This is being posted early. You may post again as soon as you read this. However, you are strongly advised to read it, particularly the discussion of must lynch tactics, carefully before posting anything.


The wind woofed through the spruce windbreak on the northwest side of town; the March lion was on the way, bringing the season's final gale. Little gusts found their way into unchinked cracks in walls and and under ill-hung doors, causing hearth blazes to shimmy and ewers to develop thin, crazed skins of ice. It was yet winter, that was sure.

All shivered that night, but the boreal draft had nothing to do with that -- they shook not from cold but from. The shaman had told them that the fell creatures among them were on the brink of majority; one more mistake, and all was lost.

A farrier, mumbling to himself and perhaps no longer sound of mind, walked slowly up the town's main street, head bowed against the bitter gale, eyes unswerving lest they be caught by the gaze of one of the beasts. He hardly noticed when a cedar shingle, ripped from a roof by the blasts, grazed his cheek, drawing a trickle of blood; trickles were of no consequence now. But he could not deny the material world when his foot came up a solid object where there should have been none: a body lay in the street, half the organs torn from it. Perhaps, thought the farrier, they would soon all be like this one, naught but empty shells growing cold in snowdrifts.

He bent to see who it was, and saw that the villager Quadstriker was no more.


The Dead

Ratman138 lynched d1
XXsooted killed n1
JopkeAccount lynched d2
CalledDownLight killed n2
brian0721 lynched d3
AndrewGreve killed n3
lucid75 lynched d4
Source158 killed n4
mused01 lynched d5
JDalla killed n5
kkcountry lynched d6
john voight killed n6
manupod lynched d7
ZeTurd killed n7
sixfour lynched d8
Twitch1977 killed n8
tarheeljks lynched d9
bernieshaw killed n9
LarissaRose lynched d10
DustinG killed n10
LuckayLuck lynched d11
Quadstriker killed n11


The Living

5 villagers
0 seers
4 wolves


DoubleD
ElliotR
instantly
Joe Butch
Newport Smoov
norseman1066
subandi
Sun Tzu
Tom1975


It is must lynch.

It is must lynch, which means that today, and every day hereafter, the village must lynch a wolf or the wolves will win.

Usually, sightly different rules are used at must lynch; the reasons are complex and are discussed in a different thread, in case anyone is interested. After giving much thought to exactly what method is best, I have decided to use the ruleset most often used on POG, in part because I want people who are new to use to get a typical game play experience. (Note: I may make a modification to the rules if we get to a final five or final three situation.)


Voting at Must Lynch -- the Rules

The voting rules usually used at must lynch, and in effect starting now, are as follows:

• Players may change their votes as usually -- whenever they want, as many times as they want.
• Players may not unvote. No attempt to unvote will be officially recognized; the vote stays where it was.
• Majority lynch is in effect: if at any time, even for a second, a player has five votes, the day ends and that player is lynched. This applies even if nobody notices it until later.

Voting at Must Lynch -- the Approach

It may be obvious to everybody, but I want no surprises, so I am going to spell out how must lynch tends to work in practice.

The most important thing for a villager to remember is this: If you make a mistake with your vote, the village will lose -- probably very quickly. A single voter voting for another villager is enough, if all the wolves add their votes, to end the day with a mislynch and a wolf win. And with no unvoting allowed, the villager who placed the vote could even realize his mistake and have no easy recourse. In practice, if you vote for a villager the game will end and the wolves will win.

(Note that a must lynch with so many players doesn't always work exactly the same way, because all four wolves would have to be around to move their votes, but it's still a good rule of thumb to use.)

The only thing you can do to mitigate the problem, you must do for the sake of you and your teammates: Do not be hasty. Do not snap-vote anyone, no matter how obvious a wolf you think he is. Listen to everyone's arguments; consider every possibility; reexamine every assumption. Your teammates, dead and alive, are depending on you doing your best - you may not win, but at least give this your best effort.

Having said that, I must in fairness explain how wolves should behave at must lynch. The answer: like villagers. Must lynch when there are multiple wolves is tricky, and relying on your ability to pile onto that single miscast villager vote will not necessarily work -- and if it fails, all the wolves could be outed and the village could win as a result.

If it gets to a two-on-one situation, all the wolves will need is that one mistake and then it really will be over, but in this situation with multiple wolves (and I speak from experience with a 5-on-4, rare though they are) it is best simply to be careful, as a good villager would. Villagers will be going over everything that has transpired since the game began, trying to work out who the wolves are; if you don't do the same, they will find you.


Timing

The schedule will be as last weekend, with the exception of the comet's permitting me to open the thread early: no night until Sunday at the usual time, with the thread remaining open all night Saturday night.

I ask that if anyone believes the game has ended, no one post anything other than "night". Nothing -- no matter how sure you are it is over. A mistake in the vote count, folllowed by people talking as if the day, or the game, is over, could render the game unplayable; at this point, we definitely don't want that. (Also, the moderator likes to be the one to announce the results, and frankly he thinks he has earned the right to do so.)


The wolves threaten to overrun you; they must be stopped. Find them now, or perish.

It is day.

Jesus...well, considering at least one villager is gonna vote me today, I think we're royally screwed.

Sorry guys. Thought I had a lock of a read on LL. That seriously tweaked with my brain when he came up villa.

Jesus...well, considering at least one villager is gonna vote me today, I think we're royally screwed.

Sorry guys. Thought I had a lock of a read on LL. That seriously tweaked with my brain when he came up villa.

I'm not saying, of course, that I'm giving up. But after all my yelling and screaming the past couple days at least one of the four other villagers is gonna be royally pissed at me.

I also honestly have no clue about my reads now. So much of my endgame revolved around the interaction between LL, Sun, and Elliot being wolves (with Quad looking wolfy). Two of those reads were obviously off, and now I can't be sure about the others.

Let's not vote until we mean it, village. The wolves obviously haven't been the loud ones in these discussions, so they've probably been instigators pushing other wagons or not contributing much and just voting.

Ideas?

Damn double post.

the shame the shame

in the moment I read luckays "oh" I knew he was villager..
sun.. the last quote you posted maybe would have convinced me..

oh if I just were to go to sleep like 10 minutes later

or did you post it too late with a purpose sun tzu

First, what NPS said. I pushed the LL wagon, I was wrong, sorry, etc.

Anyway, last night's vote is key to finding the remaining wolves. There's no way all four wolves were on LL. My gut tells me there were probably two wolves on it so it would roll, and a two hanging back. The two wolves that were on it are probably dead as fried chicken, but that doesn't matter because the two that held off can then profess their innocence and point fingers at the villagers who were on LL.

Right now, here's how I have it:

villagers:
Tom1975
instantly
subani
ElliotR

potential wolves:
noreseman
Joe Butch
DoubleD
Sun Tzu
NPS


Now I have to figure out which of my potential wolves is a villager. I'm actually leaning torwards NPS because like me he didn't flinch yesterday, I don't think a wolf would be so unequivocal and try to ramrod LL's wagon through.

Ok. The bad news: we're at must lynch. The good news: At this point, if we're careful and we stick together, we have an EXCELLENT chance of being right today. Each of us, EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF OTHER INFORMATION, is picking from a pool of 4 villagers and 4 wolves. But there is not an absence of information -- we have 4000 posts worth of information. Each of us has read those posts from a slightly different perspective. And the biggest issue dividing us -- Luckay -- is now gone. So lets keep calm, put our heads together, and make a good pick TODAY. We can deal with tomorrow tomorrow.

No, I wouldn't do that. I told you not to majority. Nothing good could come from it. I'm pretty sure you're a wolf now. There's no reason for a villager to want to end discussion. Even if LL was a wolf, I could have been killed and not be able to get my opinions out. Quadstriker doesn't get to post now. We discussed ending days early earlier in the game and I thought everyone understood it's not a good thing to do and not to do it unless everyone agrees.

I'm really pissed right now. We might have had a chance yesterday, but now we're basically screwed. If you're a villager somehow I'm going to be even more pissed.

Damn damn damn damn..............
I can't believe that my reads have been that poor. LL screamed wolf at me often enough and when he wouldn't really consider me a villa that sealed the deal for me. The wolves have been hiding behind the v/v violence. Now I'll have to try and re-read everything with an open mind and a new POV.

Luckay I am really sorry we couldn't work together this time. I tried to get you to reconsider but you wouldn't. I extended Olive Branches to you on two occasions but you wouldn't accept. I also had blinders on for a good part of the game and that didn't help us or the village. Know this, I am truly sorry.

I'll be back, but I doubt anyone will listen to what I have to say now as I was probably the loudest critic of Luckyay and look the worst of anyone left here.

Tom and Joe Butch are cleared by night-kills. I'm clear for a number of reasons. If anyone else can clear themselves somehow, please do so. We can't afford any more mistakes.

villagers
Sun Tzu
Tom
Joe Butch

wolves
subandi
Newport Smoov

uncertain
instantly
norseman
elliot
DoubleD

sun if you really are a villager you have every right to be pissed,
other villagers:

Im really sorry.
I laid the majority on LL yesterday because I wanted to stop him and his friends
from escaping the lynch once again.

sun:
Im not a wolf, I think most of the people I see/saw as villa still see/saw me as villa too,
I know why Im still alive, the wolfes wont kill me because Im obv worse at this game than anybody still alive.
I did unvote LL yesterday to avoid a majority lynch and gives us some time,
but in the hours when I was away nothing new came up..

I trust Elliot and Instantly (the "legacy" of LL when he talked to me and almost got me to believe him)

I heavily misstrust NPS and norse obv, I also mistrust tom and I mistrust Sun Tzu,
maybe its just because I was trained by films and books that there always has to be a leader

oh and im suspecting joe butch too, he was after LL, quad and elliot

Subandi, I've had you as leaning village all game based on tone and stuff, but what happened yesterday looks like wolves to me.

I don't think all the people pushing Luckay can be villagers. I'm pretty sure Tom is a villager. I'm leaning village on norseman too. I've been suspicious of Newport for a while and that majority thing looks w/w to me. The thing about that is it's worth it for a wolf to majority even if he's guaranteed to get lynched the next day, since we had 2 lynches left and 4 wolves.

and that was the reason I DID majority him!
he was on 5 votes all day long and seemingly no wolf came out of the shadow to kill him..

and if I were a wolf I would have done exactly how you said and majority him right away when I had the chance,
yeah Im that lvl0

***Dead***

Get em, village!

***Dead***

Ugh. Subandi has pretty much been on my "confirmed villa" list for quite a while now.

My views pending further investigation over the next couple of days:

Villa
subandi
instantly

uncertain
Sun
Tom
DoubleD
Joe Butch

wolf suspects
NPS
Norse

Out of my suspects I feel very strongly that one HAS to be a wolf. Sun, I have to say that I am a little suspicious of your clearing both Joe Butch and Tom unequivocally on the basis of possible night reads. DustinG was at one point convinced that one of them at least had to be a wolf. And DustinG left them off of this "confirmed villa" list:

In general as I do research today and tomorrow I am going to pay close attention to what the dead villagers had to say, particularly Zeturd, DustinG and Luckay. Because one thing we can be sure of is that all those guys were honestly trying to help.

Dustin never read the thread and reads only on tone, ignoring things like night-kills. He's good at reading tone, but not infallible. I trust his read of norse more than I trust his read of new players he's never played with.

The wolves had to have been seerhunting. We should never lynch Tom or Joe Butch.

Some people have suggested the night-kills were levels, but that's silly in general, and is basically refuted by Luckay being a villager.

I'm not sure what to think at this point. I felt that I was getting the hang of this game reading two wolves early. But now every time I think I've found good evidence that someone is a wolf, they come up villa.

Elliot I was unsure about you for the first time in the game yesterday, but that had to do with your LL vote. You're obviously better at this game than me. You are the most clear villager to me right now.

Newport, I'm not sure what to think right now. I am still inclined to say that you genuinely believed LL was a wolf.

I think most of us can agree that though sunbandi's reads haven't been the best, they were genuine.

I still stand by the fact that norse and Sun are our best lynches. It will be easier to re-evaluate things if these two do come up wolf when there are less people in the pool to choose from.

I'll try to be as active as I can right now, but I have a busy weekend ahead of me. I will do the best I can to get a full list of reads up later in case I am nk'ed

Here is the problem I have with this. If I accept what you're saying, then that puts YOU in the wolf column, because I'll have

subandi
instantly
Tom
Joe B

as villagers. Which means that either you have to be a wolf or I am wrong about one of subandi or instantly. And while that is certainly possible that is just not someplace I am ready to go right now.

What reason do you have to think I'm a wolf?