Werewolf XLIII - The Big City (Game over)

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah blade. You've been playing out of your mind. Cronin and I about crapped our pants when you named us as mafia on D1 (or early on D2). And then to add SnDvls into that when we were just thinking of converting him...I gotta give props to everyone in the mafia who came after me and continued the recruiting, as after we went down 2 in the first 2 days that was the only way we had a chance.

and that was the point behind my whole dying statement of "you're actually worse off than you were d1". I figured that if we could recruit everyone in that was possible we could almost outwait the village and let them kill off each other here and there and then night-kill them and sneak a win.

i'm AMAZED SnDvls managed to last so long. Mind-boggling man. I know how that kind of isolation can be so hard.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Blade6119

I waited too long on the final day to play sndvls...as Alan can attest, i was 99.9% sure it was sndvls...i was trying to walk him into a trap. I had a huge case ready to be posted to sway JE and win the thing, but sndvls killed me(even thought i could have won with him, the bastard).

I was right with DT, cronin, and sndvls(the three i listed at the time ironically, whether sndvls was evil yet or not). I mentioned bsak, but let it slide. Barkeep totally fooled me.


I think one of my biggest complaints with this game was seeing some mafia die and it not say mafia(ITC) while others did(barkeep). Linked to this, it would be nice in the future if the lynch post says who died...it got a little annoying having to keep going back to the main post.

Other then that, it was a good game...we had some great breaks early, then some terrible breaks late...I think it was tough with so many seers who could do very little(including the detectives) and the ability of the mafia to convert anyone we even remotely tried to clear.

Without DT and cronin dying early(and bsak setting himself up somewhat), i think we would have gotten blown out..so in that regard, im not sure how balanced i believe it was. But it was still great play by sndvls to keep being tomorrows lynch(after 3 seer scans too)

ITC and Marathoner never joined the mafia, so didn't know who the mafia were or such. That is the difference in why they didn't say mafia whatever when they died. I tried to make that be the clue for people to know when they killed someone in the family or not. Ie: Bsak said mafia drug dealer when he died since he had joined the mafia family. Hopefully that makes sense

[Narcizo]

So, I had the right guy for the wrong reasons, it seems.

I enjoyed the game a lot. I thought the conflict between personal victory conditions and team victory conditions made for interesting decisions. The UMB was fun but I was actually going to suggest that it was too powerful a tool for the good guys - as it basically gave PM privelages if you could work out who was good. (Like I did Anxiety - although I didn't actually feel any need to PM him).

I think I made a few newbie mistakes, basically talking too much, which could have got me in trouble. (I said that I'd blown my victory condition and then a couple of days later said that I'd made it - I was mistaken the first time, my report was just late, but I was sure Blade was going to use it to say that I'd been converted). I could probably have come out as the banker sooner but I didn't think it would gain much and I used the UMB to say pretty much all I had to say. I thought everyone had worked it out anyway.

And I ignored LSG going on about there being another detective. Correctly as it turns out but if I hadn't I might have come to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.

I have to agree with Blade that the game seemed a bit skewed to evil. You can't account for lynching the two main mob members on day 2 and 3. If that hadn't happened surely it would have been a mob walkover? I guess good had bad luck with the detectives.

However having not voted a good guy all game long (Chief turned after I died I believe) I think I did pretty well.

[Narcizo]

So, I thought it was a great game. Loved the divergent victory conditions and the UMB. Maybe there was a few too many random events.

[Alan T]

I think in the end, I probably would agree that it probably was a little easier for the bad guys than I would have liked this game.. however I think a big part of that isn't the game design fault as much as the bad guys made good use of most of their tools. They used the UMB fully, they used items to about 75% of their effectiveness, the only tool they didn't really use was their cash in trying to bribe votes off of neutrals that were dependant on cash.

I think the good guys in some cases used the UMB ok, but in most cases didn't. Anxiety for instance who did reach his goal during the game was one of the better users of the UMB and it paid off for him. The Good guys really didn't use the items very well to their effectiveness, and I think they didn't get full use out of the judge/detective infrastructure which was a game breaker. Partially due to losing a detective day 1.

I think the things I would change as far as design goes would probably have been to cut back a little bit on a role or two that I thought was a bit too strong for the bad guys.. but I think most of the problems was that I obviously did not convey how important items were in this game. If the key roles had spent money on getting bulletproof vests, the bad guys could likely had been restricted to either 1 kill every 3 days or 2 every 3 days depending on who they converted over.

I guess I would have loved to have seen all of the detectives getting bulletproof vests, the banker getting one and a bigger push from people to try to get judges in. I think thats one thing I made a bit too hard was with so many neutral roles in with the bad guys, it was really tough to elect a judge at the beginning. I should have perhaps used a different method of getting a judge in I think, so there wern't so many days with -no- judge.

Thanks for the comments, and I'm interested in any others also. It helps me with future games. I hope everyone enjoyed it, I didn't necessarily enjoy it as much as my last one, but I think that is because of other reasons not related to WW right now.

I also hope Narcizo and Bsak keep playing as well as King continuing to come back and play again with us some more in the future. And I also hope those who get frustrated at other players in the game don't use it as a reason to not play anymore. Its easy to get riled up at each other in a game where you make direct accusations. I hope each game people can try to wipe the slate clean and start over again when possible.

[Alan T]

Oh, and if there is one thing that I really did like how it worked out this game and will most likely use again is the goal system I had here. When people met their personal goals it gave them rewards, new roles or special one time abilities. I think some of the people in this game had tougher goals to accomplish than others, and most of that is due to this game taking a much bigger turn than I expected at the start, and money was not used nearly as much as I had expected. I did like how it ended up working out though when people did meet goals or objectives.

[st.cronin]

I think the game was fairly well balanced, possibly tilted towards good. There were only two of us at the beginning (me and DT). We got lucky with Tyrith, and SnDvls played out of his mind in the last half of the game. Otherwise the game might have been over day 6.

On the other hand, if Barkeep doesn't wreck his car...

[Alan T]

Well the one thing i have found in games that are pretty wide open (with alot of roles) is that they very easily can go either way with excellent play by someone. In the Tombstone game, I felt the bad guys had no shot near the end, and Lathum played amazingly well and convinced enough people to go other ways long enough to survive till the end. Likewise in this game, Sndvls did really well at holding off enough suspicion long enough to survive.

On the other hand, Blade the first two days this game nearly ended the game day 2 if not for them getting Sndvls converted pretty quickly. I also think that Narcizo did a good job at slamming the door on the middle of the game with not only Barkeep, but also he (and others) putting the pressure on the other bad guys who just happened to not be mafia yet.

I guess I like having a game that rewards great play, I try to make a game more open for people to adlib more (both good guys and bad guys), but the big risk is having an unbalanced game. I definitly see things that I could have improved, and I thank everyone for their thoughts, most of which I either agree with or can see that perspective.

[Poli]

Dang, game over already!? I hope you run another game similar to this.

[Dr. Sak]

I don't know if you guys recall but I made up a story on Swaggs that said if the detective clears him he would then gain all of your trust and turn bad. Well that's exactly what I did. When Anxiety got hacked, I mentioned something about he should have bought firewall software. So that got everyone all fired up, and I got the good guys to get a warrant and search me.

While this was going on SnDvls and I were talking via the underground and we gained each other's trust. I was telling him everything that was going in and out of my shop. The first day I got to be the person that offed Swaggs. But I couldn't hang on much longer before getting lynched. So I outted SnDvls in my last post before getting lynched and knew everyone wouldn't believe me once they found out I was bad.

[Narcizo]

SnDvls played an excellent game it has to be said. He was under suspicion from day one (well, two then) but he kept on managing to slide away from it. His fake reveal was perfectly timed as well. I think the main problem good had was setting too much store in vouches based on partial scans. (Swaggs scan of SnDvls being the most obvious). Great as SnDvls played I think it was there for good to win at the end and I was part of that, getting tunnel vision about Chief Rum. I noticed I did the same thing while I was reading the Apocolypse game (I was convinced Prof X was bad) so when I play again I'll have to think about that more. By the end I didn't really think CR was bad but I had concentrated on him so much that I couldn't find anyone else to be suspicious of. As soon as I died it seemed to clear my head though and I saw it pretty quickly.

I have to admit I was surprised at the fact that people like JE and LSG didn't spend any money all game - I could see their finances. I mean not joining the USB was just baffling when you had 1000 in the bank. I started with a shedload of money but I thought it was there for spending, even if I didn't really have a clear idea what to do with it.

Alan I'm just wondering if the firewall software gave full protection. If it did then I wasted $150 and wasted 2 days of Anxiety's time. I was presuming that it only offered partial protection.

In retrospect I think the game probably was very well balanced. I think the good guys are probably under-estimating the amount of work the wolves put in to get the win, particularly after early set backs.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

SnDvls played an excellent game it has to be said. He was under suspicion from day one (well, two then) but he kept on managing to slide away from it. His fake reveal was perfectly timed as well. I think the main problem good had was setting too much store in vouches based on partial scans. (Swaggs scan of SnDvls being the most obvious). Great as SnDvls played I think it was there for good to win at the end and I was part of that, getting tunnel vision about Chief Rum. I noticed I did the same thing while I was reading the Apocolypse game (I was convinced Prof X was bad) so when I play again I'll have to think about that more. By the end I didn't really think CR was bad but I had concentrated on him so much that I couldn't find anyone else to be suspicious of. As soon as I died it seemed to clear my head though and I saw it pretty quickly.

I have to admit I was surprised at the fact that people like JE and LSG didn't spend any money all game - I could see their finances. I mean not joining the USB was just baffling when you had 1000 in the bank. I started with a shedload of money but I thought it was there for spending, even if I didn't really have a clear idea what to do with it.

Alan I'm just wondering if the firewall software gave full protection. If it did then I wasted $150 and wasted 2 days of Anxiety's time. I was presuming that it only offered partial protection.

In retrospect I think the game probably was very well balanced. I think the good guys are probably under-estimating the amount of work the wolves put in to get the win, particularly after early set backs.

The firewall software did offer full protection. There were a few places for both bad and good where people were offered multiple ways of accomplishing something, just some were far better choices than others.

[Swaggs]

I thought the game was pretty well balanced.

SnDvls played a great game, but we had a chance to win for the last several days, so the opportunity was there.

[path12]

In hindsight I don't think I used the bodyguard power as well as I might have. I used it the first day on JE, and then once Anxiety was voted judge I used it on him, but I was holding off on some other days because my victory condition was to protect a judge and since I could only protect someone once I was wary of not burning all our judge candidates. As it turned out we couldn't ever get a new judge elected so I should have used it on LSG that day -- I actually sent in the order but then recinded it after she indicated she had a gun and I thought she would be elected for sure that day.

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by LoneStarGirl

This game was extremely fun. I am glad I played, Alant you have some of the best games.

I never saw where it was hinted that detectives not use the computers to do their daily activities. I thought it was the best way to track people but in the end it didn't help me convict anybody, just clear people.

Also, I never did get to send my gun to anybody. I was going to do it after I saw if Cheif was good or bad. And seeing how chief was good, i probably would have sent it back to sndvls... so we would have been screwed either way.

ya I always had a 2nd gun so I passed it to gain some trust

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

And if Blade had joined us in lynchign SnDvls, the game would have been ours. Ah well, at least I was the last good guy left in teh end,.

I had put in my kill order before he could vote thus eliminating him. It was either him or you and since you hadn't put in an "official vote" yet I took him out...lucky for me he had mentioned he was leaning towards path so that took some pressure off me too.

Alan how was the last tie breaker between path & I determined?

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Blade6119

I think one of my biggest complaints with this game was seeing some mafia die and it not say mafia(ITC) while others did(barkeep). Linked to this, it would be nice in the future if the lynch post says who died...it got a little annoying having to keep going back to the main post.

problem was ITC was never mafia he was just a thug...we never talked to him or tried to recruit him

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

On the other hand, if Barkeep doesn't wreck his car...

you said this before...I'm confused did I miss something? Is BK okay?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by SnDvls

I had put in my kill order before he could vote thus eliminating him. It was either him or you and since you hadn't put in an "official vote" yet I took him out...lucky for me he had mentioned he was leaning towards path so that took some pressure off me too.

Alan how was the last tie breaker between path & I determined?

In any case where there was no head of the lynch mob (the last 5 people in the game, or he died), or when the head of the lynch mob voted for someone not involved in a tiebreaker, then it fell to a second tiebreaker of oldest held vote. If both of you were tied at 2, then the person who got and kept their 2nd vote first was lynched. Since Path got his second vote before you received your second vote (Anxiety's vote for you), Path was killed.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by SnDvls

you said this before...I'm confused did I miss something? Is BK okay?

The mafia was working with Barkeep through the UMB the night when he was the deciding vote to lynch one of the mafia members. They kept trying to get him to move his vote but he never did (because he wasn't on the board since he had wrecked his car)

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

I thought the game was pretty well balanced.

SnDvls played a great game, but we had a chance to win for the last several days, so the opportunity was there.

Swaggs you were my key to victory in this game....after you scanned my trash I knew I had to kill you as I wasn't sure what you really knew and tried to play up that fact in my post where you talk about what to say about me. This was my one opening to keep it going and so I thought up my reporter role and ran with it....do or die so to speak. Then I got a few more days when LSG semi-cleared me too...I had no info in the police system because I didn't commit a crime where prints would be found...this bought me a few more days...finally Nazcio almost cost me the game when he said I never put money in the bank..I thought I was gone then.

[SnDvls]

BTW - Jonathan I saw you mention this was your last WW game...I hope that isn't the case

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Alan T

The mafia was working with Barkeep through the UMB the night when he was the deciding vote to lynch one of the mafia members. They kept trying to get him to move his vote but he never did (because he wasn't on the board since he had wrecked his car)

And I further could have protected cronin from the following day's vote as well. Though if I hadn't blown it with the money thing I'd likely have been able to ride that action a long way as I don't think with just Anxiety coming out against me as the hacker that there'd have been enough support to lynch me.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

Originally Posted by SnDvls

BTW - Jonathan I saw you mention this was your last WW game...I hope that isn't the case

As long as my work schedule stays as it is, this will be my last game. I hated not being able to get into any discussions and having to put my vote in before most people had even checked in for the day. And I really hated that most of my votes were pure guesses (since I wouldn't be around to see how things developed throughout the day). A case in point is yesterday. When I got home from work and read through the thread, if I'd been around I would have pulled my vote from path.

I'll keep following the games and wishing I could get in them, but for now this is it.

[Chief Rum]

I thought this was a terrific game. I think I made two key errors, one major and one minor. More on that in a second.

Alan, did you have any idea I would take the sports bettor role the way I did? Did you see there was a way for me to actually run a business with it or did I surprise you with that? I was wondering all along if you intended me to do that.

The betting was a neat side thing for this game, but unfortunately, hardly anyone took advantage of it. Lathum lost $100 on the first day, and I returned a $20 st. cronin bet to him when he wanted to go against the bettors bet (and he would have won; Lathum and I lost). kingfc was the big winner. He went in with me with $400 on the Blazers in the third game. LSG was the final bettors. We lost when the Lakers lost a few days ago. I bet every day I was alive. I had a victory goal of $10,000 and I started with $500. Losing the KState game hurt, because I lost most of my start up money. I turned $100 into almost $2500, though with the five straight wins, so I thought I could still make a victory condition if I lived a couple more days. And then that Lakers double OT loss. Stupid Lakers.

I was then converted to good (BTW, Narcizo, I was good the day you died, so you did vote for a good guy), so I only had to make $3000 (but help good win). I won a blind five-to-one bet to get a lot of my Lakers losses back, but I died the next day, so I didn't get to my goal (either one actually).

I am surprised more people didn't bet. I think they were being overly cautious with their money. It's there to be spent.

Now to my mistakes. It boils down to the same thing. Emotion. I let my emotions color my normally rational outlook. My minor mistake involved sndvls. I should have questioned his role, which wasn't in the list. The bsak attack on himw as key to that, so good move there by bsak. I was fooled. The main thing, though, was near the end sndvls coming out so strongly for me. That should have raised red flags with me. I mean, everyone and their mother suspected me; why would me sending him a gun convince him of my honesty? But I was just so glad to see someone, anyone, actually believe me after all the bickering with Blade that I bought into it.

My major mistake goes to Blade, and I think we're both equally responsible for that. I think we were the focus of the game for much of the middle to end stretch. We were so polarizing among the remaining players, that they couldn't focus on anything except our back-and-forth and trying to prove the other was evil. Blade frustrated me in this game because I kept presenting some logical conclusions on why I wasn't evil, but he was absolutely convinced I was. I was torn on being open, but not too open, because I thought the mafia would come after me if they knew I had the gun that would used to kill hoopsguy and/or Tyrith. So Blade was also asking about things I couldn't risk revealing, and that made me seem more cagey. His focus on me only turned me to focusing on him, and so emotion again clouded my judgment. Obviously, it would have been quite a turn for Blade to have been evil after all. But he was so gung ho on me when I wasn't evil at all, it made me think he was going after me so strong to hide the fact he was evil or divert attention from other mafia. Reality was, it was good versus quasi-good, and we gave Sndvls the under-the-radar corridor that he needed.

BTW, Alan, where did the gun and gem come from? Who dropped them? Was the gun used in crimes, such as hoopsguy's or Tyriths murders?

I, too, would hope this isn't Jon Ezarik's last WW game. I don't know if it is something personal, but I hope he would look past that. He's a good player, and I enjoy playing with him.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Ezarik

As long as my work schedule stays as it is, this will be my last game. I hated not being able to get into any discussions and having to put my vote in before most people had even checked in for the day. And I really hated that most of my votes were pure guesses (since I wouldn't be around to see how things developed throughout the day). A case in point is yesterday. When I got home from work and read through the thread, if I'd been around I would have pulled my vote from path.

I'll keep following the games and wishing I could get in them, but for now this is it.

Oh, I hear ya there. Obviously, my schedule is similar to yours. I do still make it work, though, and have fun with it. Early on it will suck mor ebecasue you have absolutely nothing to go on for votes. But after that, if you're following along on the thread and people know that you leave early, you can still be an active particpant in your time. I find that coming home from work and reading all the stuff that went down after my vote is a ton of fun.

[Chief Rum]

Oh, yeah, and thanks Alan for another terrific game. I thought you did very well, especially given the circumstances, and this was a pretty balanced game. It reminds me a little of my JTR game, in which I thought most of my design decisions were fairly well balanced, but bad luck (Lathum buying it really early) unbalanced it badly (and then my bad design decisions came far more into play).

Don't worry about the missed UMB post, either. So everyone knows, what Alan was talking about was a UMB post I tried to send out which revealed I had the gun and the gem, and laid out the story Blade and others were asking for publically that I felt I couldn't do. It was a last ditch effort to get the story out there before I died. As it turned out, I lived for another couple days and the story pretty much all get out anyway.

I was really torn about going good or bad when I was offered the chance by Sndvls (unbeknownst to me). That's why I didn't make my decision right away. I actually slept on it, that's how close it was. I ended up going good because I had acted good most of the game, and, simply, because I felt I was about to die that day (didn't know I was protected yet) and didn't want to come up evil, thus giving Blade any validation with his accusations. So I really wanted to turn mafia and decided to go good instead. How about that, SnDvls?

[Alan T]

Chief, your role and King's roles were both setup in a way where it wouldn't be impossible to win, but you would need alot of help. I wasn't suprised in how you took it, but in my mind I had thought both of you would have ended up in a situation where you felt desperate enough for money that you could be "bought". Scenerios like this is what the UMB was mainly in play for.. I was hoping you would let yourself be "prostituted out" so to speak to get some extra cash.

The early games for you purposely were going to be harder than the later games as the desire wasn't to keep you from making your mark but moreso to push you and King both to different ways to reach it and thus being more involved in the WW game than just a side parlor game.

The gun and gem (as well as other items, like King found a bulletproof vest, and others found cash) were just a random way to insert more items into the game as we went. You found a brand new item, was not used in any murders or anything. If they had checked your gun into the police evidence, it would have shown clean for ballistics matches.

[st.cronin]

I hope JE finds the time to play again, as well.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

And I further could have protected cronin from the following day's vote as well. Though if I hadn't blown it with the money thing I'd likely have been able to ride that action a long way as I don't think with just Anxiety coming out against me as the hacker that there'd have been enough support to lynch me.

That would have been just a phenomenal sequence of events - the random bandwagon started by hoops getting blade lynched, then actually being immune the next day. The mayhem that would have been resulted would have been priceless. Alas.

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I was really torn about going good or bad when I was offered the chance by Sndvls (unbeknownst to me). That's why I didn't make my decision right away. I actually slept on it, that's how close it was. I ended up going good because I had acted good most of the game, and, simply, because I felt I was about to die that day (didn't know I was protected yet) and didn't want to come up evil, thus giving Blade any validation with his accusations. So I really wanted to turn mafia and decided to go good instead. How about that, SnDvls?

the gun was DT's and used to kill Hoops..no idea on the gem
I did have the ring that Blade wanted thought DT gave it to me.

I protected both you and Blade in hopes of converting either of you and had even told alan if either of you called it was an invite into the family...neither of you took me up on it and yes I got the same PM you both got about what happened....thanks for the hot dog

I don't know how many times I typed a post in here then deleated it only to see someone save my butt with some screwed up story on someone else...being down 8-1 sucked and I got a lot of lucky breaks by the good guys and was as Blade put it "tomorrows lynch" almost every day.

[SnDvls]

ahh guess the gun was clean...I had assumed all along it was DT's old gun

[Alan T]

Nope, items went to the grave with people. I didn't want things coming back after their death to condemn others.

[Swaggs]

Alan, what determined the contents of the trash?

For the most part, they all made sense, but SnDvls' items really never clicked with me. I thought the napkin indicated that he was a man of wealth and that the baby's toy (I can't remember exactly what it was, a toy or rattle or pacifier) indicated that he was a family man and therefore, likely good.

[Blade6119]

Question for alan...if LSG bought the bullet proof vest from me that day, how did she die? She was shot, but she had just bought a bullet proof vest from me.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

Alan, what determined the contents of the trash?

For the most part, they all made sense, but SnDvls' items really never clicked with me. I thought the napkin indicated that he was a man of wealth and that the baby's toy (I can't remember exactly what it was, a toy or rattle or pacifier) indicated that he was a family man and therefore, likely good.

Was more a play on words than anything. Rattle = KID, NAPkin

Most of your clues were not meant for you to be able to just come right out and say , oh he is a .. so you got stuff like a Kiss begins with K, or Eric Estrada.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

Alan, what determined the contents of the trash?

For the most part, they all made sense, but SnDvls' items really never clicked with me. I thought the napkin indicated that he was a man of wealth and that the baby's toy (I can't remember exactly what it was, a toy or rattle or pacifier) indicated that he was a family man and therefore, likely good.

Originally Posted by Blade6119

Question for alan...if LSG bought the bullet proof vest from me that day, how did she die? She was shot, but she had just bought a bullet proof vest from me.

In the rules, items passed around didn't have as much effectiveness the day they were passed. It was to prevent a group of 4 people from getting one pair of Fingerprintless gloves, or such. While the bad guys did pass around all kinds of items, and LSG got the item from you as well, if you have something invoke the item the day you received it, there was a 50% chance of failing. So for the record, this game every time that came up, the people involved failed their roll. I didn't once come out and directly say that to anyone, I wanted to leave it just at the hint earlier on in the game that sharing items might not be fully effective.