Chandrasekhar
Determined
Oh, whoops, I completely forgot about this, what with the ChaNES update and all. 
I'll try to finish it before Renata's game starts.
I'll try to finish it before Renata's game starts.
Night of the Werewolves XXII: The Road to Ruin (Game Thread)
- Thread starter Backwards Logic
- Start date
Chandrasekhar
Determined
Woo, got to get this all up and posted while the memory is relatively fresh. Hopefully I don't make any errors due to not having slept in... awhile.
Day Seven
Ah, where were we? Nahkarma and I had just been wounded by an explosion the previous day, and merciary was nowhere to be found. We hadn't been able to kill anyone during the night. So, suspicions were all ablaze about why there was no kill, and the prime suspects were the wounded. Oh, and since I seem to have forgotten to mention it last time, the kill I told merciary to send in the night before was Methos. I worried that if he was given too much more time, he'd figure me out and ruin our high ground. As it happens, I was happy to keep him alive once the Rogues didn't really have a high ground to plot from, which is why I didn't rectify the error that had left him alive the following night.
Anyway, my prime motivation in the first half of the day was nudging everyone towards the idea that the night was absent a kill because of a conversion, rather than because of wounded Rogues. Granted, at this point, no one was even entirely certain that Rogues existed, and I was supporting the idea that they didn't as tentatively as possible. Anyway, this would've been in my best interest even if I wasn't a Rogue, but it also helped me cast doubt on my own ability in the eyes of the Loyalists, in case I was forced into "scanning" a comrade and forced to claim that he was innocent, so that if he were to later die and turn up Rogue, I'd be able to say "Hey, I told you my ability was uncertain from the beginning." That increasingly became a concern as the game continued and the list of plausible scan targets narrowed.
I was also increasingly worried about the Insurgents wounding enough of us to overwhelm and kill us all. All the effort that wasn't going towards misdirecting the squad from the Rogues was going towards saving them from the Insurgents... Yes, I was putting out a lot of effort, all total. You can see from my post after mid day that I wanted to tie up a wounded person (were I thinking straighter, I would've volunteered myself), and for thomas to give his rifle to someone able to use it. Apparently, neither of these things would've helped, and the Insurgents had already exhausted their ambushes anyway, but I didn't know that.
All in all, it was a pretty exhausting day for me. Any other time, I would've been glad to see the innocents execute one of their own, but I was still a bit paranoid about being overwhelmed by insurgents. On the upside, I had convinced CCRunner to heal Nahkarma the night before, so he could send in a kill, and I would be healed by the next day. I had Nahkarma kill LightFang for... eh, some reason. It was a quick decision, I think, since I had just decided to leave Methos alive - talking to him the previous day had reaffirmed my belief that if an accusation came against me, he'd probably support me.
Day Eight
I was displeased to see another radio pop up upon LightFang's death. Very displeased, in fact - I thought the Rogues had dodged a metaphorical bullet with the timely bombing of Renata and the radio in her possession. Instead, we now had a second one to worry about, and right off the bat, someone who claimed to have a special ability to use it was claiming it.
There didn't seem to be much I could do about it. The votes to give him the radio would be tough to overcome. On the upside, Icekommander, a known unconvertable, emerged as an early scapegoat, and his accusation of myself and merciary was waved away by everyone. I didn't pass a vote against him myself, and I don't recall there being much plotting that day, either. With everyone healed up, I started to relax a bit more. Things were going smoothly again.
Icekommander was executed, and Methos and I concluded that a scan of Tasslehoff was in order. I had suspected him of being an extra special anti-Rogue character for some time, but only in the sense that we'd really want to kill the Politician for being involved in starting up this false war in the first place. I hadn't expected him to have a powerful anti-Rogue ability, but I didn't find that out when I scanned him.
For the kill, I had Nahkarma off Stuck in Pi - the man had explosives, so I considered him dangerous. That went off without a hitch.
Day Nine
The day opened with a rather clever move by Nahkarma, I thought - I had told him that I was influencing Niklas to give the flak jacket that was in the crate to CCRunner way back when, but the actual jacket transfer was done in secret. It was indicated in the updates that CCRunner had had a flak jacket, but it would've been easy to miss this. By voting the flak jacket to CCRunner, and thus making as though he didn't know that CCRunner already had a flak jacket, any particularly detail-oriented observers (like, say, Methos
) would conclude that he and I were not working together if one of us turned up Rogue. Very clever indeed.
CCRunner was doing some plotting of his own as well, which he and Methos let me in on - rather than vote the jacket to any particular person, CCRunner would take it himself and then give it privately to me - another clever move. However, it was pretty much a moot point by now, as I think the squad had seen its last ambush, and the flak jackets didn't serve any further purpose.
As for the day's other matters, I wasn't satisfied with what I had learned of Tasslehoff. I recalled Izipo's stated role - supposedly he could learn everything about a tied-up person, while I was well aware that my ability wasn't supposed to learn anything but a person's alignment and conversion possibility. Now, that this was entirely thought up on the fly remained unknown to me at this point, but I thought there was a slight chance that using it on Tasslehoff could help the Rogue cause somehow.
So, I told Methos and CCRunner what I had found out the previous night, the partial truth. That I suspected from my information that Tasslehoff might've had something to do with starting this war, and that I wanted to use Izipo's interrogation on him to find out more. Yes, I told CCRunner as well - it was a day or so previous to this that he had deduced that I was the nighttime interrogator everyone was complaining about. This was the day that CCRunner passed into my inner circle among the innocents. I recall with amusement how Methos was not entirely pleased that I had inducted CCRunner into my little secret. Still, I convinced him that CCRunner had made the deduction himself, and that there was little I could do about it except accept him.
So went the ninth day. Love and Tasslehoff were both tied up - rather fortunate, I thought, since Love still had that radio to worry about. But not everything was going according to plan - Methos died of poisoning that evening. Now, thomas.berubeg, don't feel too bad - if you hadn't offed him that night, I would've. He was a prophet, after all, and I had a bad feeling that he'd scan Nahkarma or merciary sooner or later, not to mention that hiding under your foe's nose isn't the safest tactic. From this point, CCRunner was my main innocent contact.
Anyway, I had Nahkarma kill Ekolite instead. I was as confident of a Rogue victory at this point as I ever was, and my prime concern was elminating the Insurgents. I was still wary of Love and his radio, but he seemed to be a popular vote attractor, so I decided to go with my hunch of an Insurgent instead. I chose to scan thomas.berubeg. I distinctly recall that at the time, I hadn't made the connection between "poison" and "cook," but that's the sort of thing I always miss, and I suppose I was still in shock about someone else stealing my kill. I scanned thomas.berubeg on a random suspicion, and because the list of possible insurgents was getting rather short.
A convertable - excellent. Little did I know he'd become worse than useless as a conversion the following day.
---
Anyway, I'll try to finish this up with my next post here. I'm dead tired at the moment, with half a dozen errors corrected and who knows how many unnoticed, and the endgame deserves some thorough coverage - it wasn't all down hill from here by any means.
Day Seven
Ah, where were we? Nahkarma and I had just been wounded by an explosion the previous day, and merciary was nowhere to be found. We hadn't been able to kill anyone during the night. So, suspicions were all ablaze about why there was no kill, and the prime suspects were the wounded. Oh, and since I seem to have forgotten to mention it last time, the kill I told merciary to send in the night before was Methos. I worried that if he was given too much more time, he'd figure me out and ruin our high ground. As it happens, I was happy to keep him alive once the Rogues didn't really have a high ground to plot from, which is why I didn't rectify the error that had left him alive the following night.
Anyway, my prime motivation in the first half of the day was nudging everyone towards the idea that the night was absent a kill because of a conversion, rather than because of wounded Rogues. Granted, at this point, no one was even entirely certain that Rogues existed, and I was supporting the idea that they didn't as tentatively as possible. Anyway, this would've been in my best interest even if I wasn't a Rogue, but it also helped me cast doubt on my own ability in the eyes of the Loyalists, in case I was forced into "scanning" a comrade and forced to claim that he was innocent, so that if he were to later die and turn up Rogue, I'd be able to say "Hey, I told you my ability was uncertain from the beginning." That increasingly became a concern as the game continued and the list of plausible scan targets narrowed.
I was also increasingly worried about the Insurgents wounding enough of us to overwhelm and kill us all. All the effort that wasn't going towards misdirecting the squad from the Rogues was going towards saving them from the Insurgents... Yes, I was putting out a lot of effort, all total.
You can see from my post after mid day that I wanted to tie up a wounded person (were I thinking straighter, I would've volunteered myself), and for thomas to give his rifle to someone able to use it. Apparently, neither of these things would've helped, and the Insurgents had already exhausted their ambushes anyway, but I didn't know that.All in all, it was a pretty exhausting day for me. Any other time, I would've been glad to see the innocents execute one of their own, but I was still a bit paranoid about being overwhelmed by insurgents. On the upside, I had convinced CCRunner to heal Nahkarma the night before, so he could send in a kill, and I would be healed by the next day. I had Nahkarma kill LightFang for... eh, some reason. It was a quick decision, I think, since I had just decided to leave Methos alive - talking to him the previous day had reaffirmed my belief that if an accusation came against me, he'd probably support me.
Day Eight
I was displeased to see another radio pop up upon LightFang's death. Very displeased, in fact - I thought the Rogues had dodged a metaphorical bullet with the timely bombing of Renata and the radio in her possession. Instead, we now had a second one to worry about, and right off the bat, someone who claimed to have a special ability to use it was claiming it.
There didn't seem to be much I could do about it. The votes to give him the radio would be tough to overcome. On the upside, Icekommander, a known unconvertable, emerged as an early scapegoat, and his accusation of myself and merciary was waved away by everyone. I didn't pass a vote against him myself, and I don't recall there being much plotting that day, either. With everyone healed up, I started to relax a bit more. Things were going smoothly again.
Icekommander was executed, and Methos and I concluded that a scan of Tasslehoff was in order. I had suspected him of being an extra special anti-Rogue character for some time, but only in the sense that we'd really want to kill the Politician for being involved in starting up this false war in the first place. I hadn't expected him to have a powerful anti-Rogue ability, but I didn't find that out when I scanned him.
Spoiler :
That went off without a hitch.Day Nine
The day opened with a rather clever move by Nahkarma, I thought - I had told him that I was influencing Niklas to give the flak jacket that was in the crate to CCRunner way back when, but the actual jacket transfer was done in secret. It was indicated in the updates that CCRunner had had a flak jacket, but it would've been easy to miss this. By voting the flak jacket to CCRunner, and thus making as though he didn't know that CCRunner already had a flak jacket, any particularly detail-oriented observers (like, say, Methos
) would conclude that he and I were not working together if one of us turned up Rogue. Very clever indeed.CCRunner was doing some plotting of his own as well, which he and Methos let me in on - rather than vote the jacket to any particular person, CCRunner would take it himself and then give it privately to me - another clever move. However, it was pretty much a moot point by now, as I think the squad had seen its last ambush, and the flak jackets didn't serve any further purpose.
As for the day's other matters, I wasn't satisfied with what I had learned of Tasslehoff. I recalled Izipo's stated role - supposedly he could learn everything about a tied-up person, while I was well aware that my ability wasn't supposed to learn anything but a person's alignment and conversion possibility. Now, that this was entirely thought up on the fly remained unknown to me at this point, but I thought there was a slight chance that using it on Tasslehoff could help the Rogue cause somehow.
So, I told Methos and CCRunner what I had found out the previous night, the partial truth. That I suspected from my information that Tasslehoff might've had something to do with starting this war, and that I wanted to use Izipo's interrogation on him to find out more. Yes, I told CCRunner as well - it was a day or so previous to this that he had deduced that I was the nighttime interrogator everyone was complaining about. This was the day that CCRunner passed into my inner circle among the innocents. I recall with amusement how Methos was not entirely pleased that I had inducted CCRunner into my little secret.
Still, I convinced him that CCRunner had made the deduction himself, and that there was little I could do about it except accept him.So went the ninth day. Love and Tasslehoff were both tied up - rather fortunate, I thought, since Love still had that radio to worry about. But not everything was going according to plan - Methos died of poisoning that evening. Now, thomas.berubeg, don't feel too bad - if you hadn't offed him that night, I would've.
He was a prophet, after all, and I had a bad feeling that he'd scan Nahkarma or merciary sooner or later, not to mention that hiding under your foe's nose isn't the safest tactic. From this point, CCRunner was my main innocent contact.Anyway, I had Nahkarma kill Ekolite instead. I was as confident of a Rogue victory at this point as I ever was, and my prime concern was elminating the Insurgents. I was still wary of Love and his radio, but he seemed to be a popular vote attractor, so I decided to go with my hunch of an Insurgent instead. I chose to scan thomas.berubeg. I distinctly recall that at the time, I hadn't made the connection between "poison" and "cook," but that's the sort of thing I always miss, and I suppose I was still in shock about someone else stealing my kill. I scanned thomas.berubeg on a random suspicion, and because the list of possible insurgents was getting rather short.
Spoiler :
---
Anyway, I'll try to finish this up with my next post here. I'm dead tired at the moment, with half a dozen errors corrected and who knows how many unnoticed, and the endgame deserves some thorough coverage - it wasn't all down hill from here by any means.
Izipo
Hardcore casual gamer
Yep, that was good. Keep it coming 
Backwards Logic
Emperor Palpatine
It's those AAR's that make GMing so rewarding. Now if a couple of you had put yours together like you had said you would... (hint hint )
)
Chandrasekhar
Determined
I'm very glad you all see this as a public service. I was worried that my natural tendency to ham it up would make me an annoyance. I don't want to steal the show or anything. I'll work on finishing it tonight.
I'll work on finishing it tonight.
Stuck in Pi
3.14159265358979323846...
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 646
For the kill, I had Nahkarma off Stuck in Pi - the man had explosives, so I considered him dangerous.
xcl
Chandrasekhar
Determined
Day Ten
Methos's death the night before had marked the beginning of the endgame, for me. I decided that we should start converting people to hasten our victory. We were getting pretty close to extraction, and I didn't want to risk the game ending before we could eliminate the rest of the squad. However, things didn't go so smoothly.
First off, I told CCRunner what I had found about thomas.berubeg, though I was careful again to say that I wasn't sure that he was innocent, as I figured that executing t.b would free up his rifle to be voted into my hands, and he'd make a good scapegoat to avoid one of the Rogues getting executed instead. I noted that we had gotten to the point where there was no voting margin for binding instead of execution.
Izipo called me out publicly to announce my findings on thomas.berubeg. Unbeknownst to me, he had deduced my status as the interrogator a long time ago, but I figured he was bluffing. On the off chance that he actually did know that I was the interrogator, I still didn't want to interfere with thomas.berubeg's execution, so I decided I'd play dumb until he had contacted me directly. I had CCRunner post in the thread to call his bluff.
Here's where things went downhill, and the Rogues faced their biggest setback yet. Out of freakin' nowhere Izipo goes and calls out merciary. I... still haven't gotten over that. I didn't vote against the bandwagon against him, as it wouldn't have made a difference, and suddenly, we were down to two Rogues. It wasn't a worst-case scenario, since merciary was inactive and was basically just contributing an extra strength point for when we could overwhelm the Loyalists, but it was still pretty bad. It lent credibility to several innocents, most of all Izipo. It also meant that the Loyalists would be more confident in their victory, and less likely to accept a conversion offer.
I figured that Izipo was in contact with a prophet. I couldn't be sure who that prophet was, but I suspected Love. However, I figured that killing Izipo himself would be a surer bet, to take out an innocent with a lot of credibility (how ironic), and asked Nahkarma to do the deed while I scanned D'Art. I was suspicious that he might be an Insurgent, and our options were narrowing pretty quickly.
An assassin, and unconvertable, too. The bad news the next morning, though, was that due to site wonkiness and unfortunate circumstances, Nahkarma hadn't been able to send in a kill. Izipo would live another day.
Day Eleven
This day might've appeared entirely boring in the thread, but there was some subtle maneuvering going on. For one thing, I know I had directly contacted Izipo by this point, and we had affirmed that I was the interrogator. For another, CCRunner and I were talking a lot on who should be executed and who should be scanned. I convinced him that Tasslehoff should be executed. Better to take out those who I had scanned, since I was rapidly running out of targets that were unscanned and who I wasn't in contact with already - eventually, I'd have to scan Nahkarma, and that'd require some serious bluffing.
Privately, I was also really wanting to find this last insurgent. As it happened, Tasslehoff wasn't one (I had only halfway thought that he could be). I was positive that Izipo and CCRunner were both not insurgents, as well as those I had scanned. This narrowed it down to Love. I managed to convince CCRunner that Love would be as good a scan as Nahkarma, and sent in my order. I also had Nahkarma kill Izipo - I really didn't think that he was an insurgent, but he had too much credibility with the innocents.
Day Twelve
Drama bomb: Izipo was the last Insurgent, Love was innocent (and unconvertable). So, all the Insurgents were dead, and it was just a matter of obfuscating the issue until we could overwhelm the Loyalists ourselves. However, it didn't look to be easy - PM'd conversations were going among all the innocents as to who to kill, and Nahkarma was a prime candidate. thomas.berubeg was the only other acceptable scapegoat I saw, so I pulled my last trick.
I made a big post that was internally consistent with most everything I had told most everyone so far, pointing the finger at thomas.berubeg, and voting Izipo's rifle to myself to boot. I figured with t.b out of the way, another kill that night, and Nahkarma and I both having strength boost items, we'd win by morning 13 at the latest.
But then the midday post game, and I was absolutely riveted. I was on the edge of my seat as I realized someone had called in an airstrike on us, possibly killing me, or wiping us out along with the whole squad. But instead, it wiped out D'Artagnan (after all the votes he faced in the beginning of the game failed to do so ), letting Nahkarma and I finish the job in cutscene mode. I was very happy. I distinctly recall pumping my fist in the air. 
---
Anyway, I suppose that's all I have to say on the matter. Hopefully this AAR serves as an educational insight into the mind of the mass murderer for use in future games. Maybe it's unwise of me to let out all my tricks here, but come on, what are the chances I'll be a werewolf in Renata's upcoming game? Anyway, thanks for reading.
Methos's death the night before had marked the beginning of the endgame, for me. I decided that we should start converting people to hasten our victory. We were getting pretty close to extraction, and I didn't want to risk the game ending before we could eliminate the rest of the squad. However, things didn't go so smoothly.
First off, I told CCRunner what I had found about thomas.berubeg, though I was careful again to say that I wasn't sure that he was innocent, as I figured that executing t.b would free up his rifle to be voted into my hands, and he'd make a good scapegoat to avoid one of the Rogues getting executed instead. I noted that we had gotten to the point where there was no voting margin for binding instead of execution.
Izipo called me out publicly to announce my findings on thomas.berubeg. Unbeknownst to me, he had deduced my status as the interrogator a long time ago, but I figured he was bluffing. On the off chance that he actually did know that I was the interrogator, I still didn't want to interfere with thomas.berubeg's execution, so I decided I'd play dumb until he had contacted me directly. I had CCRunner post in the thread to call his bluff.
Here's where things went downhill, and the Rogues faced their biggest setback yet. Out of freakin' nowhere Izipo goes and calls out merciary. I... still haven't gotten over that.
I didn't vote against the bandwagon against him, as it wouldn't have made a difference, and suddenly, we were down to two Rogues. It wasn't a worst-case scenario, since merciary was inactive and was basically just contributing an extra strength point for when we could overwhelm the Loyalists, but it was still pretty bad. It lent credibility to several innocents, most of all Izipo. It also meant that the Loyalists would be more confident in their victory, and less likely to accept a conversion offer.I figured that Izipo was in contact with a prophet. I couldn't be sure who that prophet was, but I suspected Love. However, I figured that killing Izipo himself would be a surer bet, to take out an innocent with a lot of credibility (how ironic
), and asked Nahkarma to do the deed while I scanned D'Art. I was suspicious that he might be an Insurgent, and our options were narrowing pretty quickly.Spoiler :
Day Eleven
This day might've appeared entirely boring in the thread, but there was some subtle maneuvering going on. For one thing, I know I had directly contacted Izipo by this point, and we had affirmed that I was the interrogator. For another, CCRunner and I were talking a lot on who should be executed and who should be scanned. I convinced him that Tasslehoff should be executed. Better to take out those who I had scanned, since I was rapidly running out of targets that were unscanned and who I wasn't in contact with already - eventually, I'd have to scan Nahkarma, and that'd require some serious bluffing.
Privately, I was also really wanting to find this last insurgent. As it happened, Tasslehoff wasn't one (I had only halfway thought that he could be). I was positive that Izipo and CCRunner were both not insurgents, as well as those I had scanned. This narrowed it down to Love. I managed to convince CCRunner that Love would be as good a scan as Nahkarma, and sent in my order. I also had Nahkarma kill Izipo - I really didn't think that he was an insurgent, but he had too much credibility with the innocents.
Spoiler :
Day Twelve
Drama bomb: Izipo was the last Insurgent, Love was innocent (and unconvertable). So, all the Insurgents were dead, and it was just a matter of obfuscating the issue until we could overwhelm the Loyalists ourselves. However, it didn't look to be easy - PM'd conversations were going among all the innocents as to who to kill, and Nahkarma was a prime candidate. thomas.berubeg was the only other acceptable scapegoat I saw, so I pulled my last trick.
I made a big post that was internally consistent with most everything I had told most everyone so far, pointing the finger at thomas.berubeg, and voting Izipo's rifle to myself to boot. I figured with t.b out of the way, another kill that night, and Nahkarma and I both having strength boost items, we'd win by morning 13 at the latest.
But then the midday post game, and I was absolutely riveted.
I was on the edge of my seat as I realized someone had called in an airstrike on us, possibly killing me, or wiping us out along with the whole squad. But instead, it wiped out D'Artagnan (after all the votes he faced in the beginning of the game failed to do so ), letting Nahkarma and I finish the job in cutscene mode. I was very happy. I distinctly recall pumping my fist in the air. ---
Anyway, I suppose that's all I have to say on the matter. Hopefully this AAR serves as an educational insight into the mind of the mass murderer for use in future games. Maybe it's unwise of me to let out all my tricks here, but come on, what are the chances I'll be a werewolf in Renata's upcoming game?
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Izipo
Hardcore casual gamer
Thanks man, that was an awesome AAR. It's great to see all the pieces of the puzzle finally fall in place. 
And this :
One thing I can tell you, is that I'm really looking forward to being in the same team as you in a future game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we've always been on opposing teams.
Didn't I mention it in my AAR ? IIRC I read the whole thread again near the end, took notes and Merciary came up as a prime suspect. I was particularly interested in the no-kill day and I think the fact that he was wounded that day was the clincher. Maybe I'm wrong because it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that was it. It was made easier because we were down to a few players by then and the others had 'plausible' excuses. Looking back on it, I'm quite proud of that.
And this :
made my day.
One thing I can tell you, is that I'm really looking forward to being in the same team as you in a future game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we've always been on opposing teams.
Didn't I mention it in my AAR ? IIRC I read the whole thread again near the end, took notes and Merciary came up as a prime suspect. I was particularly interested in the no-kill day and I think the fact that he was wounded that day was the clincher. Maybe I'm wrong because it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that was it. It was made easier because we were down to a few players by then and the others had 'plausible' excuses. Looking back on it, I'm quite proud of that
.
Diamondeye
So Happy I Could Die
Thanks, Chand, that's going to be a great help no matter what role I get in my first Notw, which will hopefully start soon 
Very exciting read.
Very exciting read.
Backwards Logic
Emperor Palpatine
Excellent AAR! I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entire thing. I'm also glad you and the rogues were a bit uneasy during the final midday write-up - the intent was to build it up so no one knew what was going on until the very end.
My final thoughts on my game:
Aside from a few GM screw-ups which I corrected as best I could behind the the scenes, I thought hosting my first game went pretty well considering it wasn't a traditional FFH based NOTW. There were a number of things that stood out to me in the game which kept things interesting on my end.
On day one with all of the role-playing, Icekommander revealed himself as the recruiter and I thought for sure thomas was going to poison him that night. The reason he didn't has since been uncovered, but when it happened I thought for sure I'd have to write up that evening regarding Ice's death.
During day three after Methos had scanned Chand was when everything had gone downhill for the loyalists. After both landmines had been revealed to the rogues (Niklas and Renata), I knew there would be no chance of the Rogues self-destructing. It would be entirely up to the loyalists without the 'help' of a rogue misstep to figure it all out.
The whole Charles Li incident was rather disturbing. Since Renata had told me of her plan to try and get the rogues to target her, I knew what was going on. Charles Li on the other hand was basically being played to further the innocent's gains at this particular juncture, so he had no idea in the grand scheme of things what was going on. Since it wasn't mentioned before, I'll enlighten those who are still viewing this thread. Basically, after Charles Li had implicated bigfoot as an innocent and the Rogues had killed him, Renata figured that she could do the same thing and told Charles Li to scan her and post her innocence in the thread. Once that happened, she role-played it up to make it look like she was mad, which in turn confused the hell out of him. His ensuing tirade confused a handful of people, but fortunately I didn't have to do any damage control to keep things moving along. Obviously it was a nice try to get the Rogues to attack her at night, but by this point they knew of her ability and weren't going near her. (Just a side note to Chand: You could have scanned her and come out alive. Her ability only protected against an attack - it did nothing against scans. In a twist of irony, reverend oats had scanned her at one point looking for the insurgents so he could join up with them).
The insurgent bombing the insurgent was rather amusing on my end. Izipo's reaction on msn was priceless .
After Niklas had been murdered, I found it quite ironic that everyone trusted Izipo and had him elected Platoon Leader.
As the game winded down, I was looking at the real possibility of a tie between the insurgents and another side. That all hinged on two things: 1) Izipo being alive when 2) an air strike happened to cause a swing in the strength numbers thus resulting in a rogue victory. One of the unknown characteristics of the air strike was flak jackets had no defense against injury from it. So it was conceivable that the rogues and insurgents could win simultaneously. When Izipo died, this all became a moot point, but for the day or so before his demise I was coming up with numerous tie breaking mechanics for various 'what if' scenarios. It obviously didn't come to that.
As for the new binding/injury mechanisms, I thought they worked pretty well. I had implemented them because I always hated the day one bandwagon which really did nothing except remove a player from playing NOTW for about a month while the game ran its course. Just about everyone got to play before the killings became commonplace, and while it may need some tweaking it's something I'd like to see in future games. From my view, the binding appeared to penalize both sides considerably, with it hurting the innocents more due to not being able to uncover voting patterns as early. Nothing's perfect from the start, but I think it's something to be considered in future games. The injury mechanism probably needs most work. Two days seemed to short a time (which did hurt the insurgents, especially after the first ambush), but removing a player from the forum for three days seems a bit harsh as well. Finding a happy medium there may prove difficult.
So once again I'd like to thank everyone who played and also thanks those who've lurked and have now joined Renata's game. This was incredibly enjoyable and rewarding for me to run, and while no guarantees, I just may put a sequel together.
My final thoughts on my game:
Aside from a few GM screw-ups which I corrected as best I could behind the the scenes, I thought hosting my first game went pretty well considering it wasn't a traditional FFH based NOTW. There were a number of things that stood out to me in the game which kept things interesting on my end.
On day one with all of the role-playing, Icekommander revealed himself as the recruiter and I thought for sure thomas was going to poison him that night. The reason he didn't has since been uncovered, but when it happened I thought for sure I'd have to write up that evening regarding Ice's death.
During day three after Methos had scanned Chand was when everything had gone downhill for the loyalists. After both landmines had been revealed to the rogues (Niklas and Renata), I knew there would be no chance of the Rogues self-destructing. It would be entirely up to the loyalists without the 'help' of a rogue misstep to figure it all out.
The whole Charles Li incident was rather disturbing. Since Renata had told me of her plan to try and get the rogues to target her, I knew what was going on. Charles Li on the other hand was basically being played to further the innocent's gains at this particular juncture, so he had no idea in the grand scheme of things what was going on. Since it wasn't mentioned before, I'll enlighten those who are still viewing this thread. Basically, after Charles Li had implicated bigfoot as an innocent and the Rogues had killed him, Renata figured that she could do the same thing and told Charles Li to scan her and post her innocence in the thread. Once that happened, she role-played it up to make it look like she was mad, which in turn confused the hell out of him. His ensuing tirade confused a handful of people, but fortunately I didn't have to do any damage control to keep things moving along. Obviously it was a nice try to get the Rogues to attack her at night, but by this point they knew of her ability and weren't going near her. (Just a side note to Chand: You could have scanned her and come out alive. Her ability only protected against an attack - it did nothing against scans. In a twist of irony, reverend oats had scanned her at one point looking for the insurgents so he could join up with them).
The insurgent bombing the insurgent was rather amusing on my end. Izipo's reaction on msn was priceless
. After Niklas had been murdered, I found it quite ironic that everyone trusted Izipo and had him elected Platoon Leader.
As the game winded down, I was looking at the real possibility of a tie between the insurgents and another side. That all hinged on two things: 1) Izipo being alive when 2) an air strike happened to cause a swing in the strength numbers thus resulting in a rogue victory. One of the unknown characteristics of the air strike was flak jackets had no defense against injury from it. So it was conceivable that the rogues and insurgents could win simultaneously. When Izipo died, this all became a moot point, but for the day or so before his demise I was coming up with numerous tie breaking mechanics for various 'what if' scenarios. It obviously didn't come to that.
As for the new binding/injury mechanisms, I thought they worked pretty well. I had implemented them because I always hated the day one bandwagon which really did nothing except remove a player from playing NOTW for about a month while the game ran its course. Just about everyone got to play before the killings became commonplace, and while it may need some tweaking it's something I'd like to see in future games. From my view, the binding appeared to penalize both sides considerably, with it hurting the innocents more due to not being able to uncover voting patterns as early. Nothing's perfect from the start, but I think it's something to be considered in future games. The injury mechanism probably needs most work. Two days seemed to short a time (which did hurt the insurgents, especially after the first ambush), but removing a player from the forum for three days seems a bit harsh as well. Finding a happy medium there may prove difficult.
So once again I'd like to thank everyone who played and also thanks those who've lurked and have now joined Renata's game. This was incredibly enjoyable and rewarding for me to run, and while no guarantees, I just may put a sequel together.
Chandrasekhar
Determined
You mentioned it. I still can't comprehend it. I still suspect that you've got a ouija board hidden inside your desk.
Ah... I see I glossed over this point in my AAR, but Niklas and I discussed this possibility. Renata denied it, of course, but I was still too uncertain to take any risks.
Backwards Logic said:
Yeah, we got pretty lucky early on, finding an insurgent and getting drawn into the main innocent cabal in one go. We still could've lost it from there, and we almost did a couple of times, but we had a pretty good position to plot from.
Backwards Logic said:
So, the insurgents would've been able to win if they held the majority of the squad's strength, as well? Izipo may well have gotten a one-man victory, if he had managed to get Nahkarma and I executed, and we hadn't killed him for whatever reason. I was close to taking out Love instead the night we killed Izipo, so it wasn't entirely impossible by that point.
Backwards Logic said:
Yeah, I think so. It's a tactical element that we haven't really gotten experienced with yet, but I think it has a place in the future of NotW. It's another decision that the players have to make, whether to bind or execute someone, and it makes for a more interesting game, without unbalancing the whole thing.
thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
@BL: i'de decided Ice couldn't have recruited me. that'd be way to obvious... right? Right?
I never asked Charles Li to reveal my innocence publicly. I did ask him to scan me, but that he actually revealed the result after the talking-to he'd gotten the previous day (and after Bigfoot had been killed) sort of blew my mind. The most I'd been hoping for was that I'd be able to get him to reveal the result in private to some of the "wrong" people, so that after a day or two I'd be effectively out as an innocent even if no one ever said so in public.
Backwards Logic
Emperor Palpatine
Izipo could have won if a number of things fell into place at the end. While the probability of it happening is around zero, I'm just illustrating that it was in fact possible for him to win. Keep in mind his victory condition was to have greater than 75% of the remaining squad injured before the loyalists or rogues accomplished their vc. For this to happen, he needed the following to happen:
1) The night he did die, instead of him a loyalist with a strength of one gets killed instead
2) That next day, a rogue gets executed
3) Izipo also survives this night, with no one dying either
4) That same night, Love calls in his air strike on a loyalist
5) Air strike injury roll equaled a three (for max casualties)
6) Izipo does not end up as one of the injured
Yea, it's a lot and as Chandrasekhar said, unlikely, but still mathematically possible. Starting with the night he was killed, the strength ratio between the loyalists and rogues was 5 : 3. D'Art had two with Love, CC, and thomas having one each. Chand had one and Nahkarma had two for the rogue's three.
Had D'Artagnan been murdered that night, the strength ratio would have fallen to 1 : 1, thus resulting in a rogue victory. So a loyalist with a strength of one had to be killed for the loyalists to maintain a slight edge over the rogues. Also, Love needed to stay alive so he could use his air strike later. To keep things interesting, let's say CCRunner dies. Ratio is now 4 : 3
In order to fulfill the 75% injury requirement, Izipo would need to survive this day. On top of that, Love would not only not have used his air strike the previous night, but also not get killed either. In fact, a loyalist being executed would have pushed the strength ratio back to at least 1 : 1, so a rogue had to be executed this day. Either Chand or Nahkarma could have died, but we'll say Nahkarma dies. Ratio 4 : 1
If Chand kills anyone this night, the next day's air strike either doesn't happen (by Chand killing Love) or the air strike results in a rogue or loyalist victory as long as it doesn't target Izipo. Since I'm illustrating how Izipo could have won, for argument's sake no kill happens. Highly, highly unlikely from my point of view, but nevertheless it wouldn't be the first time the rogues had missed a night kill. This had to happen, otherwise Love's air strike would have no one to target without resulting in a victory other than Izipo's.
So at this stage our remaining players are now the loyalists D'Artagnan, thomas, and Love, the rogue Chandrasekhar and the insurgent Izipo.
So I said before Chand had to not kill anyone for Izipo to have a shot at winning. Here's why:
To make this clear (I hope), the ratio with no night kill is 4 : 1. The air strike can target any loyalist and it would not result in a rogue victory since worst case for the loyalists is it becomes a 2 : 1 (with the air strike killing D'Art. Had Nahkarma been alive instead of Chand the air strike could not target D'Art without resulting in a rogue victory).
Had Chand killed D'Art that night, the ratio would have been 2 : 1 before the air strike. With the air strike killing the only remaining loyalist in this scenario (thomas), the ratio becomes 1 : 1 and the rogues win.
Same thing happens if Chand kills thomas that night. Ratio is 3 : 1, with D'Art as the only viable target left that could result in an insurgent victory. If D'Art is hit by the air strike, ratio again equals 1 : 1.
If Chand himself gets targeted by the air strike, loyalists win regardless of whether he killed anyone that night or not.
If Izipo gets bombed, well, he loses...
So let's say D'Artagnan gets bombed, leaving Chand, thomas, Love and Izipo alive, equaling a 2 : 1 ratio. The roll has to be a three, since there are four players left and three need to be injured to get to the 75%.
The last bit of dumb luck required for Izipo to win. If I recall I had told the insurgents via a pm or msn with Izipo that they could not win if they all were injured. Izipo can then run off, tell his npc insurgent friends he's got them in an indefensible position and can slaughter the lot of them. Insurgent victory! (I was kind of hoping I could do an insurgent victory write up, but, oh well, there's always next game...
)
Anyway, not only did the stars need to align for Izipo to pull this out after all of his ambushes were used up, but he needed a lot of outside help as well to pull it off. Not entirely feasible, but also not impossible. Ugh, my head hurts after typing all of that. Hope it all makes sense.
1) The night he did die, instead of him a loyalist with a strength of one gets killed instead
2) That next day, a rogue gets executed
3) Izipo also survives this night, with no one dying either
4) That same night, Love calls in his air strike on a loyalist
5) Air strike injury roll equaled a three (for max casualties)
6) Izipo does not end up as one of the injured
Yea, it's a lot and as Chandrasekhar said, unlikely, but still mathematically possible. Starting with the night he was killed, the strength ratio between the loyalists and rogues was 5 : 3. D'Art had two with Love, CC, and thomas having one each. Chand had one and Nahkarma had two for the rogue's three.
Had D'Artagnan been murdered that night, the strength ratio would have fallen to 1 : 1, thus resulting in a rogue victory. So a loyalist with a strength of one had to be killed for the loyalists to maintain a slight edge over the rogues. Also, Love needed to stay alive so he could use his air strike later. To keep things interesting, let's say CCRunner dies. Ratio is now 4 : 3
In order to fulfill the 75% injury requirement, Izipo would need to survive this day. On top of that, Love would not only not have used his air strike the previous night, but also not get killed either. In fact, a loyalist being executed would have pushed the strength ratio back to at least 1 : 1, so a rogue had to be executed this day. Either Chand or Nahkarma could have died, but we'll say Nahkarma dies. Ratio 4 : 1
If Chand kills anyone this night, the next day's air strike either doesn't happen (by Chand killing Love) or the air strike results in a rogue or loyalist victory as long as it doesn't target Izipo. Since I'm illustrating how Izipo could have won, for argument's sake no kill happens. Highly, highly unlikely from my point of view, but nevertheless it wouldn't be the first time the rogues had missed a night kill. This had to happen, otherwise Love's air strike would have no one to target without resulting in a victory other than Izipo's.
So at this stage our remaining players are now the loyalists D'Artagnan, thomas, and Love, the rogue Chandrasekhar and the insurgent Izipo.
So I said before Chand had to not kill anyone for Izipo to have a shot at winning. Here's why:
To make this clear (I hope), the ratio with no night kill is 4 : 1. The air strike can target any loyalist and it would not result in a rogue victory since worst case for the loyalists is it becomes a 2 : 1 (with the air strike killing D'Art. Had Nahkarma been alive instead of Chand the air strike could not target D'Art without resulting in a rogue victory).
Had Chand killed D'Art that night, the ratio would have been 2 : 1 before the air strike. With the air strike killing the only remaining loyalist in this scenario (thomas), the ratio becomes 1 : 1 and the rogues win.
Same thing happens if Chand kills thomas that night. Ratio is 3 : 1, with D'Art as the only viable target left that could result in an insurgent victory. If D'Art is hit by the air strike, ratio again equals 1 : 1.
If Chand himself gets targeted by the air strike, loyalists win regardless of whether he killed anyone that night or not.
If Izipo gets bombed, well, he loses...
So let's say D'Artagnan gets bombed, leaving Chand, thomas, Love and Izipo alive, equaling a 2 : 1 ratio. The roll has to be a three, since there are four players left and three need to be injured to get to the 75%.
The last bit of dumb luck required for Izipo to win. If I recall I had told the insurgents via a pm or msn with Izipo that they could not win if they all were injured. Izipo can then run off, tell his npc insurgent friends he's got them in an indefensible position and can slaughter the lot of them. Insurgent victory! (I was kind of hoping I could do an insurgent victory write up, but, oh well, there's always next game...
)Anyway, not only did the stars need to align for Izipo to pull this out after all of his ambushes were used up, but he needed a lot of outside help as well to pull it off. Not entirely feasible, but also not impossible. Ugh, my head hurts after typing all of that. Hope it all makes sense.
Backwards Logic
Emperor Palpatine
Haha, yea way too obvious, especially for this game
I could have sworn I had read something stating you had wanted him to post your innocence in the thread to make a you a target, but I'm sure I could be wrong. It's been a while and I've since lost the pm's and msn logs.
