Wildbow's Pact Mafia

[CaoimhinTheCape]

@Captain Cap

Just to confirm, even though you didn't have strong suspicions on RA (or anyone I assume) their retractions/contradictions were enough to override their claim that they could be proven? My post above applies to you too, voting someone who claimed they could prove themselves Town over someone who could prove themselves Neutral.




Vote Count

Mornshine (3): Elenna, The Outsider, Captain Cap
CaoimhinTheCape (1): gac3
PartyOfRouges (1): AvatarVecna
gac3 (1): CaoimhinTheCape

Not Voting (2): Apogee1, MornShine
No Posts (1): PartyOfRouges

[AvatarVecna]

Elenna ends the day voting Captain Cap, after voting him to get wagons going. Not necessarily a wolf or town tell, but she didn't pile onto a townie or neutral like everyone else. Not gonna bother quoting but Elenna also guessed Fae Noble right.

FoS on the people who voted rogue_alchemist after Xihirli's reveal (gac3, AV, Captain Cap). Definitely not suspicious at the time, but with the flips that means voting for someone who ended up Town as opposed to the Neutral. Sure, the Neutral claimed they could prove themselves but a dead proven Neutral would be better than dead Town.

By the end of the day, Captain Cap mentions that rogue_alchemist claimed town that could prove themselves and still votes RA. Gac lampshades it in the post after that no one saw that claim but keeps his vote on RA.

I'm not sure why I didn't see RA's claim, but also it doesn't really change my thought process very much. Claims are a sign of what info you're willing to risk getting out in order to avoid the lynch. Xihirli claimed "anti-wolf neutral, and I can prove it", while RA claimed "townie, and I can prove it". The latter is a claim that could be made by basically anybody, it's not new information and it's not risky information to give out. But Xihirli took a risk - a provable risk, since it seems claiming as anti-wolf neutral might well be what got her killed.

(Also this isn't support for why RA's claim looked worse than Xihirli's, but it is proof of why it was actually worse than Xihirli's: X's provable role was literally a sentence telling the target "Xihirli is the Fae Noble" with narrator confirmation. RA's "proof" is a void power, and that's it. There's literally a wolf voider. The only thing RA could've done to prove their role was the thing they didn't do, which is cancel everyone else's votes.)

Run that theory by me again? You're saying that a Wolf lost their vote and should have then unvoted to hide what happened? And following that thought Apogee or Mornshine may be sus since they didn't have the opportunity to unvote? I feel like unvoting would be just as suspicious.

EDIT: Addressed by Apogee, but that leaves MornShine as the only possible candidate (aside from yourself). Still holding your theory there?

In my experience, vote manipulation powers don't get noted as a vote-count in the final tally, there's usually just "here's 6 people on wagon A and 5 people on wagon B, so wagon B gets lynched" and village has to scramble to figure out what happened - did somebody have a 1/game dodge, vote manipulation, 1/game redirect kill, something weirder? So when I saw JeenLeen make the Clarification Post, my immediate thought was that somebody was doing something that would screw with the vote totals. At the time, I figured that either the Innocent or the Karmic Master were getting votes. But after the fact, when it was revealed the vote manipulation wasn't either of those, I looked through the roles again and it seems to me like the only one that could be responsible was the Contract Specialist (or well, I thought also maybe the Fae Noble N1, but come D2 that myth was busted).

So going back to the clarification post, it was made for a reason: this is, for whatever reason, the first time JeenLeen realized this was a thing he wanted to do for this game, and so made sure to publicly clarify it. My suspicion is that he thought of it then, instead of earlier, because that's either when a contract was accepted and he had to think about whether to mention the missing vote in the final tally or not. From that perspective, I reasoned that since I wasn't expecting vote-count to be published publicly alongside the wagons, the wolves probably weren't either, and given how no other powers could do Vote Manipulation at that point, I figured that the Contract Specialist would've known at that point that the vote-count would reveal their presence.

My theory* is that, as far as late-game vote shenanigans go, unvoting and not revoting is less suspicious than a wagon that's got more voters than votes. Thus, it stands to reason (in my mind) that if the Contract Specialist targeted themselves, and noticed JeenLeen's clarification post, they would've unvoted and not revoted in order to hide the fact that they were manipulating the vote. This is also true of the Contract Specialist targeted their ally, and both the CS and their ally was online in time to unvote to hide the manipulation.

Thus, my conclusion is that, if the CS targeted a wolf, that wolf was not online after the clarification post (or at least, not checking in on game stuff). If there is a weak point to this theory, it's the idea that the CS targeted a non-wolf.

*: Except it's literally not even a theory. Look at the posts N1: there are 12 posts in between the end of D1 and the end of N1 - 3 of them mention Xihirli's missing vote, and 9 of them mention the missing vote on RA's wagon. And every post that even mentioned Xihirli not voting also mentioned something about the missing RA vote. As I said, it's literally not a theory, it's a provable fact for this specific game that "unvoting" is less suspicious than "vote manipulation".

While no one noticed RA's softclaim initially, Captain Cap does bring it up and gac reacts immediately after. There's no discussion by either of them (or any other posters, for that matter) to entertain RA proving themselves at night. Even more to the point, gac admits that this is nearly as much info as Xihirli gave ("I'm Neutral and can prove it") but there is no move by anyone to set up a way to keep RA around to figure this out. Especially when we did have confirmation that we could publicly talk at night.

So that end of day discussion screams to me that there was some Wolf who didn't want a provable town role to live. The last three who voted RA were Avatar Vecna, Captain Cap, and gac3 - all of whom posted after the claim. Captain Cap voted in the same post as the claim, gac3 acknowledged it, and (according to AV) they were online for the lynch so they would have seen those posts.

I'm guessing there's a wolf among them, giving preference to gac3 because looking back at the overnight discussion Outsider suggests the possibility of it being Contract Specialist shenanigans and gac3's agreement looks a bit like agreeing to cover bases.

After agreeing with the basic idea and then immediately saying it doesn't make a difference if the seer goes after someone on the RA wagon (protecting himself).

...okay so I didn't mention this in that section because it wasn't relevant, but when I said there were three posts about Xihirli's missing vote? That's gac asking, JeenLeen replying to gac, and gac replying to that. No player besides gac3 was talking about Xihirli's unvote. Seems she was on gac's mind? That's not even evidence of wrongdoing, but alongside what you've pointed out, it feels...weird. I'll match a FoS on gac3.

[gac3]

CTC has fulfilled the minimum to move my vote by far. So I'm sticking with my goal of getting more people to sign on and talk. So Party of Rogues

Edit: I'll say it wasn't so much that Xihirli was on my mind as the missing vote was.

[The Outsider]

So, I'm not convinced that MornShine isn't evil, but I don't think he's our best lead at the moment. Before I start trying to analyze further, though, we need to hear from everyone. And PartyOfRouges has been deathly silent for most of this game. I don't know if this has been a conscious choice or if they've just been busy, but it always sets off my alarms to see people not talking.

[AvatarVecna]

I suppose that this argument doesn't make me look any less wolf but my point about Captain Cap was more, if I were a wolf and Cap, I would have killed me. Then Xihirli's big reveal is postponed and therefore making them still a viable suspect. I honestly probably would have done that if I was a wolf anyways. Or at least considered it. That argument probably makes me look like a wolf even more though because my argument is essentially, "I don't understand why I am alive instead of Xihirli, because it doesn't make sense as a wolf move".

As for the RA claim I noticed. If you see the timestamp, I posted about it a minute before end of day. Realizing it that late when the vote was no longer anywhere close, what would be the point of moving?

The argument here seems to be something like:

1) Xihirli claimed a provable role, and was going to target gac3.

2) Based on 1, I think wolves would've targeted gac3.

3) Wolves did not target gac3.

4) Based on 2 and 3, wolves are not thinking like me.

And that's a solid argument through and through, I got no problem with that. My question is "how does anything in 1-4 give you the impression that Captain Cap is innocent". Because CC's alignment doesn't seem to me like it would affect any of those points, or be indicated by any of them. So let's start back with a new 1 as part of this hypothetical.

Spoiler

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1a) Let's assume that Captain Cap is a wolf.

2a) Captain Cap decides not to kill gac3 in the night, for some reason.

3a)

4a)

5a)

...

{whatever number}a) Therefore, Captain Cap should not want to kill Xihirli either.

{WN+1}a) Xihirli is dead.

{WN+2}a) based on WN and WN+1, Captain Cap therefore cannot be a wolf, and our basic assumption in 1 is wrong.

I'm not saying you're definitely right or wrong about Captain Cap. I'm just asking you to fill in the blanks here. You've already explained why you figured you'd be killed in the night instead of Xihirli, sure, but that doesn't explain why Xihirli being dead clears CC, and that's the argument I'm looking for to see if it holds up.

[gac3]

The argument here seems to be something like:

1) Xihirli claimed a provable role, and was going to target gac3.

2) Based on 1, I think wolves would've targeted gac3.

3) Wolves did not target gac3.

4) Based on 2 and 3, wolves are not thinking like me.

And that's a solid argument through and through, I got no problem with that. My question is "how does anything in 1-4 give you the impression that Captain Cap is innocent". Because CC's alignment doesn't seem to me like it would affect any of those points, or be indicated by any of them. So let's start back with a new 1 as part of this hypothetical.

Spoiler

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1a) Let's say that Captain Cap is a wolf, for a fact.

2a) Captain Cap decides not to kill gac3 in the night, for some reason.

3a)

4a)

5a)

...

{whatever number}a) Therefore, Captain Cap should not want to kill Xihirli either.

{WN+1}a) Xihirli is dead.

{WN+2}a) based on WN and WN+1, Captain Cap therefore cannot be a wolf

I'm not saying you're definitely right or wrong about Captain Cap. I'm just asking you to fill in the blanks here. You've already explained why you figured you'd be killed in the night instead of Xihirli, sure, but that doesn't explain why Xihirli being dead clears CC, and that's the argument I'm looking for to see if it holds up.

Well it was the logic of if I'm in Captain Cap's spot and I had a wagon on me and the only other person alive who has had a significant wagon on them is Xihirli. Just in case nothing changes in the night and we are still the two biggest suspects tomorrow. What I, as a wolf would want to do is keep them around and try to keep them from being confirmed or trusted. So I wouldn't kill Xihirli because then I would be the only wagon left, unless we can throw suspicion on someone else. Killing Gac3 would prevent Xihirli's supposed confirmation and therefore continue to let people doubt them. Too often people start day two going "Let's look at the counter wagons that formed" so I'd not want to be the only one left alive and untrusted. That was my logic. Though as I've said, upon further reflection, I'm not sure why any wolves would have killed Xi.

[CaoimhinTheCape]

(Also this isn't support for why RA's claim looked worse than Xihirli's, but it is proof of why it was actually worse than Xihirli's: X's provable role was literally a sentence telling the target "Xihirli is the Fae Noble" with narrator confirmation. RA's "proof" is a void power, and that's it. There's literally a wolf voider. The only thing RA could've done to prove their role was the thing they didn't do, which is cancel everyone else's votes.)




My theory* is that, as far as late-game vote shenanigans go, unvoting and not revoting is less suspicious than a wagon that's got more voters than votes. Thus, it stands to reason (in my mind) that if the Contract Specialist targeted themselves, and noticed JeenLeen's clarification post, they would've unvoted and not revoted in order to hide the fact that they were manipulating the vote. This is also true of the Contract Specialist targeted their ally, and both the CS and their ally was online in time to unvote to hide the manipulation.

*: Except it's literally not even a theory. Look at the posts N1: there are 12 posts in between the end of D1 and the end of N1 - 3 of them mention Xihirli's missing vote, and 9 of them mention the missing vote on RA's wagon. And every post that even mentioned Xihirli not voting also mentioned something about the missing RA vote. As I said, it's literally not a theory, it's a provable fact for this specific game that "unvoting" is less suspicious than "vote manipulation".

For the claims point, I'm more concerned with the optics at the time, rather than looking back. Sure, Xi's claim was provable by the message that would be sent. But at the time both people were saying "I can be proven" but no one seemed on board with giving the townsperson a shot, rather than the neutral. And, frankly, there is a way we could have proven RA if he used his power during the day (to negate other votes) or at night (no powers would work). Pretty sure either of those options would be obvious.


OK, I get the second part of your post then. My question now is are you convinced enough to vote the only person who fits that description (Mornshine) or not?

---

Vote Count

Mornshine (2): Elenna, Captain Cap
PartyOfRouges (3): AvatarVecna, gac3, The Outsider
gac3 (1): CaoimhinTheCape

Not Voting (2): Apogee1, MornShine
No Posts (1): PartyOfRouges

[AvatarVecna]

For the claims point, I'm more concerned with the optics at the time, rather than looking back. Sure, Xi's claim was provable by the message that would be sent. But at the time both people were saying "I can be proven" but no one seemed on board with giving the townsperson a shot, rather than the neutral. And, frankly, there is a way we could have proven RA if he used his power during the day (to negate other votes) or at night (no powers would work). Pretty sure either of those options would be obvious.


OK, I get the second part of your post then. My question now is are you convinced enough to vote the only person who fits that description (Mornshine) or not?

No, but I understand why you're asking. When I came to that conclusion, I figure it's me Apogee and MornShine who fit that description. I know I'm clear, so I look at the other two. Apogee had a bunch of stuff that looked shifty in his ISO, so I voted him. MornShine...the shiftiest thing about MornShine's ISO is that there's basically nothing to it. Like...

Nothing like the smell of D1 in the morning.

Rogue-alchemist, you claimed that you used a D12 as your RNG. But why would you do that...
when, as PartyofRouges already demonstrated, a D10 is the obvious choice?

Clearly, you must be hiding something. Or trying to buddy up to the Barbarians. Suspicious activity indeed...

...this was it. At the time I decided to look at Apogee and MornShine, this was the only MS post - they've got a second one now, but it was posted after my ISO. It was from really early D1, and it wasn't particularly suspicious. The sketchiest thing about Mornshine is their lack of activity. Then I looked at Apogee, and not only did I find a bunch of posts, but a bunch of them felt really sketchy to me.

I'm not voting Mornshine right now because my theory about the targeting is only part of why I voted Apogee. I'm willing to vote MornShine to test the theory, but their posts so far seem more towny to me than scummy. That doesn't mean my conclusion was illogical, it just means that one of the founding principles was probably incorrect.

And I'm still waiting on PartyOfRouges to show up and post. I can see they've been online since the start of D2, and yet they haven't posted.

- - - Updated - - -

Well it was the logic of if I'm in Captain Cap's spot and I had a wagon on me and the only other person alive who has had a significant wagon on them is Xihirli. Just in case nothing changes in the night and we are still the two biggest suspects tomorrow. What I, as a wolf would want to do is keep them around and try to keep them from being confirmed or trusted. So I wouldn't kill Xihirli because then I would be the only wagon left, unless we can throw suspicion on someone else. Killing Gac3 would prevent Xihirli's supposed confirmation and therefore continue to let people doubt them. Too often people start day two going "Let's look at the counter wagons that formed" so I'd not want to be the only one left alive and untrusted. That was my logic. Though as I've said, upon further reflection, I'm not sure why any wolves would have killed Xi.

Okay, I think I see what you're getting at now. Let me see if I can rephrase a bit...

Spoiler

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1) With three big wagons D1, it's highly likely that at least one of them was a wolf.

2) We now know that Xihirli and RA were not wolves.

3) Based on 1 and 2, wolfwagon must have been Captain Cap.

4) If Xihirli died in the night, that would leave only Captain Cap's wagon as the highly likely wolf wagon.

5) Based on 1 and 4, wolf!CC would not have killed Xihirli. There are other reasons wolves should not want to kill Xihirli in the night, but this one is specific to wolf!CC.

6) Xihirli died in the night.

7) Based on 5 and 6, we can conclude that CC must not be a wolf, since they would've had even more reason not to kill Xihirli than any other theoretical wolf player.

If this is the train of thought you're articulating, the problem is with 1. There's not a guarantee that any particular three D1 wagons must include at least one wolfwagon.

This means that the other two wagons dying off and flipping nonwolf isn't necessarily proof that the third wagon must be a wolfwagon.

This means that, if CC were a wolf, they wouldn't have any personal reason to avoid killing Xihirli. They might have other reasons to not kill Xihirli, but I don't think "avoid being the only D1 wagon still alive" is a reason for Cap to want Xihirli to have stuck around. This isn't me saying that CC is probably a wolf, it's just me saying that I don't think Xihirli dying clears Cap.

[PartyOfRogues]

Sorry for not posting yet, everything’s been a bit hectic today. Going off the assumption that a wolf was RA wagon, MornShine seems the most suspicious at the moment, though I’ll add in some more of my thoughts in a bit.

[AvatarVecna]

Yeahhhh I think I'll wait to get those thoughts before I move my vote.

[PartyOfRogues]

After eating and catching up on some other stuff here’s my thoughts, focusing on the RA wagon
MornShine: his reasoning when he first voted for RA was strange, and his argument today seemed unconvincing.
AvatarVecna: very talkative, and trying to get conversation going, seems town to me
Gac3: seems cautious about lynching but still talking, leaning town
Outsider: don’t have much on him, but hasn’t done anything wolfish
CaptainCap: gac3’s argument for him is somewhat convincing, but I don’t have much on him myself

[Elenna]

Well, Mornshine's spoken up, and Captain Cap makes a good point about gac3 keeping his vote where it was after noticing RA's townie claim. Plus gac3 was on the rogue_alchemist wagon and could have been the target of that contract. (I'm increasingly convinced that the person who took the contract was a wolf, because why wouldn't a townie just speak up about it and explain what happened?)

Also,

That sounds way too over simplified. I definitely don't think I believe the description as is. That said, I liked the tie for now, so Elenna

Not really sure if this is wolfy or not, tbh? I'm generally not a fan of "I think this person is suspicious but also I'm going to vote this other person" posts. But I don't really see why a theoretical wolf!gac would avoid voting for neutral!Xihirli. Still, along with the other points above it's good enough reason right now for me to switch to gac3.

[gac3]

Well, Mornshine's spoken up, and Captain Cap makes a good point about gac3 keeping his vote where it was after noticing RA's townie claim. Plus gac3 was on the rogue_alchemist wagon and could have been the target of that contract. (I'm increasingly convinced that the person who took the contract was a wolf, because why wouldn't a townie just speak up about it and explain what happened?)

Also,

Not really sure if this is wolfy or not, tbh? I'm generally not a fan of "I think this person is suspicious but also I'm going to vote this other person" posts. But I don't really see why a theoretical wolf!gac would avoid voting for neutral!Xihirli. Still, along with the other points above it's good enough reason right now for me to switch to gac3.

*Shrug* I'm not a wolf but I'm not sure if that is a wolfy thing to do or not either. All I know I liked the three way tie at the time to stimulate people talking so I moved my vote to be a nothing vote for the time being.


Again though, when I notice something a minute or two before the end of day and its 6 against 3, moving my vote at best would have made it 5 against 4. It would have required another switch which might have happened in the less than a minute before my post but I didn't think it likely that would happen, nor did I feel like I had time to check the votes to realize it was even as close as it was. Off the top of my head I just knew that more than half had voted for RA and was pretty sure no one else was at that many yet.

[AvatarVecna]

But I don't really see why a theoretical wolf!gac would avoid voting for neutral!Xihirli.

If we're going with the theory that gac was the contract target, it seems straightforward to me: gac had already given up his vote for that lynch, so switching wouldn't change the vote totals at that point. If he stayed on RA, there were six possible suspects for the missing vote, and if he switched, there'd only be four.

Mind you, I don't think that's what happened, I'm just entertaining notions. *shrugs*

[gac3]

Do you all understand how long it has been since Elenna has been town? This information has no bearing on this game, I just want to point out that its been four games. Granted she wasn't around for one. But it makes it really hard for me to tell what aspects of Elenna's playstyle are wolf!Elenna versus just regular Elenna at any point and time. I went through the most recent games and searched until I could find a game where Elenna was town. It was Jellicle Ball. I read through them and I can tell you the biggest difference I saw there was that Elenna spoke a lot more. Not just posted more frequently but much longer posts. That said, that information feels utterly useless also because that statement was true of everyone. I shall continue going through the archives, trying to figure out how to read Elenna, because they keep triggering me as wolf but I have no evidence really because I don't know how Elenna plays as not a wolf so she might actually just be triggering me as Elenna. Rant done. Go about your business, I will continue my research.

Last few games
Wolf!Elenna
No!Elenna
Wolf!Elenna
Town!Elenna
Neutral!Elenna
Wolf!Elenna
Crazy Idea Mafia - Which is useless for this purpose
GM!Elenna
No!Elenna
No!Elenna



I have now concluded that in only one of the last 10 games was Elenna town. Again, this means nothing necessarily to this game. It makes Elenna neither more nor less likely to be town/wolf. Its just irritating. That's as far back as I intend to go because thats as far back as AV's list in the hub goes.

[AvatarVecna]

Well, Mornshine's spoken up, and Captain Cap makes a good point about gac3 keeping his vote where it was after noticing RA's townie claim.

Elenna ends the day voting Captain Cap, after voting him to get wagons going. Not necessarily a wolf or town tell, but she didn't pile onto a townie or neutral like everyone else. Not gonna bother quoting but Elenna also guessed Fae Noble right.

While no one noticed RA's softclaim initially, Captain Cap does bring it up and gac reacts immediately after. There's no discussion by either of them (or any other posters, for that matter) to entertain RA proving themselves at night. Even more to the point, gac admits that this is nearly as much info as Xihirli gave ("I'm Neutral and can prove it") but there is no move by anyone to set up a way to keep RA around to figure this out. Especially when we did have confirmation that we could publicly talk at night.

Went to check, and yeah that was Cao not Cap who said that. Altho in the same Cao post I also found this bit about Elenna that juxtaposes fun.

[Elenna]

You know, I *thought* it had been forever since I was town, but I didn't feel like going back to check. Glad to know I'm not just imagining it!

Can't recall whether I was more talkative in Jellicle Ball, but I'm definitely talking less this game - it's been super busy at work lately so I haven't been able to check during the day. I wasn't at this job last year and I didn't realize just how busy the busy part of the year would be. Might skip out on the next game.

- - - Updated - - -

Went to check, and yeah that was Cao not Cap who said that. Altho in the same Cao post I also found this bit about Elenna that juxtaposes fun.

Right, yeah, that was Cao - sorry!

[AvatarVecna]

Started doing a votecount, and...a couple oddities.

MornShine: Captain Cap, PartyOfRouges
PartyOfRouges: AvatarVecna, gac3, The Outsider
gac3: CaoimhinTheCape, Elenna

1) Elenna hasn't struck out her old vote, and idk JeenLeen's policy on that.

2) Elenna switching from MornShine to gac3 is discovered check on POR.

3) MornShine and Apogee1 haven't voted. The latter isn't suspicious cuz Innocent. The former is maybe not suspicious, but frustrating. Wish MS posted/participated more.

[gac3]

Elenna switching from MornShine to gac3 is discovered check on POR.


Is it just me that doesn't understand the above. Is discovered check?

[AvatarVecna]

Elenna switching from MornShine to gac3 is discovered check on POR.


Is it just me that doesn't understand the above. Is discovered check?

Sorry, chess term. Let's say in chess, on one row in a line, there is a black rook, a black pawn, and a white king. If black moves their pawn, the pawn isn't checking the king, but because the pawn is no longer blocking the rook, the rook is now checking the king. "Discovered check" is when your move causes the king to be in check, but the piece you moved isn't the one that's checking them.

EDIT: So bringing the metaphor back to this game, the score was MornShine 3/PartyOfRouges 3/gac3 1. Elenna moving from MornShine to gac3 changes things so that POR is now the lynch target.

EDIT 2: "Discovered check" was the most succinct way I have of describing what that move looks like to me.

[Elenna]

Crossed out my Mornshine vote.

- - - Updated - - -

I hadn't noticed that the switch was causing PartyofRogues to be lynched. Honestly I'm not super opposed to a PoR lynch since they haven't made much contribution, but I'll check again tomorrow.

[The Outsider]

Alright. PartyOfRouges has spoken, which is what I wanted to see happen. Now I can move my vote.

There's been a lot of information overload here, and sorting through it has been a mess. So I'm going to take my non-intelligence and do my best to sift through what's been said. I still think one of the wolves was on the RA wagon, that hasn't changed. So, excluding myself, that leaves AV, gac3, MornShine, Apogee, and CaptainCap. Apogee literally can't be the wolf, and while MornShine has been quiet I'm getting the impression that that's business as usual and not a great lead for determining allegiance. AV has been the most active in the discussion, which tends to make me lean town for them. Of the ones that are left, gac3 and CaptainCap, their behaviors haven't hit any town/wolf nerves for me. So, I'll take the simplest route: Xihirli was going to contact gac3. The smart wolf play is to kill gac3 so that Xihirli fosters more doubt and provides a distraction. That didn't happen, which implies the wolves can't or don't want to kill gac3 because gac3 is a wolf.

[Captain Cap]

@Captain Cap

Just to confirm, even though you didn't have strong suspicions on RA (or anyone I assume) their retractions/contradictions were enough to override their claim that they could be proven? My post above applies to you too, voting someone who claimed they could prove themselves Town over someone who could prove themselves Neutral.

There was really no overriding, I didn't see RA's claim as particularly meaningful, and certainly not on the same level of Xihirli's claim. Now I'll explain why.
Let's take a look at their claims:

Xihirli

I am a neutral who wants to kill the wolves. You want me on your side.

I can confirm this tonight with a person of the town’s choice if you like.

At first she just claims to be a neutral anti-wolf (not very convincing by itself), later she says she can confirm her role to a player of choice. It's quite straightforward: no need for a third party, no watcher, seer or else required, seemingly no room for misunderstanding ("a wolf could have used that power or appeared town" and so on, nothing of this stuff), just plain and simple "I can confirm my neutral anti-wolf role to a player of choice".
There's even another merit to Xihirli's claim (or shortcoming, given how things turned out): she basically gave away her exact role, for anyone who was willing to go through the entire list, at least. The Fae Noble (and Elenna guessed it) was a perfect match for what Xihirli meant; thus, not only the claim was about a precise role, but the ability to directly prove it was perfectly plausible.

rogue_alchemist

I am town with a provable role that I will gladly help test tonight if someone wants me to use it on them or if there is a watcher that wants to see what I do and what the consequences are.

At first he claims to have a provable role, then he says he could test it on someone, and we already have a problem: you don't test roles, you test powers (thus the question in my comment), and a generic power (because he hadn't specified any) is no proof of role. In this game this criticality is particularly accentuated: given the amount of roles with powers, claiming you're a town who can target someone with some kind of effect is as meaningful as simply claiming you're town.
In fact, here's his targeting ability:

Until you use this power, you can void one person per night by making them too drunk to act. This can block the wolf night-kill.

That's it, you void someone, a Diabolist Charmer can do it too, and by rules, if you're the target, what you learn is this:

If you are voided, you learn you were voided.

And nowhere is said you can distinguish between different voiding powers.
There's another problem with RA's claim: he's explicitly calling for a watcher or someone who can look at him to help with the confirmation. Not only he's admitting that his power can't prove by itself his claim (like Xihirli's power, as already pointed out), but he's also asking for someone with a useful ability to expose themself to vouch for him (doesn't give a very good vibe).

---

...okay so I didn't mention this in that section because it wasn't relevant, but when I said there were three posts about Xihirli's missing vote? That's gac asking, JeenLeen replying to gac, and gac replying to that. No player besides gac3 was talking about Xihirli's unvote. Seems she was on gac's mind? That's not even evidence of wrongdoing, but alongside what you've pointed out, it feels...weird. I'll match a FoS on gac3.

No other was talking about Xihirli's unvote probably because no one had anything else to say: Xihirli's confirmation was pending and any night discussion couldn't have taken into account the result, surely more significative than a missing vote.
And about her being on gac's mind: he was the one appointed by Xihirli to receive her confirmation, so it makes sense for him to have kept an eye on her.

Anyway, what does FoS mean?!

---

Now, I don't really like where this is heading, so I think I'll have to expose myself a bit more. I'll start by tackling this quote from CTC:

So that end of day discussion screams to me that there was some Wolf who didn't want a provable town role to live. The last three who voted RA were Avatar Vecna, Captain Cap, and gac3 - all of whom posted after the claim. Captain Cap voted in the same post as the claim, gac3 acknowledged it, and (according to AV) they were online for the lynch so they would have seen those posts.

I'm guessing there's a wolf among them, giving preference to gac3 because looking back at the overnight discussion Outsider suggests the possibility of it being Contract Specialist shenanigans and gac3's agreement looks a bit like agreeing to cover bases.

Reading the contract specialist more closely this time. I bet it is a "if they accept the contract, their vote doesn't count for that day". So I agree with outsider. I had been going to suggest that the seer target one of the people who voted RA but it sounds like it wouldn't make a difference.

After agreeing with the basic idea and then immediately saying it doesn't make a difference if the seer goes after someone on the RA wagon (protecting himself).

I can tell you for sure that someone else yesterday night made the exact same reasoning and I can tell they were 99% wrong. These statements are all true:

• Someone scried gac3 yesterday night
• That someone wasn't me
• gac3 is a Practitioner (almost surely)

For the moment I won't say anything else about the sequence of events or the people involved (we don't want a Xihirli 2.0 and this time the stakes are higher).

Why 99%? Why almost surely? Because this theory could be valid:

• The Contractor Specialist targeted gac3 (wolf) and gave him the power to read as Practitioner for the night (assuming that's a possibility)
• gac3 didn't bother to unvote because he would have appeared Practitioner if someone scried him and that would have made him even more trustworthy

Why is this theory unlikely?

• It requires to assume a very specific power about which we have no evidence
• For the plan to bear results (and not just be a vote loss), gac3 had to be scried, however: there were 6 people on the wagon (thus a 16.7% prior probability of getting targeted, taking for granted the scrying); he didn't support the scrying, as CTC noted
• There are more plausible powers that could be granted by the Contractor Specialist and, from my point of view, way more useful for Night 1, like scrying or other intel abilities

[AvatarVecna]

FoS is "Finger Of Suspicion". It's not a mechanical thing, just a way of indicating some level of suspicion. Your post does a lot to put that to rest, though. I'm puzzling over some edge cases you've maybe not considered though...

[gac3]

1. I appreciate that outsider's vote for me is based on the same logic I used to defend cap.

2. mornshine for self preservation

3. Odd coincidence that the info is coming from the person I defended. I have questions but I don't really want to ask them publically so I'm sure I'll find out later. No sense giving more info than needed to the wolves.

4. I did not take the thingy.

5. I am a practitioner.

[AvatarVecna]

Spoiler: Elenna ISO

Show

Oh wait this game started, whoops. Was planning to check today and then it was super busy at work.

Captain Cap based on RNG among the people with one vote who aren't me, in order to get some wagons happening.

NAI, wagonomics can be cited by anybody.

@JeenLeen: From the Fae Noble's role description: "Once per night, you can use your glamour to prove to somebody your Role and Neutral status." Does that include proving what their win con is, or just proving that they are the Fae Noble?

NAI. More than a couple people correctly guessed Fae Noble for Xihirli. It's not particularly proof of leaning one way or the other.

Hmm, contract specialist makes sense. If I were a wolf, I think D1 I'd rather give a fellow wolf a power and -1 vote, rather than giving it to town.
Also, just noticed that the role description doesn't specify whether the person who gets the power is told what the redacted consequence of accepting it is.


I'm personally figuring Xi is probably the Fae Noble, hence my question to JeenLeen earlier. Either that, or Xi is just straight-up lying about being neutral and/or about being able to confirm her role, which would also be very typical for Xihirli.

NAI, although I might come back to this later, depending on how things go.

Not sure why the wolves decided to kill the claimed neutral, even if Xi did claim anti-wolf neutral, but it's definitely better than a town kill.

I'm not completely convinced that the person who got the contract was not on at EoD. Sure, I'll agree that not voting would be better if the Contract Specialist targeted a wolf, but the wolves could easily have not thought it through that far - especially because they might not expect us to realize that the missing vote was due to the Contract Specialist.
That being said, I'm down to poke Mornshine to see if they have anything to say, and that conveniently also fits into AV's theory.

"I think this theory that narrows it down to Apogee and MornShine is wrong. I'm also fine poking MornShine, and conveniently it fits the theory I just said I disagree with."

This pokes holes in one attempt to narrow down the six players to find the possible wolf, then she's fine going along with it, to post a highly-inactive player who probably won't be speaking out too much. Gives me bad vibes.

Well, Mornshine's spoken up, and Captain Cap makes a good point about gac3 keeping his vote where it was after noticing RA's townie claim. Plus gac3 was on the rogue_alchemist wagon and could have been the target of that contract. (I'm increasingly convinced that the person who took the contract was a wolf, because why wouldn't a townie just speak up about it and explain what happened?)

Also,

Not really sure if this is wolfy or not, tbh? I'm generally not a fan of "I think this person is suspicious but also I'm going to vote this other person" posts. But I don't really see why a theoretical wolf!gac would avoid voting for neutral!Xihirli. Still, along with the other points above it's good enough reason right now for me to switch to gac3.

I'll come back to this later as well. But also...the logic Elenna decries here isn't dissimilar to what she used as the justification for voting MornShine ("I don't believe this, but also I'll go along with it anyway"). Which, incidentally, she also uses here, voting for gac even though she has some doubts about wolf!gac. She's mostly just latching onto Cao's arguments. None of this is proof, but it gives more bad vibes.

You know, I *thought* it had been forever since I was town, but I didn't feel like going back to check. Glad to know I'm not just imagining it!

Can't recall whether I was more talkative in Jellicle Ball, but I'm definitely talking less this game - it's been super busy at work lately so I haven't been able to check during the day. I wasn't at this job last year and I didn't realize just how busy the busy part of the year would be. Might skip out on the next game.

- - - Updated - - -



Right, yeah, that was Cao - sorry!

NAI.

Crossed out my Mornshine vote.

- - - Updated - - -

I hadn't noticed that the switch was causing PartyofRogues to be lynched. Honestly I'm not super opposed to a PoR lynch since they haven't made much contribution, but I'll check again tomorrow.

"I didn't realize that my votechange is causing somebody I'm not voting for to die instead, but also I don't care too much that that's happening."

This sounds a lot to me like somebody who's fine with just whoever dying. That's...not a very towny attitude.

Elenna. Getting a lot of bad vibes, and that's even with leaving some of my bad vibes out.

[gac3]

Spoiler: Elenna ISO

Show

NAI, wagonomics can be cited by anybody.



NAI. More than a couple people correctly guessed Fae Noble for Xihirli. It's not particularly proof of leaning one way or the other.



NAI, although I might come back to this later, depending on how things go.



"I think this theory that narrows it down to Apogee and MornShine is wrong. I'm also fine poking MornShine, and conveniently it fits the theory I just said I disagree with."

This pokes holes in one attempt to narrow down the six players to find the possible wolf, then she's fine going along with it, to post a highly-inactive player who probably won't be speaking out too much. Gives me bad vibes.



I'll come back to this later as well. But also...the logic Elenna decries here isn't dissimilar to what she used as the justification for voting MornShine ("I don't believe this, but also I'll go along with it anyway"). Which, incidentally, she also uses here, voting for gac even though she has some doubts about wolf!gac. She's mostly just latching onto Cao's arguments. None of this is proof, but it gives more bad vibes.



NAI.



"I didn't realize that my votechange is causing somebody I'm not voting for to die instead, but also I don't care too much that that's happening."

This sounds a lot to me like somebody who's fine with just whoever dying. That's...not a very towny attitude.

Elenna. Getting a lot of bad vibes, and that's even with leaving some of my bad vibes out.

I've been feeling this for a while if you couldn't tell. I'll join this but if I have to, I'll switch off to save myself. Elenna


MornShine: Captain Cap, PartyOfRouges
gac3: CaoimhinTheCape, Elenna, the outsider
Elenna: Avatar Vecna, gac3

[PartyOfRogues]

Why is this theory unlikely?

• It requires to assume a very specific power about which we have no evidence
• For the plan to bear results (and not just be a vote loss), gac3 had to be scried, however: there were 6 people on the wagon (thus a 16.7% prior probability of getting targeted, taking for granted the scrying); he didn't support the scrying, as CTC noted
• There are more plausible powers that could be granted by the Contractor Specialist and, from my point of view, way more useful for Night 1, like scrying or other intel abilities

I don’t think they would be very concerned about a vote loss, since day 1 just amounts to mostly random bandwagons, and scrying or intel wouldn’t be very useful to the wolves, while scrying as town for one night seems like a fair trade-off for a vote.

[gac3]

I don’t think they would be very concerned about a vote loss, since day 1 just amounts to mostly random bandwagons, and scrying or intel wouldn’t be very useful to the wolves, while scrying as town for one night seems like a fair trade-off for a vote.

Well, why would I even think I would be scried? If that was a plan, I would have saved it for fewer options, like a couple days in the future or when I'm a big suspect. Like if I was a wolf, I would use it tonight rather than last night.


Edit:
I mean they haven't really been around since they defended themselves but anybody else think its weird that Apogee and Mornshine still haven't voted?

[AvatarVecna]

Spoiler: CaoimhinTheCape ISO

Show

Well, vote: Xihirli so that some discussion actually happens I guess? No reads but we have less than 24 hours left so I feel like we need to do something.

---

Vote Count:

MornShine (1): The Outsider
AvatarVecna (1): Xihirli
Xihirli (2): PartyOfRouges, CaoimhinTheCape
Captain Cap (1): AvatarVecna
gac3 (1): rogue_alchemist
Elenna (1): gac3
rogue_alchemist (1): Apogee1

Not Voting (1): Captain Cap
No Posts (2): Elenna, MornShine

NAI.

My bad - I just read that Days were 48 hours long and I missed that Day 1 would be longer (a little under 2 days from now?). So we have plenty of time.

Still think we need to get some sort of discussion going.

Not really discussing stuff, but calling for discussion. I mean, D1 wasn't very discussion-inducing, but still.

Not sure it's relevant, but noting that I assume the Diabolist Heir is not in the game.

---

We don't get much info from people voting proven town and then proven Neutral. A couple notes:

Elenna ends the day voting Captain Cap, after voting him to get wagons going. Not necessarily a wolf or town tell, but she didn't pile onto a townie or neutral like everyone else. Not gonna bother quoting but Elenna also guessed Fae Noble right.

FoS on the people who voted rogue_alchemist after Xihirli's reveal (gac3, AV, Captain Cap). Definitely not suspicious at the time, but with the flips that means voting for someone who ended up Town as opposed to the Neutral. Sure, the Neutral claimed they could prove themselves but a dead proven Neutral would be better than dead Town.

By the end of the day, Captain Cap mentions that rogue_alchemist claimed town that could prove themselves and still votes RA. Gac lampshades it in the post after that no one saw that claim but keeps his vote on RA.

---

Those seem like reasonable theories, I don't see any other <redacted> sections that would really fit the lose a vote section. Looking at the contract specialist, does it have to be offered to a wolf? "You can offer this to yourself or to a fellow wolf." is the quote but thematically it feels like the offer could go to anyone.

@ the RA wagon from yesterday Does anyone want to confirm that their vote didn't count for some reason? Everyone has posted already but still want to put the question out there.

---

Run that theory by me again? You're saying that a Wolf lost their vote and should have then unvoted to hide what happened? And following that thought Apogee or Mornshine may be sus since they didn't have the opportunity to unvote? I feel like unvoting would be just as suspicious.

EDIT: Addressed by Apogee, but that leaves MornShine as the only possible candidate (aside from yourself). Still holding your theory there?

---

I'm actually going to vote: gac3. And gonna reiterate the FoS from above on AV and Captain Cap.









While no one noticed RA's softclaim initially, Captain Cap does bring it up and gac reacts immediately after. There's no discussion by either of them (or any other posters, for that matter) to entertain RA proving themselves at night. Even more to the point, gac admits that this is nearly as much info as Xihirli gave ("I'm Neutral and can prove it") but there is no move by anyone to set up a way to keep RA around to figure this out. Especially when we did have confirmation that we could publicly talk at night.






So that end of day discussion screams to me that there was some Wolf who didn't want a provable town role to live. The last three who voted RA were Avatar Vecna, Captain Cap, and gac3 - all of whom posted after the claim. Captain Cap voted in the same post as the claim, gac3 acknowledged it, and (according to AV) they were online for the lynch so they would have seen those posts.

I'm guessing there's a wolf among them, giving preference to gac3 because looking back at the overnight discussion Outsider suggests the possibility of it being Contract Specialist shenanigans and gac3's agreement looks a bit like agreeing to cover bases.



After agreeing with the basic idea and then immediately saying it doesn't make a difference if the seer goes after someone on the RA wagon (protecting himself).





Also, this doesn't feel true to me? Xi claimed they could confirm themselves and did to you. Assumidly Xi wouldn't have a wagon today anyway given the confirmation from N1. I can't say I get why they picked to kill Xi but I'm definitely not ready to clear Captain Cap for any reason.

---

Vote Count

Mornshine (2): Elenna, The Outsider
CaoimhinTheCape (1): gac3
PartyOfRouges (1): AvatarVecna
gac3 (1): CaoimhinTheCape

Not Voting (1): MornShine, Apogee1, Captain Cap
No Posts (1): PartyOfRouges

This is the post that reminded me the Diabolist Heir wasn't the usual "narrator made up a role for themselves", but rather the narrator seemingly confirming that a specific town role isn't in play. It's also a fairly decent argument for gac as a wolf, which I've been putting some serious thought into...but I'll get into that in a bit. Anyway, I'm inclined to say this much effort leans more town than wolf...but then, I'm biased against low-activity.

Looking back I see the timestamps and your vote alone wouldn't do anything, but saying it was no longer close is a bit much. Even not knowing about the vote manipulation, it was 6 to 3. Two votes moved from RA to Xi would have lynched a provable Neutral rather than a provable town.

Noticing at the deadline means there would be little chance of something happening but you moving makes it only 1 vote to flip the wagons rather than 2. It's at least more of a shot than if the vote remains and if anyone else were on near deadline they could have stepped in for the final vote.

I see the point Cao's making here, but I've already said my piece about why I don't think RA's claim was useful in retrospect, and CC has explained why he didn't give it much credence at the time (far more eloquently than my own retrospective dismissal, too). NAI on Cao.

@Captain Cap

Just to confirm, even though you didn't have strong suspicions on RA (or anyone I assume) their retractions/contradictions were enough to override their claim that they could be proven? My post above applies to you too, voting someone who claimed they could prove themselves Town over someone who could prove themselves Neutral.




Vote Count

Mornshine (3): Elenna, The Outsider, Captain Cap
CaoimhinTheCape (1): gac3
PartyOfRouges (1): AvatarVecna
gac3 (1): CaoimhinTheCape

Not Voting (2): Apogee1, MornShine
No Posts (1): PartyOfRouges

NAI. Pushing further on weak points could be done by anybody.

For the claims point, I'm more concerned with the optics at the time, rather than looking back. Sure, Xi's claim was provable by the message that would be sent. But at the time both people were saying "I can be proven" but no one seemed on board with giving the townsperson a shot, rather than the neutral. And, frankly, there is a way we could have proven RA if he used his power during the day (to negate other votes) or at night (no powers would work). Pretty sure either of those options would be obvious.


OK, I get the second part of your post then. My question now is are you convinced enough to vote the only person who fits that description (Mornshine) or not?

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Vote Count

Mornshine (2): Elenna, Captain Cap
PartyOfRouges (3): AvatarVecna, gac3, The Outsider
gac3 (1): CaoimhinTheCape

Not Voting (2): Apogee1, MornShine
No Posts (1): PartyOfRouges

This question about whether I'd vote MornShine rubbed me the wrong way, and my initial reply to it carried that over. It feels like it's phrased as a gotcha question, as if there was literally no difference between how suspicious MornShine and Apogee looked at the time, and so the only reason I'd choose Apogee over MS is that we're scumbuddies, or something. It feels like it's casting shade on me that's hard to really push back on, and that makes me suspect scumplay here.

My opinion on Cao bounces back and forth. Null, slightly leaning town, but I wanna see more frequent posts from them (and everybody, basically).