sargent]

My plan was even better except for the forced vote thing. We had just two wolves, so we had three villagers and path as King to duke it with a 50/50 chance of hitting Jackal/RendeR. I would have duked Jackal if I had been left alive, but I knew I was biting it.

[path12]

Originally Posted by lerriuqs

Couldn't path still duke or did it affect the king vote as well?

FWIW I was planning on duking to Jackal if I had the chance.

[Autumn]

I think something to keep in mind for GMs is that having any unpublished rules at all is an advantage to the wolves. Especially if it regards wolf roles or powers. Not knowing what the Dark One could do, for instance, was a big factor in getting Saldana lynched. If we were wiser we should have postulated that the Dark One might have interfered with the scan. But having anything like that out there, along with the Cultist mysteries, makes the game much harder for the village. That should count as another plus on the wolf side to balance.

[The Jackal]

Whew. I figured you guys would be hot on me today but we had a few options to play around with. Good game everyone!

[Autumn]

Also this game has simply cemented my stereotypes of Jackal, Render and Lathum as wolves and Chief and DaddyT as helpful villagers. I keep trying not to play into the stereotypes but maybe I should.

[path12]

Good game wolves, and thanks for running it and inviting me, dubb.

I understand where you were going now with the saldana scan, but I still think it was an unbalancing ability.

Especially since (and this isn't a design issue) the game evolved to one where a lot of information was not forthcoming. The only real thing we had to go with (because voting records were not helpful) was Chief's scans. Once those were called into question the game really fell apart for us.

I think Lathum was the MVP of this game. He sacrificed himself but he gained two complete days of no voting records and bought RendeR and Jackal time to do their thing at night. Well done.

[The Jackal]

Yeah, thanks dubb, very fun and well-written game.

[Tyrith]

BTW, if I didn't get duked on D2 our original plan for N2 was to have Lathum kill Render. Yeah, game would have been a little different at that point.

The abilities of the Dark One seem a lot less unbalanced when you look at it from the perspective that we started with three wolves in a game of 21 people and a vast sum of villager abilities. If it was a normal brutal/cunning/vanilla wolf game you could make a pretty good argument that we would have needed 5 wolves + cultist. Further, Render's brutal and cunning, nor my cunning, never actually came into play.

[Schmidty]

This is very disappointing. One of my favorite WW moments goes to waste.

[SnDvls]

my fellow villagers had me all wrong the whole time, but CR

[The Jackal]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

This is very disappointing. One of my favorite WW moments goes to waste.

Sorry. That was a hell of a friggin duke though.

[Chief Rum]

Thanks for running the game, dubb.

I think dropping a wolf (which I actually began to suspect about the time I died, for what good it did then) helped with balance a ton, but I still think the DO was too powerful, and especially making the cultist be the one who inherits the powers.

I think the main issue I had isn't so much with balance, which I think was fairly close, but with the lack of public information. More about the DO's powers should have been known, IMO. Unpublished roles really have a poor effect on the ability to form trust circles, and as mentioned, it's advantageous to wolves to have those in there.

I agree in general with dubb's thoughts on the jail mechanic, but that one of the main issues with it, as mentioned, is that it essentially remvoed the value of voting records, which is probably one of the biggest villager advantages.

Really, IMO, there just wasn't enough verifiable information in this one for villagers, and in that respect, I think this ruleset is skewed to the wolves. In this particular game, villager decisions made it worse (and bad luck simply), but it's hard to blame the village when they really had nothing to go on.

Honestly without Schmidty's shocking duking, this game would have been even more obviously skewed by some of the mechanics. Schmidty's move essentially made us look better than we were.

I still had fun. Wish I had been a better seer, though.

[Chief Rum]

FTR, Render was the only one left after early in the game who had voted Danny for King, and voted with Danny on Day One in the lynch/jail. For that reason, I thought Render was the White Knight, which is what I was driving at before I died, about slightly elevating him in trust. It was a bad read.

Strangely enough, I really felt my trust breakdowns were slight all around, but much more was made of my elevating SnDvls and Render than was intended (and I was too dead to be able to correct that).

Poor play as the seer by myself, IMO. I should have been more careful, knowing my opinion would be weighed more heavily as the seer.

On Lathum, I thought that was an interesting play and a good idea. It didn't work to the level he had probably hoped, but it wasn't a bad move, especially in hindsight knowing the DO was for sure on his way back.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

FTR, Render was the only one left after early in the game who had voted Danny for King, and voted with Danny on Day One in the lynch/jail. For that reason, I thought Render was the White Knight, which is what I was driving at before I died, about slightly elevating him in trust. It was a bad read.

Especially considering I did not want to be King and made sure Autumn did not vote for me. I played that cool because I didn't want to tip the wolves off to having an important role, but I definitely did not want to be King as that would have resulted in a likely early death.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by dubb93

The village started out great when they were using the jail mechanic. They were able to redeem two wrong lynch votes in Pass and Abe and instead of being lynched both of these two were eventually freed, cleared, and elected king. I still am not following why the village abandoned this path when it was working so well for them.

Yeah. Me either.

[Autumn]

Yeah, Danny and I tried not to show any links in game, which paid off in that he got killed so early I could have followed right after. We were a bit worried that he was going to get elected, and I worried about it myself as I became one of the few cleared villagers left. I thought the villagers played a good game in the sense of not having to reveal early. And the wolves played just as well at not revealing themselves.

[RendeR]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

FTR, Render was the only one left after early in the game who had voted Danny for King, and voted with Danny on Day One in the lynch/jail. For that reason, I thought Render was the White Knight, which is what I was driving at before I died, about slightly elevating him in trust. It was a bad read.

Strangely enough, I really felt my trust breakdowns were slight all around, but much more was made of my elevating SnDvls and Render than was intended (and I was too dead to be able to correct that).

Poor play as the seer by myself, IMO. I should have been more careful, knowing my opinion would be weighed more heavily as the seer.

On Lathum, I thought that was an interesting play and a good idea. It didn't work to the level he had probably hoped, but it wasn't a bad move, especially in hindsight knowing the DO was for sure on his way back.

Normally you read me like a book CR, I'm kinda glad I fuddled you a bit this game =) Gives me hope that I can be a better player =)

[path12]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Yeah. Me either.

I'll stick with my view that the non-relevance of voting records with jailing really tied our hands down the road.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by path12

I'll stick with my view that the non-relevance of voting records with jailing really tied our hands down the road.

I would agree with this and say it was made worse by the several days of landslide voting. I got lynched for no good reason this game and I regret not pushing back harder on saldana. I didn't do so because of the existing suspicion but I think it was that day we really went off the rails.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by path12

I'll stick with my view that the non-relevance of voting records with jailing really tied our hands down the road.

I would really like to debate this so I have more to go on for future games. Do we really think the lack of voting records had to do with the jail mechanic? As far as I can tell both players that were jailed were freed very shortly after they were jailed as cleared villagers. This would be the time to re-evaluate the voting record.

I think the non-relevance of the voting record had very little to do with the jail mechanic and very much to do with the landslide votes. Of the 8 votes atleast half of them had every player vote for the same person(or atleast it seemed this way). That is why the village had nothing to go on. It had little to do with the jail mechanic.

I think the bigger issue is figuring out what if anything caused all of the landslide votes.

[Autumn]

I don't think it was only the landslides, Dubb, but you're right that those were much of it. The fact that we jailed a couple villagers and then didn't know for a long time what their allegiance was meant those early votes were meaningless for days and days, and then in the end were still meaningless since no wolves were involved.

I liked the jail mechanic in that it gave us a second chance. But the lack of reveals was a major handicap in it, and I don't know if the mechanic came around again if we could convince the village to jail anyone.

The landslide votes were basically results of the wolves, and so that worked great for them. The lack of discussion in the game was one of our biggest problems as a village, I think, and I'm not sure if that had something to do with the lack of voting record, as people kept claiming, or something else.

[USFLTecmo]

What kept me from wanting to jail anyone after Abe was released was that we didn't have a clue that someone had the mechanic to release a prisoner like that without a prison rush by the wolves. Sure, Abe could tell us that he could only do it once, but really, are we supposed to believe that no one else can screw with it?

[hoopsguy]

USFL, my gut on something like that would be "yes, only one player can do it" but I would suspect Abe was lying about not being able to do it again.

But once Abe was cleared I would have felt pretty good about putting folks in jail.

Just my two cents as someone who has played in a few games with hidden info ... something that I know you have said causes you some consternation in trying to get into the flow of a game.

[path12]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I would really like to debate this so I have more to go on for future games. Do we really think the lack of voting records had to do with the jail mechanic? As far as I can tell both players that were jailed were freed very shortly after they were jailed as cleared villagers. This would be the time to re-evaluate the voting record.

I think the non-relevance of the voting record had very little to do with the jail mechanic and very much to do with the landslide votes. Of the 8 votes atleast half of them had every player vote for the same person(or atleast it seemed this way). That is why the village had nothing to go on. It had little to do with the jail mechanic.

I think the bigger issue is figuring out what if anything caused all of the landslide votes.

I agree with you that the landslide votes didn't help.

Here's my feeling about the jail option (fully recognizing I might be on an island here and stating up front that it's not a black/white issue)

When you have to lynch a fellow player, you put yourself on the record with that vote. If you are wrong they are dead and the wolves are either that much closer to winning or losing. There is a consequence, and as such there is a value to that vote as far as analysis goes: Did player X make a key vote? Did they toss out a meaningless vote? Did they save a wolf or a roled player (a question often answered down the road). When the vote has a direct consequence it carries a greater weight as far as analysis goes as the game progresses.

When you can vote for a player with no real consequence (eg that player remains in the game), there is less weight to a players vote. Does it matter that player X voted to jail or lynch the second place votegetter? Is a wolf more likely to vote to jail a fellow wolf than lynch him? I guess so. But if I've got to try and analyze votes like the first couple days, I've got mainly two people on the block, but I've got jail votes and lynch votes and the analysis process (which is especially key for vanilla villagers) becomes muddled.

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Autumn

I don't think it was only the landslides, Dubb, but you're right that those were much of it. The fact that we jailed a couple villagers and then didn't know for a long time what their allegiance was meant those early votes were meaningless for days and days, and then in the end were still meaningless since no wolves were involved.

I liked the jail mechanic in that it gave us a second chance. But the lack of reveals was a major handicap in it, and I don't know if the mechanic came around again if we could convince the village to jail anyone.

The landslide votes were basically results of the wolves, and so that worked great for them. The lack of discussion in the game was one of our biggest problems as a village, I think, and I'm not sure if that had something to do with the lack of voting record, as people kept claiming, or something else.

the lack of discussion was really a lack of information due to the lack of good info. I like the Jail option for day 1, but after that it really does start to work in the wolves favor. We had not info voting record wise and got some info from our seer, but couldn't really make a whole lot out of it with the runaway votes taking over the game. Vanilla villagers really were the people with the biggest disadvantage as we couldn't stick our necks out there, we had nothing to offer up to save ourselves in a lynch and nothing to offer to discussion as there was nothing to analyzie...we could only grasp and little things (like me going after Autumn for the flip flopping)

[hoopsguy]

I didn't get to play in the game long enough to really experience the mechanic, but I think I would have been on the pro-jail side most of the game. I've always found jail to be a real pain for me when I was a wolf with jail as an option for the villagers.

If I'm given a choice between having more live villagers to help me with my ratio or dead villagers (roled and unroled) plus voting records I'll take my chances with more villagers. More days with more villagers = more time for the roled villagers to do something good.

I would treat the jail votes like lynch votes in terms of holding people accountable. And I do not think that I would have that hard of a time badgering people - whether they felt pressured to respond to me is another matter entirely.

I always feel that the vanilla villager has the least to lose by playing an aggressive game, no matter what tools are or are not at the overall disposal of the village. So why not question people? What are you really putting on the line, other than yourself? If you die because you questioned people then at least you have helped save the roled villagers for another cycle.

Anyway, there are a lot of different arguments captured in this post. Mostly because there have been a few different ideas floated on the value (or lack thereof) around jail and the reasons for quiet play.

[Danny]

I think the early deaths of Hoops and I were the single biggest factor for the village not winning the game

[DaddyTorgo]

*sigh*