tee hee hee~
Okay, since the game is over, I see no need to really hide anything. And I didn't really lie during the course of the game - my only ability (besides the night kill) is to once-per-night mark somebody 1.
Well, my only active ability, anyway. I have two passive ones: first, I require 1 more vote to lynch than usual (which actually would not have helped me much, if I actually were to get lynched - which I almost did); second, I'm bulletproof unless specifically targeted as a part of my character. This would explain, GP, why you probably weren't able to kill me.
And for those curious, yes, I was the Bloater. I would also like to give a
huge round of applause to Argonaut, without whom I/we would not have done nearly as well in this game as we did.
Because it really REALLY helped to have someone one the team who knew all the games here inside and out.
Anyway... I'm sure you're all dying to know.
First, I'd like to say that most of the kills I performed were strictly out of necessity. For most of the game, I didn't really get to NK the way I wanted, so I had to kill people that I would have much rather left alive (like JsXtm), or refrain from killing people that I really wanted dead (like CuteKirlia).
The scum team consisted of 3: the Bloater (myself, the alpha), the Clicker (Argo), and the Necromorph (Torchie). Jacob Danik (James86134) was technically pseudo-scum but he had to be found first. And, given that Torchie was
never in this game, that basically made a scum team of 2, plus a deadweight. This meant we couldn't cheap out and do the auto win-con.
But she was a very convenient deadweight, actually, since as alpha I could choose who would execute the kill.
I got to talking with Argo almost right away discussing our battle plan. Recognizing who we were, as well as what games we were from, he identified 3 prime targets on the non-scum side that needed to be killed: Joel (JsXtm) and Ellie (D55) from The Last of Us, and Isaac Clarke (SanguinaryScientist) from Dead Space. Thankfully, before the end of the game, we managed to kill all three of them.*
(*Technically Different55 didn't actually die, but I did select him as the kill target on the final night, and according to HW, it would have gone through anyway.)
As the Clicker, Argo had a very strong seer-like role called Echolocation, which was usable once in the day and would tell him the name of a character's role, but if he used it too often, Ellie would be alerted to his presence. We decided that the best way to handle this would be to only use Echolocation every other night, until we managed to find and kill Ellie.
Now, the game began with a day start. I don't really like day starts on principle, because there's literally nothing to go off of, and everyone on both sides is basically just making blind guesses. Right before the game started, though, Mektar confirmed his role by saying "Werewolf genocide incoming". Not knowing what to make of that, I perceived that as a threat. I decided that, unless something really dangerous came up, I would be killing him.
After a weird back-and-forth with HW, I found out that I got to mark people AND the nightly scum kill - customarily the NK is written into the role itself, so I was confused at first. I decided to kill Mektar and mark...I think it was GP. Just for the hell of it. Marks would pile up over time, slowly, and it would narrow down the amount of time we needed to win.
Mektar wasn't one of our prime targets but he did look to be a pretty powerful player, especially given his 6 HP (as opposed to the usual 4). We were all a bit paranoid, I'll admit, of what to do next, until JsXtm spoke up and cast his vote for me, based on my role info. Then a bunch of things happened at once: several people bandwagoned, I got mad because I'd be first-night-out of yet ANOTHER WW game (not because I'd be found out as scum), and I'm wondering what kind of abilities he has.
After calming down, I simply asked JsX what kind of information he used to come to that conclusion. Nothing specific, just "what's your reasoning?" He said that his ability let him see who placed marks on people, and he saw that I marked GP, which was true. If memory serves, GP had 3 marks - 1 from the day marker (which I think was Kiga), 1 from me, and 1 from the tequila (which I actually passed to GP), and I technically only placed 1. After that, there was a bit of a discussion that culminated in all the players having a gentleman's agreement of sorts to stop marking people, and we carried on. (Actually, that might have been the day after. I don't remember.)
I'm honestly not sure HOW I survived that day; I should have been lynched, yet by some miracle I did not. I know people will say it's because they had feels about me dying early on, but I don't believe that was the only (or even the main) factor.
Now, JsX seems like a valuable asset to the town, no? My plan was to keep him alive, since me just revenge-killing him after a vote like that would be ultra-weak, and just a really bad play, at least from my point of view. Unfortunately, Argo reported to me that he used Echolocation on JsXtm, and reported,
IN BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS, that JsX was Joel. Sadly, that meant he had to go. I'd rather not have, but if he was Joel, then he was too much of a threat to us to be left alive. At Argo's behest, we ordered Torchie to kill him, since her character was from Dead Space - if Argo or I went after him, he would probably have something to either weaken or kill us in retaliation. Sure enough, that was the smart play.
Day 2 I don't remember really well but I think it was half marking-is-bad-discussion and half is-Fletchling-dangerous? Nothing really got accomplished, but I said I would mark Fletchling to give him an opportunity to prove the truth of his statements (which, much later on, he did).
I didn't know what to say or do next, but towards the end of the day, Sanguinary popped up out of nowhere and said "Before the day ends, I request the Codex and Machine be returned to me" and then acknowledged he probably signed his own death warrant. Since my team knew about the existence of those things from Torchie's role (and Argo, who actually received Machine Part 1 and temporarily gave it to me for safe keeping), more likely than not, Sanguinary was Isaac Clarke. This was also convenient, because it would mean that we could use Torchie as a puppet to kill off whoever we perceived as threats, in case we hit Ellie and she hit us back.
I had the Bloater (myself) kill Isaac that night, while Argo advised me that, since Ellie would probably be used to the Clicker, I should be the one to perform the night kills until Ellie dies, as a precaution. Plus, if I ended up killing myself, suspicion would be resolved and basically disappear, giving Argo a free pass. Coincidentally, Torchie and James were both modkilled that same night, and revealed to be the 2 other Dead Space players. With Isaac gone we could rest easy knowing that the screwy Codex/Machine wincon would never go off.
Day 4 I believe is when the talk of items, and who had them, went off. Not content with just slowly waiting out No Lynches (plus, if I just kept doing that, that's basically an easy scum win), I proposed we go after the people who were lying low, and this had a rather interesting and somewhat desirable side effect: CuteKirlia, and later twistedturtwig, came clean on both of their roles. I left my vote on TT because 1) I don't like changing my vote so many times in a day in WW, and 2) I hate pewdiepie. I've never even heard him, but I know I hate him. Plus, we could kinda hold the "TT is always scum" thing over his head later; Argo decided to use Echolocation to confirm his identity, and yes, he was. After some discussion we went after Wailord_2 for some reason - actually, why did I say 'we'? It was everyone EXCEPT me.
With the time running out fast, we had to find Ellie. Argo and I compiled a list of 5 suspects we believed were the most likely to be Ellie: Kiga, Different55, GP, Cherrygrove, and Chillbill. I wanted to leave ChillBill alive, partly out of respect for him as a player, and partly because I believed he was non-scum and found him valuable to actually spurring game activity. Cherrygrove was a total unknown and it probably wasn't GP. I decided to kill Kiga, and conveniently, the last marker was taken out.
Oh, speaking of which, earlier on I tried to destroy the tequila by passing it to Fletchling, which would end up killing him in the process. The tequila was destroyed since the birdseed got to him first, so I got my main objective there, just not the perk. Later he healed off 1 of his marks, so I couldn't do a NK+spore bomb quickmark and kill 2 people at once, ending the game with an easy majority.
Then there was the discussion of teams/alignments and such, and how D55 was unusually surprised at Kiga and Wailord's alignment being Self - apparently, he didn't notice? This automatically meant that D55's alignment wasn't Self - which meant he had a really high chance of being Ellie. I asked him/called him out on it, and he said his alignment was Non-Scum - which is exactly what I'd expected him to say. After all, he couldn't say much more beyond that, right? Though, bastardmod Hauntedwater surprised me by extending this day by another week. ...Nothing got done then either, but Argo did try to save his own hide by indirectly accusing me of being scum by hiding in plain sight and effectively leading the game - which I kinda was, though the leading was unintentional. It's mostly the force of habit of being vocal in a WW game.
I don't know where Argo went but I strongly believed that D55 was Ellie, so I said I'd kill him. HW and I had periodically been talking throughout the course of the game, with him saying that town deserves to lose for playing so badly and he wanted me to hurry up and kill everybody. I said I would so long as he posted his updates in a more timely manner. Eventually he got so fed up with it that...well, the game's now over.
In fairness I'm not sure the non-scum would have won. I would have killed Ellie, thus removing our 'three big threats', and there'd only be 8 players left remaining, 2 of which were wolves. Given the behavior for the town to ignore the game and end up unintentionally making no lynches, ending the game now was an act of mercy for everyone involved. Even me. Man this game was painful.
Overall thoughts?
I'm honestly not sure what to say. I do kinda like the idea of everyone having their own independent wincons, but between each day/night update taking about 2 weeks to come up, and the overall sluggish pace of the town during the day (seriously, besides me and D55 and Kiga and maybe 1 or 2 other people, who was really engaged?), it was hard for the game to really progress. I was mostly just trying to take out the 3 threats (and in the end I did), but I had no idea what anyone else was actually trying to do. D55 was Ellie so he was pushing the thread alone, and GP really had it out for me for some reason, but...after that, what else? The inactivity of the players (and the mod), and the helpfulness of my partner Argo, were what really won this game in the end.
Now I'm really all werewolf'd out, so for those of you wanting WW24, it won't be for a while. I'm in the process of fixing and tweaking it, and I will have it all ready for you - just...not any time soon. I think after this hectic game, we could all use a rest.
Edit: Oh, yeah, wincons. There are 4 winners I know of this game:
DNA (scum leader)
Argonaut457 (scum partner)
Fletchling (survived to game's end)
twistedturtwig (survived to game's end)
And there's probably more, since I'm sure between CG, GP, and ChillBill, there was at least one more 'survive to game's end' wincon.