TWG Turbo 37: Der Freischütz [GAME THREAD]

[MixMasterLar]

Reminding myself that after I do laundry I need to ISO Raeko and Roundbox

[Hateandhatred]

Alright, I'm off school now. I got out a bit early, which is hype. Also aced a test from last week and I didn't know how well I did, which is very hype!

I'm going to go back on a few things from d0 (I'll be rereading the thread and posting my thoughts as I go through it, so some stuff might be out of order. I'm sorry for those who hate wall posting, but also, screw you I do what I want)

The first thing I immediately want to address is the fact that I was completely mixing up soul stealer and vengeful spirit in my mind, on top of missing the very clearly indicated fact that vengeful spirit would not know their alignment. That was absolutely miserable of me, I just didn't bother commiting the setup to memory because in my mind vt = boring and I wasn't all that immersed into the game going into d0. I don't know how much my confusion showed in my posts and I don't think it's been brought up (unless it's been talked about today, I've only skimmed the first page and a half while waiting for my coffee), but I apologize and I'll do better (more on that later since I saw a relevant post from Haku)

Next, I want to bring up the fact that roundbox asked me why I didn't further press Bugkid on why they thought raeko and roundbox were town/town just because they sounded like themselves. I genuinely skipped over his messages on this topic while trying to respond to as much of the thread as I could so I could be interacting in real time during EOD. By the time I was done trying to get into this (and it was fairly uncomfortable for me because everyone played like it was the midgame and I was so fucking lost), I did see it, but bugkid's already incomprehensible read on raeko as their top town suddenly becoming a middle of the pack town read just because she decided to park a vote on me was so extremely bs that I didn't really care about the previous question anymore even when I ended up reading and registering roundbox's posts addressed to me. It was also like an hour before EOD and being a top wagon, I felt like it made no sense to go back and answer some potentially suspicious shit about me because I really didn't give a fuck about defending myself directly. It's d0, someone has to go, if it's me and I don't know who's wolfing, I'm cool with it. I pointed out the thing I hated from bugkid and while I could have gone back to my previous question, I was at least content with the idea that they would probably bite it during N1 or on the next day (and I'm pretty baffled from the flip itself, especially with their last comment that at best was white flagging or expressing contentment with potentially winning a counterclaim situation (which is dumb but whatever, I was convinced it was a salty wolf comment referrencing the slip and playing against the wolf wincon, but it was just ???). Anyway, back to roundbox's question, he said it sounded like wolf wallposting and frankly I think that's more than fair, and had it been anyone else and I read that without serious suspicions of my own, I would have been on board with him. The difference here is that I know my own alignment and I cared relatively little about my survival, and I also know my state of mind when writing. Yes, I was just reading the thread and reacting to things and bringing up stuff to see what sticks because we're supposed to solve this shit together, but I also wasn't tinfoiling anyone at all when I asked this. I didn't know if I would come across anything else by the time I was done catching up, so my primary intent was just to bring it up. I also kind of trusted you all to say something about it if you thought it was worth exploring, but yeah. I'm sorry I didn't go back to it, it's partially me lacking dilligence, partially me running out of time, partially me navigating a wagon, partially me scumreading bugkid for completely wrong reasons, partially me failing to figure out that if I didn't pursue it myself, people who do not know my status would obviously question why I didn't and partially me just not being ready to engage this hard in d0 for basically the first time ever lol.

Now, that's for my d0 comments, let's go back to the current phase. Like I said, I'm going to just reread the thread and write as I read, then I'll be up to date. I will try not to single out anything outside of my reads and engage with players in unique posts.

Now, the results. I'm honestly mindblown that both myself and weiss/sunfan are alive, but I'll talk about that in my next post along with a reorganization of voting history.

Bugkid flipping town absolutely blows my mind and I was excited to see which wolf they would flip, only to find out they didn't flip a wolf at all. That's absolutely crazy and I can't begin to interpret why they played the EOD the way they did. I just have to accept it and rethink the game with this in mind, and at the very least, they apparently played true to their game, not that I'm overly familiar with it, but it's worth what it's worth to keep it in mind.

As for Raeko and Roundbox... Well, I think both are somewhat normal wolf kills, the bigger question is who was the Freikugel kill and why? I don't want the freikugel to claim, but neither of them were particularly thought to be wolf during d0 as they were never voted for. In either case, it implies the Freikugel acted on their own accord and not to solve something Town was particularly curious about (raeko was 50-50 to me and ara, I think? But she was in bugkid's trust list, much like roundbox who was basically in everyone's), but instead acted either on a gut feeling or more interestingly on something they saw that escaped us. I really wish I just knew what they were thinking, it could potentially be helpful.

Speaking of which, in post #402, Ara posted an updated reads list. I think it pretty much reflects the current state of the game, but somehow put raeko with me in the bottom. I don't think they were particularly suspicious of her prior, just putting her in the middle, which echoes my feelings, mostly because she's just a very difficult player to read. I'm going to refrain from judging this directly because I was critical of bugkid from shifting the same way and it backfired, but it's interesting they would post this even after the flip. I just don't really know what to think of it, so Ara, can you elaborate? You said you liked her bug vote the least, and I can see why, but we were the two wagons and she specifically started liking my post more when I started responding directly. Is there anything else?

Then we have the following:

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

Hate would play this game better than this if he was wolfing. I don't believe it.

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

Hate actually enjoy rolling wolf. He didn't look hyped or committed to the game. So, I think he's just bored and has other things in mind.

Originally Posted by Hakulyte

He would probably go for crazy plays just because he can. I think he enjoys more making cool plays than optimizing the process for winning the game.
I'm not seeing that at all.

So, Haku is pretty much right. If I'm completely honest and transparent about my interest in TWG, I join games with the hopes of finally rolling wolf, because it's so much more awesome to me. I definitely felt disappointment when I saw my role PM, because I think VT fucking sucks. Solving is fun and all that, but having actual strategic actions you can take beyond the you say I say and all the other meta bullshit is almost integral to my enjoyment. Anyone who's ever played with me knows I'm like this, and if you've never played with me and you doubt it, just look at the TWG game I hosted (It was the previous main TWG, we haven't had one since). The whole premise of it was to remove all vanilla roles and have a full game of only power roles. I find mechanics to be just as fun if not more fun than the rest of the game, and I legit dream of the day I will get to be wolf. If you wonder about my previous wolf games, I haven't had any. I replaced once in a complete lost cause (I think the player I replaced was the last wolf and had been seered or something) and I rolled SK once, which was fucking awesome but I got killed by a passive PR power, and it was bullshit.

That being said, there are caveats. While I definitely am disappointed when I don't get a fun role with extra shit, I never join a game if I don't intend to commit no matter what. It's just ass for everyone else if a player doesn't try because they're dissatisfied with the role. While I genuinely attempt to play to my win con, whatever it is, it's also part of why I tend not to defend myself a whole lot in general because I don't feel like it overly matters. I understand that certainty is not something you can ever truly have unless you aren't vanilla and have access to extra information, you just have to wait for flips to have anything, and I'm not hot on that. Also, I notoriously hate playing out d0 for real. I feel like everything is too much of a reach and it's almost stressful to keep up with.

Haku's read on me is fair when it comes to my behavior in general, but any perceived lack of effort or interest is not really due to my role, I'm honestly trying to provide a good game effort. And yeah, I would definitely go for “cool plays” and I'm biding my time for my eventual wolfing. I will answer no question on the subject, but I will probably retire once I finally get to try it out for real. It is what it is.

Ok, that's about it for my catching up. I have individual reads, but I want to post my shit and then go have dinner before I come back. The following post will be about reorganizing voting history and my current headspace.

[Hateandhatred]

Voting chronology: (voter -> voted (current votecount): context)

D0:
Vote #1: MML -> Ara (1): suspicion over ara engaging with leetic on mechanical talks. Seemed reactive to MML and more strategic than engaging.
Vote #2: bugkid -> hate (1): callout vote wanting me to showup due to me failing to be around when I said I would.
vote #3: raeko -> hate (2): vote of pressure because she thought I was ignoring the game (but was obviously busy wallposting).
vote #4: Haku -> bugkid (1): Bothered by the vanilla wolf post, hypothesizing it might be due to first time wolf nerves.
vote #5: MML -> Weiss/sunfan (1): Didn't want to deal with a replacement and would rather solve the inactive, presumably to avoid dealing with a blank slate player for free?
vote #6: raeko -> Weiss/sunfan (2): Claims that it's a borderline shitpost vote just because the last time she did it, I happened to post soon after, despite Weiss not even reading the thread.
vote #7: leetic -> bugkid (2): vote of pressure because bugkid mentionned struggling to wolfread early, which leetic called out as either a lack of effort or a passive wolfing pattern.
vote #8: roundbox -> hate (2): would have voted earlier but thought I was closer to insta than I was. Voted because they were very skeptical of my lack of drive to further press bugkid on my initial question (I've gone over this, but it is what it is).
vote #9: ara -> hate (3): parked a vote on me due to process of elimination, being the only player they were fine voting for other than weiss/sunfan on d0.
vote #10: hate -> weiss/sunfan (3): Was a protective vote because I realized that if I was insta'd, there was a chance I was going to flip vengeful spirit, and I would guarantee the death of another town, so I figured I had to at least aim at something immediately to avoid being lynched without a vengeful target.
vote #11: hate -> bugkid (3): I reacted strongly to their read shift on Raeko, which I interpreted as an obvious performative comment rather than an attempt at engaging with the goal to solve the game.

{The following votes happened with 5 minutes left to EOD}

vote #12: MML -> bugkid (4): was reluctantly hesitating between bugkid and me, would have rather voted Weiss/sunfan, but as Weiss/sunfan was not an option for others, they voted on the current wagons
vote #13: Raeko -> hate (4): No context given, likely a wagon vote. Decided a minute later against it.
vote #14: Raeko -> bugkid (5 – insta'd): claimed she wanted to clear the stressed first time wolf angle.
vote #15: leetic -> hate (4 – didn't count): posted almost simultaneously with raeko's insta, no context given. Previously asked for the wagon'd players to claim PR if they were blue.

Raeko, roundbox and bugkid have all flipped town, so their votes and motives are now confirmed not to carry any wolf agenda. This leaves the following:

Vote #1: MML -> Ara (1)
vote #4: Haku -> bugkid (1)
vote #5: MML -> Weiss/sunfan (1)
vote #7: leetic -> bugkid (2)
vote #9: ara -> hate (3)
vote #10: hate -> weiss/sunfan (3)
vote #11: hate -> bugkid (3)
vote #12: MML -> bugkid (4)
vote #15: leetic -> hate (4 – didn't count)

Votes casted by roundbox, bugkid and raeko targeted me and weiss/sunfan if we exclude themselves, so the two of us have been considered by known non-wolves. Of the remaining players, Haku, Leetic and MML were never targeted. Very minimal pressure on Ara.

Roundbox and Raeko were nightkilled, one by a wolf, one by the vigilante.

D1:

Vote #1: sunfan -> hate (1): Didn't like my EOD, claims it's a vote of pressure.
Vote #2: sunfan -> leetic (1): Immediately rescinds the previous statement, claims that “leetic smells”. Assuming this it referring to gameplay, potentially just about body odour.
Vote #3: ara -> hate (1): vote of pressure, wants me to contribute more.
Vote #4: ara -> sunfan (1): No reason given. I think we can assume the votes so far are fairly non serious.
Vote #5: Haku -> No vote: Will be absent for the rest of the day.

And this is where we currently stand.

I honestly have to vote for Hakulyte as it stands. He's the one who brought up how dangerous it is to not vote and didn't want to park a vote on sunfan despite knowing he will be absent. What I think is going on here is that he thinks there's a chance we won't lynch him because of the fact that he hasn't a vote. He's also being a LOT more involved so far than he was the previous day (which was notoriously off for Haku), and he's many players' top town right now, so I think this comes from a place of safety. He did give the reasoning that sunfan already had a vote and would only vote if ara unvoted, but I don't buy it considering how weak the vote on sunfan actually was, and sunfan lived because of this very principle. All the wolves need to do is pull it off one more day and they probably lock in the game. I do think he's been playing a great, useful game for us. He's kept every single player in his line of suspicion and has only voted for Bugkid in d0. He is in a great position to leverage his trust capital in order to steer the game, and therefore, I think he's the primary lynch candidate for today. If you reread him in iso, it seems to me that there's a good chance he has spent the game farming sympathy and suspicion in equal measure. Knowing Haku very personally, I think that's his gameplan here. At least judging by mechanics and flips, I can't see anything else.

I also think Thesunfan is the other wolf. There's obviously nothing indicating this in the meta, other than the fact that Weiss completely ghosted the game and wolves apparently are demotivated when they roll it. Not only that, but the aforementionned haku plan and behavior works best for him if he's solo wolfing, which is what would have happened during d0 due to the absence of Weiss. I think the threat of parking the vote on sunfan itself is nothing but a soft bussing just in case something went wrong, and even then, he didn't even commit to it, and again, this makes a lot of sense if we look at this behavior like he was justifying it by requesting ara to unvote. The ONLY thing that I don't understand is why we are both alive. I don't know what the freikugel was thinking if both myself and sunfan are alive. It's ok for them to believe that I wasn't a target, but the people who weren't interested in killing me in d0 were definitely interested in killing weiss, due to inactivity and other dynamic. I don't understand how they could pick raeko or roundbox over me and weiss/sunfan, and I think this is much more likely to make sense if sunfan is the freikugel, as they themselves are not an option and it becomes me vs others. However, that also implies that weiss ghosted a game with such a fantastic omega cool role, and while everyone enjoys the game for their own reason, I decide that this isn't likely. I also don't know how sunfan picks either raeko or roundbox here, but sunfan is a galaxy brained player compared to me, so... yeah. I don't think there's a scenario where sunfan is a VT here, so let's proceed with caution, but for now, I think Haku is who I would like to go down.

I will now go eat and expand on things I didn't touch when I'm back, but like, plz don't accuse me of not giving a fuck, I'm trying rly hard to play right especially since I should prolly be doing homework lul

[Hateandhatred]

k brb food have fun reading all this shit

[the sun fan]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

and I rolled SK once, which was fucking awesome but I got killed by a passive PR power, and it was bullshit.

[the sun fan]

catching up now, will have a little time to dedicate to this finally

I don't want to bemoan the fact but I'm having a really difficult time forming reads that really stick in this one; I am relying on meta but I am
1) old as fuck
2) a hypocrite because I've changed my discord avatar a few weeks ago to the guy who coined the chinese proverb about three days being enough to completely lose an impression of someone
3) definitely very bad at the game

in short, I'm just trying to get vibes from people, and that isn't very fair to leetic, because I don't have a ton of experience with him, and it is very unfair to ara, because while I'm sure we've crossed paths in forum before, I only know among us with ara

I don't know that my reads or headspace will be well understood by anyone else

[the sun fan]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

And this is where we currently stand.

I honestly have to vote for Hakulyte as it stands. He's the one who brought up how dangerous it is to not vote and didn't want to park a vote on sunfan despite knowing he will be absent. What I think is going on here is that he thinks there's a chance we won't lynch him because of the fact that he hasn't a vote. He's also being a LOT more involved so far than he was the previous day (which was notoriously off for Haku), and he's many players' top town right now, so I think this comes from a place of safety. He did give the reasoning that sunfan already had a vote and would only vote if ara unvoted, but I don't buy it considering how weak the vote on sunfan actually was, and sunfan lived because of this very principle. All the wolves need to do is pull it off one more day and they probably lock in the game. I do think he's been playing a great, useful game for us. He's kept every single player in his line of suspicion and has only voted for Bugkid in d0. He is in a great position to leverage his trust capital in order to steer the game, and therefore, I think he's the primary lynch candidate for today. If you reread him in iso, it seems to me that there's a good chance he has spent the game farming sympathy and suspicion in equal measure. Knowing Haku very personally, I think that's his gameplan here. At least judging by mechanics and flips, I can't see anything else.

this is kind of defeated by the idea that the team would have to be EXACTLY haku/leetic, and they planned it in wolfchat, otherwise Haku has no point to go through that theater of (mistakenly) asking leetic to move his vote when it wasn't actually on me

I think you pepe silva'd a little too hard with this one, sven

haku can be a wolf (I don't think he is), but even if he is, you are not right for the right reasons

[Hateandhatred]

Originally Posted by the sun fan

this is kind of defeated by the idea that the team would have to be EXACTLY haku/leetic, and they planned it in wolfchat, otherwise Haku has no point to go through that theater of (mistakenly) asking leetic to move his vote when it wasn't actually on me

I think you pepe silva'd a little too hard with this one, sven

haku can be a wolf (I don't think he is), but even if he is, you are not right for the right reasons

bro there is zero reason why haku wouldn't vote because there's a vote on you already, especially since the vote on you is already complete memery. He's the one who brought up that lynching an unvoting VT can result in a guaranteed extra death for town. He also knows that we won't vote him out if he's not voting, even if he's not here to say anything, because that's exactly why we didn't straight up murder weiss on d0. That's something HE brought up, and I don't even care who his partner is or how good the things he says are when the things he's doing are so fucking broken in wolf favor. Maybe I'm tinfoiling a little bit that he never actually intended to vote sunfan, but the fact is he locked in his no-vote.

[the sun fan]

there was a moment before I subbed in, maybe even before I told freezin I could sub (I was not really following the game closely at all I just happened to see it)

I had refreshed the page and Lar called Haku "obviously in his town game" and I didn't like that at the time because it felt too hasty

and then I read Haku's posts

if there is one read that I feel good about this game (and it looks like there might only be one), it is that Haku is town

I won't waste too much more breath on it, but the way that he called out sven for playing too poorly to be a wolf, the post where he was talking about how he could be playing bad (and went further to say he probably was) while considering whether all his reads are wrong
probably several other things along the way too that I've forgotten

this feels like a very solid example of town haku

I know he leveled up his game, and again, "When the clueless Lu Meng is under Wu Kingdom’s nurturing, one must re-evaluate him in a different light."
and all that

it just feels like town haku is my point and that's a read that I don't see fluctuating at all this phase

gg if haku is a wolf prolly

[the sun fan]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

bro there is zero reason why haku wouldn't vote because there's a vote on you already, especially since the vote on you is already complete memery. He's the one who brought up that lynching an unvoting VT can result in a guaranteed extra death for town. He also knows that we won't vote him out if he's not voting, even if he's not here to say anything, because that's exactly why we didn't straight up murder weiss on d0. That's something HE brought up, and I don't even care who his partner is or how good the things he says are when the things he's doing are so fucking broken in wolf favor. Maybe I'm tinfoiling a little bit that he never actually intended to vote sunfan, but the fact is he locked in his no-vote.

he was talking to leetic asking him to move his vote so that he could vote me
what is the point of doing that if his plan all along was to just dip without voting someone? he would just be typing words for no purpose if so

[Hateandhatred]

Originally Posted by the sun fan

he was talking to leetic asking him to move his vote so that he could vote me
what is the point of doing that if his plan all along was to just dip without voting someone? he would just be typing words for no purpose if so

It's a good gamble:

- harmless buss towards you if you're the partner (I don't even care about it being leetic, you, mml, ara or whatever)
- if leetic doesn't unvote, he looks fucking good
- low risk high reward if the strat is to bet on not being lynched due to unvote
- Would still probably not unvote and probably would be fine
- the things he says are good, the things he does are not. One is tangible, the other is literally all deception if wolf

It doesn't matter if haku is an untouchable god to me gameplay wise because he left the game while unvoted and I don't see him in ANY universe allowing this to happen

[MixMasterLar]

Holy wallpost, Batman

Reading now but skimming it, I think it's icky that HnH ises Haku defense of them to the tone of like three paragraphs and then votes him when he knows Haku can't defend himself

Very fucking icky

[Hateandhatred]

except for the one where he's wolfing furiously and laughing his ass off on his way to work expecting a mislynch

[Hateandhatred]

Originally Posted by MixMasterLar

Holy wallpost, Batman

Reading now but skimming it, I think it's icky that HnH ises Haku defense of them to the tone of like three paragraphs and then votes him when he knows Haku can't defend himself

Very fucking icky

It doesn't counter my actual argument man, besides, I didn't mention it but I will now: I could totally be convinced to vote someone else today because of what you just said, but I wouldn't be playing right if I didn't bring up this OBVIOUS implication

I genuinely think this is a legit hakuplan and I find it stupid if you hate me for it because I genuinely believe it's what's going on

[Hateandhatred]

Does nobody else think it's weird in this specific game for HAKU to allow himself not to have a vote, where we all know that if he is VT and we lynch him, there's a 1 in 3 chance to fucking nuke another town, and that he knows we know because he brought it up himself?

I totally understand not wanting to lynch someone that can't defend themselves, but come on?

[the sun fan]

Originally Posted by MixMasterLar

Holy wallpost, Batman

Reading now but skimming it, I think it's icky that HnH ises Haku defense of them to the tone of like three paragraphs and then votes him when he knows Haku can't defend himself

Very fucking icky

bro you voted weiss when that poor bastard I have a green check on couldn't defend himself either

more seriously, this is funny (as in humorous) to see you post this considering I know you were traumatized that one game you got voterushed as an afk blue, but I don't remember you feeling that way about other people being voted when afk?

I could be forgetting
I should probably just stop trying to remember things and go back to vibing

[the sun fan]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

I genuinely think this is a legit hakuplan

...ok I am forced to give this more credence than I initially gave it

[MixMasterLar]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

It's a good gamble:

- harmless buss towards you if you're the partner (I don't even care about it being leetic, you, mml, ara or whatever)
- if leetic doesn't unvote, he looks fucking good
- low risk high reward if the strat is to bet on not being lynched due to unvote
- Would still probably not unvote and probably would be fine
- the things he says are good, the things he does are not. One is tangible, the other is literally all deception if wolf

It doesn't matter if haku is an untouchable god to me gameplay wise because he left the game while unvoted and I don't see him in ANY universe allowing this to happen

I think I don't understand the argument, that or it's absolutely bonkers and you're making it up as you go along

You claim it doesn't matter who Haku's partner is but you re argument is reliant that Haku's partner IS Sunfan
Otherwise why does the non vote matter again?

[MixMasterLar]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

Does nobody else think it's weird in this specific game for HAKU to allow himself not to have a vote, where we all know that if he is VT and we lynch him, there's a 1 in 3 chance to fucking nuke another town, and that he knows we know because he brought it up himself?

I totally understand not wanting to lynch someone that can't defend themselves, but come on?

....he's done it before?

[Hateandhatred]

Originally Posted by MixMasterLar

I think I don't understand the argument, that or it's absolutely bonkers and you're making it up as you go along

You claim it doesn't matter who Haku's partner is but you re argument is reliant that Haku's partner IS Sunfan
Otherwise why does the non vote matter again?

What are you saying dude?!

It doesn't matter who Haku's partner is. I thought it might be sunfan because I see this plan happening with haku solowolfing with afk weiss. But that doesn't matter because it's haku I'm talking about.

Haku KNOWS extremely well that we wouldn't vote him out mechanically if he's unvoted. That's why we didn't want to vote weiss out for you!

If he's wolfing, he's fucking winning because he's now unkillable because we have to live with the risk that a mislynch of him has a 1/3 chance to kill another town - it's not even a loose cannon but a guaranteed extra town death

I don't think town haku EVER leaves this game unvoted. I don't think there's a chance of that ever happening, because he knows if he somehow dies for whatever reason and isn't around to defend himself, and he's the vengeful spirit, he's guaranteed to result into another town death and town loses!