Well, as to the game roles, I was half expecting somebody (Hector, at first - and I was very nearly considering TMS in this role later!) somehow had the power to target a person and become a man-in-the-middle. First of all blocking everything, and then perhaps even capable of fully faking communications with 'the others', if not just hijacking messages in both directions to suit their own agenda.
Interesting to see that Hector's role was
partially of this kind... or could have been! With Fallacy having other bits to it.
Luckily, I decided that it would have been too complicated a mechanism to work out, so I went more with my gut than my paranoia.
Note, above, for those I didn't already tell:"(n) Negotiate: You may choose to send your message to the Evil role. It can be anonymous, and they will not know they were contacted using a power." Thought that meant "Night power". Didn't use it Day 1, and didn't have anything else to message, so I ended up not doing so.
To save the Mod their sanity, I'll reveal my own role in the more abnormal bits of the message log:
First attempt, Day 2, as Fallacy knows (but I was worried that a good-guy had message-receiving capabilities!) was to pretend to be a secret mason-buddy, restricted post ('Twitter theme', seemed like it would work) to explain the anonymity, to try to get the Evil role to broadcast the word "Tweet" on the open channel so we could identify each other. Never happened (that I saw!).
So I tried again. Faked my inability to contact anybody (well, played upon the
real situation that only Hector was talking to me, by that point... which was making me suspicious of Hector) in a 'broadcast' message (but really to just the Evil role) desperately asking for confirmation. That one netted a Urist (but only once we were in Day 3)... but I still couldn't be
sure there wasn't a redirect. But it was the best lead I had, and with the vote-counts as they were at end of Day 2 I decided it was worthwhile.
Then my first trap sprang upon FoU, apparently. (Don't know if you only just discovered that... but of course there
was no Open Channel communications at that time.) But it wouldn't have worked if the role-list, as revealed by TMS, had made its way outside the rest of the group.
On a balance note, I think negotiator nuked me.
More by good luck than good judgement. My problem
then was being persuasive whilst, at the same time, not revealing too much information that the hypothetical non-FoU evil person could use. (Although I utterly spilt the beans to Hector, in compensation for the assumed error of Day 2! If I'd been wrong about being wrong, and I'd have been originally right, I'd have scuppered everything! And then TMS gave me cause for some slight doubt, although I pushed those doubts aside by the end. TBF definitely looked legit, by that point, but then there was the difficulty of saying anything without it unavoidably leaking!)
The Secret ability of Fallacy explains how the entirely fictitious Loremaster role was still receiving messages, I suppose. Obvious in hindsight. But 'WTF is a Loremaster?' was my thinking. Although as "a teller of tall tales", it was easy to believe it had some dark purpose behind it. The disadvantage of having to make up a themed name, as usual.
(You will have gotten another brief, anonymous, message, by my skill. Designed to teasingly look like a brief reply that went astray, I wonder if you thought it was the Impersonation skill that grabbed it, if you'd worked that part out by then. Although it nearly backfired, as then TMS asked for a "confirmation reply" (straight after the "dim" one!) that looked
very alike to what I thought I'd sent in this last case... making it look like TMS was perhaps taunting me, as the Evil who had worked out what I was doing. And had perhaps somehow managed to persuade Fallacy to frame themselves, along the way. Confusing!)
Don't know how many (if any?) Imitated messages came my way under a different guise, though. Or headed elsewhere. I'd already decided that I couldn't handle that sort of complication, and just tossed that possibility to one side. (But
maybe my developed habit of signing/timestamping my messages could have helped, in a fix. Although it could so easily have backfired, too!)
I really didn't like this round.
It was certainly a challenge. I had severe headaches (pretty much!) trying to get my head around the concept, until maybe half way through Day 2. And even
after that, I had niggles of doubt and pangs of remorse that I hadn't even done anything useful Day 1, through whatever error I had made. I was luckier than I deserved to be, in some of what I did. (Although I wonder, if I had managed to help lynch Hector, Day 2, who would have ended up "In The Flesh"ed. Could have gone either way, from there on!)