I'll do a full breakdown of everything tomorrow, but there were a few things that could have made life easier for the town.
1) Zathras inspecting Org would have outed him.
2) Jim or Jokerman inspecting Zathras would have outed him (had Jokerman taken a scanner, anyway)
3) Dariush wasn't just a fake doppelganger. He was also mentally unstable. If actual blood had been spilled, either by Zathras killing or Toonyman getting lynched, he'd have snapped and started killing people for real which would have altered the game dramatically.
It was tough, yes, but Bastards always are. And Zathras could have lost night 1 if Jim had been paranoid about his 'teammates'. Which was a very real possibility. Jokerman certainly was, since he took all defensive techs.
I think I'd been safe from a scanner if Jokerman had taken it, since I had an anti-tech field, and the possibility of a Jim inspection is what motivated me to claim kook to him D1. I also tried to defuse that by threatening to inspect
him N1, and getting him into the "that's too paranoid and unproductive" frame of mind so he wouldn't do it to me. The biggest break I had was Jokerman's generosity in sharing his shield with me, otherwise I'd have fallen N1 to Toaster's attack.
Meph: regarding Dariush's instability, were Org's guns real? Was Janus' blood actually spilled, and would that have been enough to make Dariush go postal? Other than that, this was a
bloodless game, which one does not see often...
And shame on you for trying to manipulate me to suspect Jokerman-EXE.
Yeah, sorry. I did feel bad about it, and about lying through my teeth to Toaster, but it was sort of required. As I said earlier, it was the most devious I've ever played, but I felt there was no other way, and I'd be utterly screwed if the game lasted to N3 (or if Leaf turned out not to be Human, or if Toaster had betrayed our chat before hanging, or if I had tried to inspect Org, or a number of other combinations; I did get lucky).
PPE: Wow, yeah, good call Dariush! 8-)
But yeah, the PMs. I asked Jim and Toaster for confirmation that they didn't mind, and Jim responded above; I've not heard from Toaster, but I'll assume he's OK with it.... Feel free to post others, comment, berate me, or whatever.
You arrive in the Simulation complex and are directed to an office to receive your role for the exercise.
The Project Leader shakes your hand and has you sit down. He then opens up a folder.
“Greetings, Agent. As part of your training, we’re going to have you partake in a Doppelganger Infestation Simulation. Your goal in this simulation is to correctly identify the Doppelgangers.”
“During the Night Phase you will be able to move about the facility and observe the other participants. Use your training to identify the doppelgangers and work with the ‘town’ to eliminate them without being caught.”
“Two other Agents are working with you in this Simulation. Jokerman-EXE and Jim Groovester. Good luck to all of you!”
Thinking to yourself
‘This is too funny. They have no idea that I’m actually a doppelganger! I’ll get firsthand experience at their training, and my infiltration will let me assist my brethren out in the world escape notice! I just need to get through this without attracting too much attention.
This could be dangerous, however. I’m going to have to feed at least once every 3 days, and that’s going to cause an uproar in a controlled study like this. I’ll have to be careful. At least I have my Anti-Tech Field to help avoid the scrutiny of the security cameras.’
2) You may either perform a night kill OR do an inspection, not both.
3) You are the only ACTUAL doppelganger that you are aware of participating in this simulation.
Note that your win condition is simply surviving the game without being detected. You don't need to kill everyone, although you do need to kill at least once every 3 days to satiate your bloodlust. So you can go nights 1 & 2 without killing, but you'll have to try to kill starting at night 3 until you succeed. Once you succeed you can again avoid killing for two nights before you need to feed again.
Jokerman-EXE swings by and drops off his Personal Shield.
He did!? Wow... didn't expect him to. I'd feel too much like an asshole if I NK him now...
[...]
Given that I'm squeaky clean after yesterday's mislynch, the controlled nature of the study, and my survivor-like win condition, I think the safest choice for me is to inspect someone tonight. I haven't decided yet whom, but I will soon - please don't end the night until I send it, I won't keep you waiting long.
- If I choose to kill, and am targeted by a telepath, they'd get a "Kill" result instead of the default "Find", yes? Yes
- If I choose to kill, but I'm targeted by both a warden and a telepath, the warden would block my kill, would then the telepath get the default "Find" or my aborted-but-intended "Kill"? A Kill result
- Would my shiny new personal shield protect me against daykill/morningkill assassin bots? I'm protected anyway by the ATF, but would the shield do it on its own? Since I do have the ATF, then the shield wouldn't even be used up if I was targeted by a bot, yes? The shield would not be used up in that case, since the anti-tech field would protect you and [the bot would] not be used up
- What's the deal with Leafsnail and truth? Yeah, yeah, you can't say. I'm hellishly curious, though. You'd have to ask him.
Hey Meph, that was an interesting day end. Couple of questions:
- The game is over when the simulated dopps are found, yes? As far as you know, yes
- Let's say only one remains. If he explodes himself on a deadman bomb, he dies, game over, yes? As far as you know, yes
- If I NK the last simulated dopp, then the game is also over, yes? Even though the players will know they allowed an undercover dopp to escape? Unknown
Fun game so far!
Man, those are some particularly scummy tech choices of Jokerman, aren't they? I'm forming some interesting theories about the nature of the agent team... I'd welcome your views.
Uhh, yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking. It's about the most self-preservationist loadout I can think of.
On the other hand, if he's planning on sharing the tech with us, then it's a better loadout, but I still don't understand the Advanced Holoform Modulator, or why he didn't consult with us beforehand.
Let's hear what he has to say. It might not be as bad as it looks. Since he knows our roles let's hope it isn't.
Well, he has spoken... not that it helped him much. He doesn't seem the sharing type either. In any case, a thought: isn't an Agent Operative supposed to be an alien? Shouldn't he have sort of claimed that on the quicktopic? What I'm thinking is that he's an Exterminator masquerading as an Agent Op, sort of undercover thing. His tech choices are ideal for a paranoid exterminator, yes?
Assuming you agree, what should be done about this? I don't want to confront him on the QT yet, and if we out him on the thread we are outing ourselves too... hmmm, merits more thought.
Let's not immediately jump to the worst scenario possible. There are a bunch of questions we can ask him and should be asking first. [...] In any case, I think hoping for the best is our best course of action right now.
Yes, grilling him seems to be the best course of action. I'm surprised he claimed he's not an alien, but he has that much tech (1 med, 2 small), and an Op is supposed to be an alien: I don't buy it. Surprisingly he seems now willing to share. Any thoughts on that?
[...]
2) Regarding my attack on MBP: I don't want to claim on thread, but I'm also a kook (funny flavour about being an ugly Agent. Thanks Meph...). That's one of the reasons I suspect MBP's claim, gambler's fallacy notwithstanding; the other reasons being that he's the only one that claimed it, and that he's scummy already. I would prefer it remain unknown to the thread at large for the moment, if you don't mind, but it seems to be a good idea to let someone know now, and you already know everything else.
Overall, there's too much Joker's not telling us (alien? Op? tech? flavour? wincon? and so on) for us to assume he is not dangerous and lying through his teeth. But we don't seem to have many tools to address this, and his bomb makes it dangerous to out him on thread. Maybe tomorrow, depending on how the night plays out.
You're pretty damn paranoid.
Since tech can be shared, we can easily confirm what tech choices he took by asking him to hand them over temporarily. And if it comes to it, we can ask that he give over the Deadman Bomb and Personal Shield to us separately, and suddenly we become very unattractive targets for him if he does have a killing role.
The bit about you being kook is interesting. I'll keep that in mind while looking at MBP.
Meph, how does tech sharing work? Does a player have to PM you, and then you'll send us back a PM about getting a piece of tech?
Obviously, yeah, we should discuss it. The people I'm thinking about inspecting are ToonyMan and JTF. I think there's a pretty good chance that JTF is scum and there's a pretty good chance he can be lynched tomorrow so I don't really see the need to inspect him. ToonyMan I'm kind of unsure about so I think he's a good choice. After I send this PM I'm going to tell Meph that that's who I'm going to inspect. Thoughts? Who are your picks?
I agree JTF should be lynchable tomorrow and thus not a priority target. I think Toony is a good choice for you. Me? Toaster and Leafsnail both seem like good choices. I would, however, like to inspect you. Do you think that's a bad idea? Is there a reason I shouldn't, other than there being other targets?
I'm not ready to commit to a choice yet. I'll mull it over for a bit, and discussion is welcome. I'm also partial to thinking sanities should be fine, as you say, but I guess we'll see. Famous last words indeed.
Me? I won't stop you if you want to, but I'm not hiding anything. I'm an Agent, full stop. If you get any result other than human than your sanity will definitely be messed up, and I'm going to have to wonder about mine.
I do think it would be better spent elsewhere, but if you really want to, what can I do about it?
So, Joker either has the modulator and really doesn't want to part with it, or has something else and doesn't want to admit it. But he parted with the shield & bomb. This screams that he's more afraid of the inspection than of a NK, which can only mean he's one of the targets we must finger to win. I see no way around this.
The biggest obstacles to get him lynched are a) his bomb, which you now have; and b) that it'd probably require at least one of us to claim to get support from others. Let's see how the night transpires, but if we fail to get consensus on Janus, it may be worthwhile to consider outing him D2.
[...]
I'll go with Toaster for my inspection, and will message Meph shortly about it. You sent your inspect for ToonyMan, yes? All things being equal, we can inspect Leaf and Org N2.
You have any idea what happened over the night?
I got Alien result on ToonyMan. If it's accurate, I'd say he's probably a Survivor from the way he played during Day 1. Or a Hivemind. Roughly Survivorish is how I expect somebody would play Hivemind.
Gaaah! Yes, I know why there was no kill: I was attacked! Don't know who it was. Shield is gone, but it saved my ass. Sometimes I hate being right. Ought to post a "thank you Jokerman" to the chat.
Inspection results: Toaster is dopp!
Shit... now we have an abundance of targets: Toaster, Janus, Joker... where to start?
That's not good.
Here's what I think you should do in the immediate future: Act like you don't know what happened. If you reveal that you had a Personal Shield you'll get lots of ugly questions and you'll be targeted again during Night 2. Let the dopps think there's a Guardian out there so they'll search for him instead of taking a whack at you again.
And we have some other things to talk about. What do you want to do about Jokerman-EXE? Since there was no second kill I think it's highly unlikely that he could be anything other than an Agent Operative. The amount of tech definitely suggests Operative, but no second kill during the night means that he's not an Exterminator Operative. I know there are other possibilities, but I find most of them unlikely. I'm leaning towards it being likely that we can talk openly in our quicktopic about our results and it won't be a problem, even if Jokerman-EXE isn'g going to be helpful. I've asked him a bunch of questions. Hopefully we'll be able to resolve this finally.
Our results seem odd as well. We seriously hit a dopp and an alien on Night 1? We're either damned good or our sanities are messed up somehow (but how would they be messed up?), or Toaster's a kook or he's really good at being scum. I'm thinking that, for the moment, we can't trust our results, so let's just play with what the day game turned up for now. [We are damned good, Jim darling.]
Hey Toaster.... guess what?
I know who you are.
A Bastard is quite bastardly, though, and I have puzzle-related reasons not to be in a hurry to share my knowledge with the thread just yet.[...]
As I said, I know a few things. Like who you are. And some others. If we establish a conversation, you can judge for yourself whether what I know is useful or truthful enough for you to trust it. But if you're not interested, that's OK too, tell me and I'll go away. I'm sure others would like to hear about this instead.
If you'd like to talk about it, start with what we both know: your race and win condition. I'll reciprocate, and we can then decide if we should go into more detail. How does that sound?
Obviously you think I'm a dopp. The only (known) role that would want to cooperate with them is a survivor- and they wouldn't be able to know anyone else's alignment (unless they took a scanner instead of a shield for some oddball reason.) Therefore, I must assume you are some oddball bastard-only role.
You got me, though- I am a dopp, with the standard dopp wincon (as best as I can tell). What about yourself?
You got me too, I'm a bastard version of a survivor. I'm an Agent Operative, but my wincon is not "town wins", but merely "survive to the end". My agent inspected you last night, and told me about it; that's how I know.
Good beginning. Should we try some more? If you tell me who your team targeted for the kill last night, I can tell you why it didn't work.
Eventually, I suppose you'd like me to tell you who my agent is. I'm not ready to do that yet, but maybe later, depending on how the conversation goes. My main objective in contacting you was to privately verify what my agent told me, and to deliver a message to the dopps: a) I have a Deadman Bomb; b) you don't need to kill me, go knock on someone else's door.
You, obviously. I'm guessing shield?
Yup.
Why hasn't the agent outed me? Did you take shield/bomb/bot, and he wants you to kill me tonight?
No comment on my other tech choices, beyond the bomb, but in general let's say I'm more concerned with not being killed than with killing, and I made my choices before knowing my agent. As for my agent's state of mind, I'm not sure. I think he suspects his sanity, and there may be something bastardly going on with his wincon that I don't know, but in any case he's not the sharpest tool on the shed, so who can really say.
There's a couple more titbits I know and would be willing to share, but you need to send some information my way first; roles of your team, for example, would be good, or other stuff.
We can also keep talking over PMs after the day ends.
Wow! Good job on that bussing of Dariush, it had me entirely fooled. I was sure your buddy was either Janus or one of MBP/Org. I'd have bet real money on it. Scary.
Oh well, I've been known to be wrong some times. Now what? Anything you'd like to tell me and/or me to tell you for tonight?
I didn't want to do it- I really wanted to vote Janus, but I absolutely could not figure out an avenue of attack on him.
As for tonight, obviously someone will die. Janus is sitting pretty right now, so he might be my target. Jim is the other option because he's a good player and I fear he might see through my 11th hour attempt to move the vote to Org. I, of course, wouldn't mind knowing who that agent is- he's probably got incentive to out me now.
Of those two, I'd choose Jim were I in your shoes, he's quite dangerous; Janus was too focused on self-defence to figure anything out, and he'd consider you an ally in a fight against Org.
I'm thinking about whether I should tell you who my agent is. He really wasn't a threat for you today, and I think it'd be an assholish move for me to out him to you, but on the other hand he has been acting suspiciously in his own right and I'm sure he's hiding something, so I might. Let me chew on that for a bit. I have not told him anything about our conversation, and I plan to keep it that way.
[This was the critical moment: Jim and Joker were discussing who would keep the Deadman Bomb overnight; if Joker had kept it, I'd have told Toaster he was my agent, he kills him, BOOM! game over. But Jim insisted on keeping it, so I told Toaster I wasn't ready to out my agent an allowed him to continue with his Target. Org and Janus (oh improbable team!) worked against my instantaneous victory N2]
I thought about it, and I think it'd be premature to out him to you tonight. As I said, I suspect him of hiding something important, so I've asked him to come clean. He told me who he plans to inspect tonight, and that he'll explain when day starts. I think it'll be interesting. I suspect he'll either confess not to have a motivation to pursue you due to bastardry/wincons, or you can drop him N3... Since I know he doubts his inspection's sanity, I don't think he's going to roleclaim and out you D3 unless you give him reason on thread.
Is the agent Jokerman? He's pretty hesitant to vote. If not, I'm going after him. If it is him, I don't want to antagonize a claim out of him.
Yes, it's Jokerman, and seems enthusiastic about claiming. I told him to exercise caution and patience, but I don't think I can talk him into postponing it until D4.
There's really no way, except to not support a claim for today. Encourage him to wait one day.
As you can probably guess, Janus guarded Jim last night. Oh well.
Yeah... If he goes ahead with it, I'll have no choice but to enthusiastically jump on your bandwagon and claim for your blood (though I won't betray this conversation). The survivor is the most cowardly of figures: it fits my wincon if you hang today. Sorry about that.
Too bad about Janus. It'd have been more fun if you'd hit Jim, I think, and Janus could have been your unwitting ally.
Oh oh... dude, I'm afraid you're fucked. Jim and Joker seem to have been in cahoots. I was right he was hiding something.
Let me know if you have any ideas... but you seem to be well and neatly trapped thanks to a lucky guardian action again, just like in P17. Good show, though.
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Topic: Bastard Paranormal - Game Over! (Read 68844 times)