TWG 209: Jeff's Just Here to Party GAME THREAD

[roundbox]

I will probably misspell Lahkesis's name a gazillion times
sorru

[SubaruPoptart]

Apologies for dippin last night, got home from work and spent all my remaining brainpower gettin stuck in BB Code hell for my post to TPS.

My general observations before going to bed was trying to keep track of RB/Star/Freezin's inactive discussions, and quite frankly I did not get much; gonna have to retread those.

That being said after Lahke and Bonehican came in and after wakin up reading through Page 4, I did entirely forget that Blind is still in the game I'm not even going to lie. I like both of Bone's and Lahke's contributions thus far, getting used to this version of the game and askin real good questions. It's also making me feel even better about Star than I already was. I've got a real bad track record of trusting the wrong person (e.g. the last turbo on here) but I Swear Man This Time For Sure.

To Bone I unfortunately cannot fully describe my "style" that I generally use, I try to shake it up as much as I can between games but it generally comes out the same. Pretty much every game I've played before this I ended up gettin too anxious and becoming inactive myself, comin back with big posts that say absolutely nothin. Tryna fix that this game but I don't really have a solid plan to do so cuz it kinda happened again last night

[SubaruPoptart]

I had described the Star/Freezin/RB discussion as a "mindmeld" to myself last night but I'm retreading cuz I don't know how accurate that is

[Tps222]

I'm catching up and will reply to people who responded to me, should be active through end of the day.

[star-crossed]

Bone-

So funny story...I am unsure on respect per se but I do think in this community I have had a pretty unique track record. I have never been voted out as a town player here and I was actually voted off day 0 the only time I was ever a wolf, so they actually have a perfect track record on sorting me out to date. (I have been a wolf in real time formats plenty to be fair, and I am leaving out TWG 200 where my slot had been voted out already and was dead and then sun fan had me replace in as an already dead wolf in what was kind of a fake game...) I think I tend not to get as much pressure as others here, and so in that wolf game it was a combination of responding poorly to pressure due to inexperience with it on top of whatever uncanny valley was coming from my first time jitters. It would be nice for RNGesus to give me a chance to redeem myself here at some stage! I do not even know if other people are even aware this pattern is as severe as it is.

TPS I was saying is vintage because I saw in the history thread he had played in TWG #4, and is now playing TWG #209. Legendary stuff

On Role spec-
The person who mods games here the most here does not like protective roles much so I feel like we do not actually have them that much compared to other sites? Unless the wolves have counters to it. but raeko's preferences could be different.

[SubaruPoptart]

Originally Posted by FreezinIce

I appreciate the dedication to the bit




There's some nuance here that I feel needs to be said. While I've come around from the old days where I just wanted to wholesale toss inactives out early, I feel there needs to be some pressure or threat to draw some of them in.

Yes there are people who are genuinely afk for one reason or another and nothing will change that, but I feel the threat of accumulating votes is needed to keep low activity players who arnt helping solve the game in line, or give them something to respond to (people who don't feel like they have anything to say can usually at least respond defensively to a direct attack or vote). If you take that off the table you could potentially have a bunch of people just not do anything, the high post high effort players cannibalize themselves and it just becomes a dead game where wolves coasting to victory or dying becomes more of a matter of luck. It's a balancing act to maintain, I feel like you also understand this and it will be interesting to see how you put this principle into practice, I will definitely be bringing it up when if or when its relevant come eod.




I multi quoted this, but this feeds back into the previous post. I guess I'll add a few more of my thoughts. If you gave me a gun and told me to shoot anyone alive right now, I think I would never hit someone with 0 posts. Someone who is inactive can always come back, but killing someone freezes their content and people's reactions to it. Even if it feels bad to do like I was saying before, I think you go after people you are either suspicious of or have a lot of interactions with. The trap is it feels like a "waste" to kill someone who is active when inactives are standing right beside them, but the worst case for game health is locking in a kill on a 0 content player and losing a chance to make a kill that can lead to connections and possibly a wolf kill later even if it ends up being a miss. The voting process is also a trove of information that gets wasted when people just park votes on inactives where they don't have to defend their votes because it's seen as "common sense."

I guess I'm still trying to come to grips with where i stand on it atm in a stream of consciousness style. I think I'm mostly on the side of Roundbox in this one.




Just a reiteration of what he said before, I think Roundbox is also trying to find the correct nuance on how to approach this issue. There needs to be some pressure, but it can't be a free ticket for people to just coast on d0 and not have to think or defend their choice of vote.

Cuz after this post is where I had the impression of the "mindmeld"

Originally Posted by roundbox

Star's got a point about not pressuring inactives (and freezin too), so I'll put my money where my mind is and vote it up

This is prolly where I got Star from in the initial observation

Originally Posted by roundbox

less shitposty stance:

I think voting for inactives to drive activity is good, but voting them for elimination because they are purely inactive seems like a waste of vote
I just have seen one to many games where the most inactive player is voted out d1 to little fanfare and movement

I say go big or go home

And this is what I'm assuming rb's referring to in that first one. I feel like I agree with Freezin's paragraph the most, but I've realized I've got too many people in my "I trust you" camp; it's happenin again.

I like Bone and Lahke's resurgences, and I generally feel good about my perceived trio of RB/Star/Freezin, but that's like 5 of the 9 people in here, there's no way it narrows down that nicely. I'm fallin into the "oh inactives aren't here I'm sus of them cuz they're not here" mentality and I kinda don't wanna.

Jinx is the only person who's posted that I'm still not really confident on; not just cuz I don't know em. They've made good effort which makes me wanna feel good about em but that'd then make 6 of the 9 people in the game "chillin" to me. I'm also real curious to see what TPS has to say since I did see they're catchin up too

[SubaruPoptart]

Jinx is the only person who's posted that I'm still not really confident on; not just cuz I don't know em.

Oh with that last part I think I phrased it wrong: I'm not feeling confident but it's not because I don't know them might've been a better way to put that.

[SubaruPoptart]

With that all being said as well the only person I'd be fine keeping in my "sus of them cuz they're not here" mentality is Blind, I don't know if I've ever actually played a game with him. Giving him the credit of he's busy and such but I don't know how strong that is at this point

[LastOfTheBonehicans]

I think thats all fair. Day 1 is always tough because there isn't a ton to read off of.

My gut tells me look at whose active for the sake of active. No real insight is added but they can say "look i participated."

Now totally get its a Saturday and people have lives. But I feel like there have been posts that are here for the sake of keeping the username fresh in our minds.

Again you all would know more if that is out of the ordinary for some of these fine folks, but right now I am leaning blindreper or tps

Tps is getting my vote right now because they asked, what I felt were good questions. Then poof and when they did come back it was "I'll answer later"

With nothing much to go off of, my read there is:

1. You are asking questions and playing, but then fading back. Most aren't going to bat an eye at it, but if im playing wolf, I want to be active enough to say I am here but not enough to put a target on my back.

2. The posts of, will read later catch up soon, it just seems like activity for activities sake. Another reason for your username to show up and make people think at first glance "you're here"

I, also, feel like in a 2 wolf game, there will be one driver of conversation and another that's just there to prevent overlap or accusations of collusion.

That is my very little evidence day 1 vote and the logic behind it.

Now pick it apart!!! Lol

[Tps222]

Originally Posted by star-crossed

I swear I've seen Tps, Lahke, and Bonehican's names before but I can't quite remember when/where/why, that's prolly on me LMAO.

Curious to know if y'all also play other Mafia sites cuz I'm pretty self-contained to FFR, and even then I really only dip into TWG every now and then.

Hi! I used to play TWG here a bunch a long time ago, so maybe we intersected somewhere along the way. I'm selfishly a little glad that this format seems to be more of a classic style as that helps.

Originally Posted by roundbox

Otherwise, there's not much to catch up on. It's just d0 stupid banter and randomly landing on someone to vote out
It's the good ole arbitrarium

The best way, there should be so much good info to mine from the chaos near the end of the voting day.

Originally Posted by star-crossed

I am not sure if I know exactly what you mean by metas. Mystery mostly means that we don't have any public info on what the roles are. Since raeko said there is nothing crazy, it is more likely that there are two mafia and the rest town, and a lack of unusual roles or mechanics.

Some mystery games we have done kind of recently are:
.

Yeah by metas I meant more like role configurations or what's considered stripped down in modern TWG. This list was super helpful, thanks!

Originally Posted by LastOfTheBonehicans

Anyway, seeing how this is my first game with all of you (well many of you)... when given the normal vanilla townie tag, how do all of you traditionally act?

Traditionally I used to make outlandish claims or irrational votes just to provoke reactions to gather data over time to compare against, but then it lead to me getting voted out of a lot of D1s, so I had to curb it eventually lol.

Now I'm just more interested in seeing how people react when either the votes begin to pile on in rapid succession or when time is running out near the end of the day.

[Tps222]

Ok, 10 hours to go right? I think this is the current vote count after all the flips:

star-crossed - 2 (blind, subaru)
blindreper - 2 (starcrossed, roundbox)
roundbox - 1(freezin')

Hasn't voted: Jinxgrace, Tps, Lahkesis, LotB,


vote progression (vote change number):

1. blind->star
2. star->Subaru
3. subaru->star
4. freezin->roundbox
5.round->lahkesis
6.star->blind(1)
7. round->blind(1)


Star and Blind have both changed their votes once. I'm going to put a questioning vote on Roundbox for adding a 2nd vote on to Blind, seems weird to meme vote a 2nd vote on someone, you were just messing around right?

[Tps222]

Originally Posted by star-crossed

Now pick it apart!!! Lol

Whoops sorry I took a long time trying to read through yesterdays posts, our timing did make me lol that you also honed in on Blind, seems to be a popular target at the moment.

I wanted to add that Roundbox was one of the only people who didn't revenge vote Freezn' (twice), which I meant to include in my last post but forgot.

[star-crossed]

Originally Posted by roundbox

I did give him a tiny shoutout, but iunno how else to react to Freezin making declarations for his own game
regrettably I wasn't interacting in real time(TM), but now that everyone has tossed in their 2c, this game is for real

So tiny it was parenthetical! I guess I am still a little surprised you had no follow up with that when he is saying he is trying to make a special effort to get things from you.

Originally Posted by Lahkesis

I did agree when I read this that I found bonehican's way of describing his inactives theory a bit strange...but idk how I would parse what the "intent" would be...is it considered like possible reverse psychology to come off this way first post? Or is he describing his ideas as a hypothetical scenario almost from like a 3rd person PoV...interesting.

As per roundbox, I feel that yeah I could either go 50% towards "he must be up to something with coming out in his first posts with that style," or either like you said, "he's just being jovial and trying to stir up the pot a bit to get posting rolling along" Something worth addressing as the day progresses but it feels too early right now to lay the pressure.



As for like...something to contribute otherwise...

I don't know if I've seen anyone really try to address hypothetical ideas when it comes to the possible roles out there, other than stating it's a mystery game.

As in...what kind of roles seem likely with a game consisting of 9 players, when the host themselves have said it's mostly a pure vanilla kind of game.

^Does it seem more likely that there would be two wolves or one? I cannot imagine there being more than two wolves max, and I bet theyre vanilla wolves if anything. I would think one wolf is too vulnerable. Not to mention that the host posted that there is a wolf chat rule that's always on....Given the number of players and this alone, I'm somewhat convinced that there are a total of 2 wolves.

If there's 2 wolves then I'm guessing there is but one blue role floating out there somewhere. That's why there won't be any claim bc who would protect them.

In terms of blue roles, I'm guessing it's either a guard or a seer...but I'm leaning towards a guardian. A seer seems perfectly possible, but I feel like this would cause the game to advance too quick rather than leave us in the dark....too many questions would be solved way too quick with a seer imo...

Unless the possible blue roll is something out of mafia that is more obscure I don't know.

I'll be back with more soon when Im back at my pc.

I guess a potential actionable item if we are speculating that there is a fair chance of there beiing a seer is whether we want to make a plan to all give "if I'm the seer, my check was X" tomorrow. It seems like it would be better to decide that beforehand.

Originally Posted by LastOfTheBonehicans

Seems like there was a debate on what to do with inactive vs active is what I missed.

So here's comes some thoughts from someone who was just inactive... lucky me!

I have always felt that an inactive is your safe bet vote. Like "oh no, I dont want to stir the pot, so let's vote that person who isn't posting much!"

The inactive may come out and try to defend like oh no I am sorry, but if the train is coming its too late. I have seen it where:

oh they must be a wolf because they arent even defending themselves all that hard!

But honestly, you flipped green townie. Your power is to vote. You have 4 votes against you for missing a post. Whose making a FDR speech to save themselves there?

I think the tell is, who is trying to start that train on an inactive? Its an easy day 1 Lynch that doesn't require any real dialogue and usually leads to an 0-2 start for the humans with no new info on day 2.

I dont think there really is any context where the inactive on day 1 is fishy. People have work, people have lives, people may not have gotten to the forum in time. And usually a cool role makes someone more active because they have some power.

I dont get a vibe that the conversation on the inactives was an attempt to vote them out. But something to watch for if we are getting closer to night and it starts turning that way.

I mean, an obvious reason it can be attractive to vote off inactive people early on that you sort of just glossed over, especially in a game where the mod is admittedly having trouble finding any substitutes, is that you generally have no reason to think you can rely on them to help you vote wolves or to prove themselves innocent. Whether they have lives or not.

Originally Posted by SubaruPoptart

Apologies for dippin last night, got home from work and spent all my remaining brainpower gettin stuck in BB Code hell for my post to TPS.

My general observations before going to bed was trying to keep track of RB/Star/Freezin's inactive discussions, and quite frankly I did not get much; gonna have to retread those.

That being said after Lahke and Bonehican came in and after wakin up reading through Page 4, I did entirely forget that Blind is still in the game I'm not even going to lie. I like both of Bone's and Lahke's contributions thus far, getting used to this version of the game and askin real good questions. It's also making me feel even better about Star than I already was. I've got a real bad track record of trusting the wrong person (e.g. the last turbo on here) but I Swear Man This Time For Sure.

To Bone I unfortunately cannot fully describe my "style" that I generally use, I try to shake it up as much as I can between games but it generally comes out the same. Pretty much every game I've played before this I ended up gettin too anxious and becoming inactive myself, comin back with big posts that say absolutely nothin. Tryna fix that this game but I don't really have a solid plan to do so cuz it kinda happened again last night

Originally Posted by SubaruPoptart

I had described the Star/Freezin/RB discussion as a "mindmeld" to myself last night but I'm retreading cuz I don't know how accurate that is

Ummm if you want a little unsolicited advice, I do not actually know if reading into the inactive discussion is probably going to help you too much, since a lot of it is theoretical. (Unless you have a way of tying it to us having a motivation in this game to protect or attack certain other people?) My observation was that roundbox has a progression over time of spinning his wheels w/r/t inactives and updating us on it as a way of engaging with the game to start off with, and that Freezin attempted to analyse that. I did not really see any of it as mindmelding, myself. I have a fairly neutral view on both of them, but if I was going to vote one off the island based on what has happened so far, I would pick Freezin on vibes.

I would suggest you might more organically glean something more recent conversations. Or maybe dive more into another lens of looking at us 3, because you admit that you kind of like us but think that you like too many people?

Originally Posted by LastOfTheBonehicans

2. Nothing that can lean one way or another. But first impressions are as follows.

You - seem like an active prescence here. Not afraid to drive conversation and ask questions. Probably are very well respected in this community and game, so that could be something to keep an eye on if a sketchy charge is led by you. However, says more town than wolf. You're not stirring the pot, but you aren't hiding behind false activity.

Tps - asking decent questions if this is the first they're playing here. Trying to get a vibe of the community or playstyles. Nothing shouting either way. But, also no follow up post questions. Enough to be present and point to if called out, but nothing deeper than surface level.

Subaru - hard read here. One second I am thinking sketchy and the next I think they're fine. Similar to your take, they are trying to see other sides which would either say 1. Being careful and logical or 2. Not trying to stir up trouble. I lean towards 1 right now

Lehkesis - you could make a jump that he was borderline defensive there, but it would lean towards safe. Its an easy thing to point to and say you're half. You're nitpicking trying to get a quick lynch. However, first post being that aggressive?

(Not saying they were aggressive but more so than a typical "howdy fellow town folks" you'd see)

Jinx - kind of beat around the bush on a i would never kill an inactive but we should pressure them. I tend to lean towards an inactive losing interest because they didn't get a role or something happened to them irl.

Now if someone was inactive for a phase or 2 and magically decided ok let's play this like Bobby Fischer, then yeah sketchy. Still engaged in real debate though, so nothing weird per se yet.

Freezin - active and is toeing the line between chit chat and engaged game talk. Nothing weird here.

Roundbox - similar to Freezin. Both are giving off decent vibes or at least neutral right now.

Blindreper - the only one that if I had to choose right now this second id say maybe. Posted enough to give the optics of playing, but nothing said had any substance to it. More of wait and see... time zones could play a factor and it was early game.

I think i hit everyone.

Ok I actually wanted to come back to this. Uhh...hmm, I guess I would be interested to see you interact more with Roundbox and Freezin, from this.

I think I maybe agree least with the description of Jinx. Do you mind looking at their posts again and maybe giving examples? Trying to understand why you think this.

[LastOfTheBonehicans]

Sure!

Page 1:
Freezin and roundbox talked. Mostly chit chat but roundbox said let's not vote out inactives.

(Which sure i glossed over they arent contributing and wont help us get the wolves out... but its a weak argument. Sure they may not help, but if they truly are inactive the likelihood of them being a wolf, especially when that is always the first call out, probably slim)

Page 2:

You call out the inactive comment. And it is defended. Where the minor debate begins on inactive votes vs letting them stay.

Roundbox does not back down. Context is talked about but roundbox stuck to their guns here. I lean towards nah. I tend to agree with that sentiment because every forum, discord, etc. I have ever played on... kill the phoni.... inactives is the first thing that happens.

Its an easy lynch for the wolves.

Page 3:

The debate continues bur freezin going thebfight. Taking the stance against roundbox providing their insight on it. Very similar to where you lean. We would rather have players who drive content than rando silient people. That has merit to it, i just always feel like that puts greens down 2 with nothing to go off of.

Page 4:

Roundbox is providing thoughts and insight. Answers the question on playstyle typically as a human. Which from those who have played with them before, if that description matches and its what they are doing right now... well more creedance there. Its why I asked describe yourself. If someone gives an odd description that doesn't sound right to the vets well hmmm.

Page 5:

Neither really have posted yet.

So the fact that they were willing to actually provide thoughts gives me a neutral vibe. I dont think they are acting together because they disagreed and debated, but both points have merit.

So to get some activity going:

Freezin, if you had to take a stab at someone right now, who and why?

As for roundbox, I think you have provided some good insight on your thoughts and have not danced around anything. What are your thoughts on who seems the most fishy thus far?

[SubaruPoptart]

Originally Posted by star-crossed

Ummm if you want a little unsolicited advice, I do not actually know if reading into the inactive discussion is probably going to help you too much, since a lot of it is theoretical. (Unless you have a way of tying it to us having a motivation in this game to protect or attack certain other people?) My observation was that roundbox has a progression over time of spinning his wheels w/r/t inactives and updating us on it as a way of engaging with the game to start off with, and that Freezin attempted to analyse that. I did not really see any of it as mindmelding, myself. I have a fairly neutral view on both of them, but if I was going to vote one off the island based on what has happened so far, I would pick Freezin on vibes.

I would suggest you might more organically glean something more recent conversations. Or maybe dive more into another lens of looking at us 3, because you admit that you kind of like us but think that you like too many people?

Nah any advice is fantastic, thank you! I had made the first half of that before I saw Bone and Lahke had came back in so there's definitely some more recent stuff to run off of, you're right on that.

I'll try and look into you three a lil more thoroughly, might need some coffee. Surface-level from what I've read thus far, I'm not sure how I feel between RB and Freezin specifically so I'll have to read them the most for sure. My short-term is shite so idk if Freezin's done more than what I quoted but at this point with the information I got RB and Freezin are the two of that trio I need to do more work on.

Tryna send it a lil more this game cuz I'll spend like 45 minutes proofreading one post worryin about my wording way more than I already am here and then miss like Everything in the middle of 17 tabs of quotes.

Baseline reads list to get the ball rollin for myself,

Star I'm feeling the best about, pushin analysis and assisting in others' analysis; very towny vibe of taking charge to me. Every other game I've played I've gotten pocketed by someone like this but like I said before This Time For Sure Man. Y'know at least til stuff flips and we get info but I'm confident it'll stay like this.

Freezin/RB are both in their own lil boats, I've liked their contributions but like I said I need to get some more nuance going on what their deals are. I feel I'm gonna have the hardest time with RB cuz I cannot read this man for shit he's a gamer and a half. Contributed a lot, addressed questions that came to him etc. but his vibe is not as strong with me and I hate goin off of vibes.

Bone's read list kinda rings similar to mine lookin at it. I do like your posting style; concise, straight to the point messages that are pokin and prodding while also still addressing other things asked to you.

Lahke's two posts are very promising to me, I'd forgotten what was in em til re-reading em and I do like them pushin RB to elaborate on the inactive thing when that was still pertinent.

TPS I'm puttin hard null til I see more, did a votecount on his own which I was lowkey just about to do when I saw it, is definitely providing insight but still reading to my understanding so I'll figure you out after I untangle The Trio.

Jinx I was feeling pretty good about at first, but like I had said initially I do kinda wanna see more. There's not really much to this one cuz I can't glean much going through their posts.

And Blind isn't here so yeah.

How do you get to the page where you can see each person's number of posts and then isolate it to their posts only again as well? Been years since I've used it and I forgot how to navigate the forums but that'll prolly make the process easier for me

[LastOfTheBonehicans]

And to answer the Jinx question:

Thank you for calling that out. I think i misunderstood at first as their original post was on a different page and tried to read it back.

They were not wishy wishy.

[TWG Jeff Probst]

Originally Posted by LastOfTheBonehicans

Again you all would know more if that is out of the ordinary for some of these fine folks, but right now I am leaning blindreper or tps

Tps is getting my vote right now because they asked, what I felt were good questions. Then poof and when they did come back it was "I'll answer later"

Please use [twgv] tags around the name of the person you want to vote for! Sorry for our ancient forum tech

Vote count (including this vote):
star-crossed - 2 (SubaruPoptart, blindreper)
blindreper - 2 (star-crossed, roundbox)
roundbox - 1 (Freezin)
TPS - 1 (LastOfTheBonehicans)

Has not voted: Lahkesis, JinxGrace, TPS

[Tps222]

oh thanks, realized I didn't tag my vote on roundbox from my earlier post.

I think I've always used [color=red][b] open/closed for votes actually, so this feels futuristic to me lol

[SubaruPoptart]

Jinx speakin of twgv. I don't like usin votes to push but if anyone from my initial reads I'm stickin it on them, apologies for immediately invalidating the votecount LMAO

[JinxGrace]

Originally Posted by star-crossed

Survivor is a reality game TV series that is getting close to reaching 50 U.S. seasons where people travel to an island, compete in challenges and vote each other off of the island. Jeff Probst is the host of it and so this game is kind of themed around it. There are some other countries that have their own version of the show too. raeko offered us the option of basically competing to win role powers, but we are instead playing a more standard game. The TV show also has immunity challenges where you can gain safety from being voted off, so the idea was that whoever the best artist was, we would consider not voting out of the game D0. Haha.

In a short game style where everybody is there together at the same time, I do not feel this as much. But in a TWG game D0, I really want to get things moving as soon as possible to having an atmosphere where we have a fair chance at getting a wolf out. But because you generally start without info, I feel that you can often get started by kind of nitpicking things that you might not care about if it were later on in a game. Basically whatever out of what has happened so far, that I can see they might have had a different approach to as one alignment or the other. So the getting the conversation going can feel forced to me even from my side, and then you are trying to evaluate if other people are forcing things to advance the game state because they too don't know anything, or if they are faking it. It is also sort of anxiety yes, but more about not wanting to let down whoever I am sided with.

That actually sounds like a really cool mechanic. I was thinking survivalist like a role in the game. Mangahelpers is more mechanic + role heavy bases. We rarely have vanilla style. MU actually gave me the chance to play more vanilla style games as I learned things that I didn’t know about myself on my home site.

Forced to me is different because with mafia vs town. Not sure how to explain it but it’s more obvious after a game is over.

Haven’t caught up but a part of me is afraid I’m going to forget to vote. (Irl stuff) on lunch rn.

@Freeze you seem to be different then the fruit game, is there a reason?