Octopus Overlords

(FWIW, I have been able to update the scoring throughout the game on my own notepad here, and will post tentative point totals ASAP at the conclusion of the game for everyone to review and approve.)

My final Refutation.

I will defer the last word to bb2112, if he wishes.

bb2112 wrote:Then ask yourself, who is playing with caution, and who is playing to stir things up to get info?

I find it hard to imagine that you honestly expect Isgrimnur to believe that all wolves play with caution and that all villagers try to stir things up.

bb2112 wrote: Isgrimnur, I was after you all game. If you were the wolf, you would have killed me last night and not Theo. The fact that Theo is dead proves it is Q. At least that is my logic.

You killed theo last night, just so you could make this very argument.

bb2112 wrote: And finally, if I was the wolf, wouldn't I be better off sitting back and waiting to see if one of you would throw your vote somewhere and then quickly jumping on it?

That is not true at all for a wolf. It is not out of the ordinary for a wolf to cast the first vote, just to avoid the appearance of waiting to jump. What is strange, though, is that it is incredibly dangerous, and unlikely, for a real villager to do what you did. A villager, even if they think they know who the wolf is, would be hesitant to just fly into the thread, cast a vote, and bet the entire game right there, with no discussion at all. A real villager would not *know* who the last wolf is. I've seen quite a few villagers who were thoroughly convinced that they *knew* who the last wolf was, even though they were incorrect (Take a look at the end of Bond II sometime). Even "convinced" villagers, do not just come in and cast a vote without even trying to talk things over. Only a wolf could know that casting a vote (at the very beginning of the last day) wouldn't immediately lose him the game.

bb2112 wrote:Ultimately you can't prove anything by anything we post.

bb is correct here. We can both argue any event or post in the game into any "evidence" that paints the other evil. I know that bb2112 is the wolf, but Isgrimnur does not and must consider me as closely as he considers bb.

I will join bb in wishing Isgrimnur good luck in his decision.

I am a villager.

bb2112 is a wolf.

All I can tell you is that I am not the wolf, and that I am a villager. I played way too recklessly to be a wolf, besides, I think Theo and I were on the same page. One of the two of us had to die. My thought process was if I died last night, then you are the wolf. If Theo did, then it has to be Q.

Isgrimnur, you are going to have to make a hard choice. Reread the thread and come to your own conclusion. As I said before, good luck.

I can read this two ways:

1) bb2112 is thrashing around, trying to stir stuff up for data, and trying to help the village with where the mud sticks, while Qantaga calmly reasons things out, quietly drooling over his coming meal

2) Qantaga is a villager analyzing the play to make sure the good team wins, while bb2112 is stirring up the mud to confuse and obfuscate things.

Looking back, I don't see much change from these latest statements. I've already suggested that I was going to hand the match to Qantaga, so that's what I will do.

And may Mod have mercy on our souls.

 bb2112 
 

Isgrimnur wrote:I can read this two ways:

1) bb2112 is thrashing around, trying to stir stuff up for data, and trying to help the village with where the mud sticks, while Qantaga calmly reasons things out, quietly drooling over his coming meal

2) Qantaga is a villager analyzing the play to make sure the good team wins, while bb2112 is stirring up the mud to confuse and obfuscate things.

Looking back, I don't see much change from these latest statements. I've already suggested that I was going to hand the match to Qantaga, so that's what I will do.

And may Mod have mercy on our souls.

 bb2112 
 

Bad choice. The village loses. I should have worked harder to have you lynched earlier.

What is it with me in these games. Nobody will listen.

2. Qantaga - bb2112
3. Isgrimnur - bb2112
7. bb2112 - Qantaga

Majority is 2.

Qantaga - 1 - bb2112
bb2112 - 1 - Qantaga, bb2112

Voting is closed.

With bb2112 and Qantaga quickly squaring off on the final day both looked to Isgrimnur for assistance. First Qantaga had presented reasons why Isgrimnur should side with him and lynch the wolf bb2112. Then bb2112 had responded and plead for Isgrimnur to examine the happenings of the days past. They politely went back and forth while Isgrimnur watched like a spectator sitting mid court at a tennis match. As bb2112 began his final essay upon the lupine nature of Qantaga Isgrimnur noticed something odd. There was a tuft of hair poking out the neck of bb2112's teeshirt. Could it be his teeth were just a shade longer than normal too. That guy must be a wolf, thought Isgrimnur, he can barely conatin the beast in his excitement to eat me! "bb2112 is the final wolf!" he cried and drove a stake into the villain's heart. "Die wolf. Die!" he screamed as the light faded from bb2112's eyes. Then he noticed Qantaga sitting off to the side calmly slicing some vegetables into a large pot. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Well," answered Qantaga, "I'm tired of uncooked flesh so I thought I might mix the two of you up into a nice flank steak stew. It was one of pr0ner's favorite dishes...you bastard." That last he screamed as he took his beastly form and tore the throat from a stricken Isgrimnur.

The game was over as there was no one left to hunt.

ps, who has round 2? I got the itch.

Also worth noting, Grundbegriff nailed both wolves with his scans. Had Qantaga fallen for the "theohall is the Seer" trap Grund tried to lay out there (and it was close) the village would have had a near perfect game with the only blemish being the Newcastle lynch. As it turned out the Newcastle blemish was joined by the RMC one and.......

Since Q is still modding a game, I can start up game 2 if he wants to wait a bit and take over game 3.

Damn it. My other coin flip was going to be that Qantaga looked fairer and felt fouler.

My apologies for the loss.

Win some, lose some. There's plenty of league left!

I almost posted a "Here's a running point total for this game" list, and then realized that if you looked at the votes, it was pretty obvious who the wolf was.

So of course that never enters the conversation on the last day and the wolves win. Of course.

Anyway, point totals in a moment.

Scoring:

Newcastle lynched, villager:

trig -1
Grund -1
pr0n +1
qant +1
Isg -1

(trig killed overnight)

pr0ner lynched, wolf

Grund +1
theo +1
bb +1
Isg +1

(Grund killed overnight)

RMC lynched, villager

theo -1
bb -1
Qant +1

(theo killed by wolves overnight)

bb2112 lynched, villager. Wolves win.

Qant +1
Isg -1

Wolf Team of pr0ner and Qantaga +3 for Wolf Win.

Village team of Newcastle, triggercut, grundbegriff, Isgrimnur, theohall, bb2112, and RMC -2 for Village loss.
Isgrimnur and Qantaga with bonus of +1 each for surviving to the end.

Points:

Newcastle: -2
triggercut -3
pr0ner 4
Grund -2
RMC -2
theohall -2
bb2112 -2
Isgrimnur -2
Qantaga 7

Check my math for discrepancies please!

Does our scoring mechanism not reward Seer activities? It feels wrong to be at -2 in a game where I correctly requested successive scans of both wolves.

It also seems wrong that Newcastle is at -3 when he got lynched the very first day - there is little anyone can do to avoid that when it heads their way and after that he has no say in anything.

Also, why are we rewarding the "surviving" villager? None of the villagers survive the game and giving a point to the last villager standing in a game won by the wolves rewards the guy for making a bad choice. I do not think Isgrimnur should get a point for being the last villager left standing. If the game ended at 2 good versus 2 wolves I do not think either of those "good" players should be rewarded for choosing wrong.

Things that seem worth rewarding:

• Being on a winning team.
• Voting against a Wolf while human, where the target dies.
• Voting against a Human while Lupine, where the target dies.
• Requesting a scan of a Wolf (whether consummated or not).
• Being the deciding vote in a 3-person endgame and making the right choice.

Things that seem worth penalizing:

• Being on a losing team.
• Voting against a Human while Human, where the target dies.
• Being the deciding vote in a 3-person endgame and making the wrong choice.
• Never posting.

It makes no sense to reward "surviving to the end", since players who demonstrate effective play are, on average, more likely to be killed early.

newcastle should be at -2 I believe. Corrected to put him in the -2 camp.

Both Grund and Remus raise good points.

We'll try to incorporate what we can for Season 2. In the meantime I'll go by what stessier suggested, that Season 1 be kept short as we work out the scoring.

For instance, I think it'd be great to penalize players for not posting, but how do you do that in a non-subjective way that cannot be gamed?

I do think that surviving final-day villagers deserve an extra point or two on a victory...and surviving final-day villagers on a losing team deserve an extra subtracted point or two.

triggercut wrote:For instance, I think it'd be great to penalize players for not posting, but how do you do that in a non-subjective way that cannot be gamed?

Find the median number of posts. Anyone at or above it earns a point for posting. Anyone below it is not penalized, but also doesn't earn the point.

I do think that surviving final-day villagers deserve an extra point or two on a victory...and surviving final-day villagers on a losing team deserve an extra subtracted point or two.

I'm not closed to the idea, but I don't understand it. Does surviving to the last round indicate skill? Or does it indicate that you're not a priority on the Wolves' hit list? Or (my actual belief) does it mean nothing particularly clear since the choice of victim is often dependent on the particular mix of events, words, and deeds that are unique to each game?

I guess I'm not sure what's being rewarded there.

Other ideas:
Players on Team Good should each receive a point if they hang two wolves in a row without hanging any humans (perfect game).
Players on Team Evil should each receive a point if they both survive and win (perfect game).

Isgrimnur wrote:Damn it. My other coin flip was going to be that Qantaga looked fairer and felt fouler.

My apologies for the loss.

Some folks just dont listen.

Now from you Theo that is just rich....

BTW, Remus-- Were Qantaga and pr0ner in communication with each other or with you?

Q & p: what was your thought process along the way?

Isgrimnur wrote:Damn it. My other coin flip was going to be that Qantaga looked fairer and felt fouler.

My apologies for the loss.

That's ok. It happens. Sorry I took my frustrations out on you. Just so you know, I'm more mad at myself than you, but you can't tell that from email.

I shouldn't have gone along with the RMC vote. I knew it was a mistake at the time, but wanted to believe Theo (especially after the successful Pr0ner vote) and really was grasping at straws. If I could have gotten the game to go like I wanted, I would have lynched you first, then Q, but I couldn't drum up the support.

Last night was not a good night. Checked in to find Brady and Welker destroyed 2 of my fantasy teams where I was leading quite handily, and at the same time I got the news I was lynched.

BTW, Grund, I bow down to you. The way you manipulated the board with being the seer and then casting doubt. Bravo!

Grundbegriff wrote:BTW, Remus-- Were Qantaga and pr0ner in communication with each other or with you?

Q & p: what was your thought process along the way?

They were including me in their PMs. I have been regularly emptying my inbox though so I don't have them any longer. Q kept me updated as to his thought process too. He had a bit of a discussion with himself regarding whether to believe you were the Seer or not and considered killing theohall instead of you that night.

Very entertaining. I was dying to know who the real Seer was.

pr0ner wrote:Since Q is still modding a game, I can start up game 2 if he wants to wait a bit and take over game 3.

That sounds good to me pr0ner. I appreciate you taking game 2.

Qantaga wrote:

pr0ner wrote:Since Q is still modding a game, I can start up game 2 if he wants to wait a bit and take over game 3.

That sounds good to me pr0ner. I appreciate you taking game 2.

You got it.

Signup post coming shortly.

Assuming this is right:

triggercut wrote:Points:

Newcastle: -2
triggercut -3
pr0ner 4
Grund -2
RMC -2
theohall -2
bb2112 -2
Isgrimnur -2
Qantaga 7

Check my math for discrepancies please!

The for the bastardized ELO system, we get

Rating = (Old Rating) + (Your Points)*ABS(Average of Your Team Points)/ABS(Average of Opponent Team Points)

Average Human Team = 15/7
Average Wolf Team = 11/2

Rating of 1500 = Par
Rating rounded to nearest whole number.

Season 1 Rankings - bELO

Player	......	Rating
Newcastle		1499
triggercut		1499
Grundbegriff		1499
RMC		1499
theohall		1499
bb2112		1499
Isgrimnur		1499
pr0ner		1510
Qantaga		1518

Hmmm - not sure why there is so much white space above that table. Any ideas Grund?

Edit: Thanks Coop!

stessier wrote:Assuming this is right:

triggercut wrote:Points:

Newcastle: -2
triggercut -3
pr0ner 4
Grund -2
RMC -2
theohall -2
bb2112 -2
Isgrimnur -2
Qantaga 7

Check my math for discrepancies please!

The for the bastardized ELO system, we get

Rating = (Your Points)*ABS(Average of Your Team Points)/ABS(Average of Opponent Team Points)

Average Human Team = 15/7
Average Wolf Team = 11/2

Rating of 1500 = Par
Rating rounded to nearest whole number.

Player	......	Rating
Newcastle		1499
triggercut		1499
Grundbegriff		1499
RMC		1499
theohall		1499
bb2112		1499
pr0ner		1510
Qantaga		1518

Hmmm - not sure why there is so much white space above that table. Any ideas Grund?

The entire table needs to be one line to avoid the white space, remove all line feeds

This is what I found to be the true ELO system (assuming I translated that to our game correctly):

New Ladder Points = Current Ladder Points + (Game Points) * ABS(Result - ELO)

Result = 1 for a Win, 0 for a Loss

ELO = Q(player) / [Q(player) + Q(opponent)]

Q(X) = 10^[(Current Ladder Points of X) / 400]

For the ELO line, it really applies to 1v1 type matchups, so I think ours would make more sense as

ELO = Q(player) / [Average Q(player team) + Average Q(opponent team)]

Since this is the first game and everyone is at 1500, it's easy at the moment.

Q(everybody) = 10^[(1500) / 400] = 5623.4
ELO(everybody) = 5623.4 / [5623.4 + 5623.4] = .5

Result (Wolf) = 1
Rating (Wolf) = 1500 + (Game Points)*ABS(1-.5)

Result (Villager) = 0
Rating (Villager) = 1500 + (Game Points)*ABS(0-.5)

Soooo, rounding to the nearest whole number...

Season 1 Rankings - ELO

Player	......	Rating
Newcastle		1499
triggercut		1499
Grundbegriff		1499
RMC		1499
theohall		1499
bb2112		1499
Isgrimnur		1499
pr0ner		1502
Qantaga		1504

There were more than 8 players...

First off, good game everyone. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Remus for his time, effort, and skills in hosting.

It was a formidable group of villagers. You all kept us on our toes the entire game and I know I was incredibly fortunate to survive. Thanks to everyone for a very enjoyable game.

Grundbegriff wrote:Q & p: what was your thought process along the way?

I have also been deleting my PM box along the way (with the Princess Bride game running in parallel), but I'll try to reconstruct things.

Here were my thoughts:

Night 1

It was a wide open kill and we considered everyone as a target. We considered killing theo, but thought that might cast too much suspicion on pr0ner. We wanted to leave Grund, bb2112, and trig alive (always a dangerous proposition, since they are all three excellent players) because they were generating a lot of discussion and (seemingly) poking at each other.

However, the decision was made to kill triggercut because of the Newcastle vote. trig had already said that he was suspicious of the two votes placed right after his (mine and then pr0ner's). Truth be told, that really was a simul-post. I was in the process of writing my post (as you can tell by the time stamps) and didn't even see trig's Newcastle vote until after I had hit Submit. Still, though, that had gotten trig's notice. In addition to that, it seems to me (from my limited experience in games with him) that trig places a lot of weight on votes and voting patterns. So, we felt that trig would probably look strongly at the Newcastle votes and, from there, look even stronger at pr0ner and I because trig had noted twice that he was suspicious of the timing of our votes. I thought that would lead trig to look away from bb2112 and Grund at looking at one of us. Knowing that trig is relentless when he has a target in mind, trig became our Night 1 kill.

Night 2

That night was one of the highlights of my brief OOWW experience. Grund did a spectacular job of sprinkling the iocane around. I had a great time thinking through all the permutations of his play in deciding on the Night 2 kill.

By the time I got to the thread (after Grund claimed Seer and named pr0ner) Grund was already planting the seeds. Here:

Grundbegriff wrote: I sincerely hope that nobody will dispute my claim.

and here:

Grundbegriff wrote:There are many ways this could play out, depending on how well the players know and trust one another.

I sent a PM to pr0ner and Remus about those two posts and that I would need to proceed very carefully. Here was my (probably not so) subtle acknowledgement that I had seen his play:

Qantaga wrote:Trust (as Grund refers to) is always an intriguing commodity in these games. I'm inclined to follow Grund's claim and see what pr0ner's death tells us.

That led to Grund spelling out the scenario in response to me:

Grundbegriff wrote:Let's say for the sake of argument that I'm not the Seer. With two dead and myself excluded, and with 9 at the outset, there's a 25% chance that either Newcastle or triggercut was the Seer.

Newcastle, of course, departed this life with protestations of simple villageousness on his lips. Granting his word, that would mean 12.5% as the chance that triggercut took the crystal ball with him.

Let's say, further, that I'm not the Seer but a simple villager trusting that the actual Seer will recognize my move as a covering move aimed at protecting him. What might make that a good bet? First, that it would be utter folly for a wolf to claim Seer with only a 12.5% chance of going uncontested. Knowing that I wouldn't commit such a blunder, a Seer might well recognize in my claim a valiant effort to defend his interests through misdirection.

As we'll undoubtedly see in these tournament games, there's still considerable room for gambits even in a cast with few specials.

Then, of course, he had his last minute challenge as the night fell.

I sent Remus a treatise on my thought process.

In the end, I decided to kill Grund, even with the possibility of theo being the Seer. The final contributing factor to that decision was that I determined that if Grund was a spoofing Seer, he would have been more likely to leave his Seer status in the murky realm and not go to the trouble of spelling it out so clearly. I thought only a true Seer would be inclined to point to the fact that he might be spoofing. It seemed to me that a spoofing Seer would be inclined to be more assertive in their Seer claim (to draw the mis-kill). There were a lot of other factors that contributed, as well, but that was the deciding one.

Day 3

I didn't want to be the killing vote on RMC, but I saw the momentum start to turn as RMC moved away from theo to me and theo said he would be willing to vote for me, too. I knew that if theo moved his vote, I was as good as dead, so I killed RMC and tried to dress up a rational reason to do so.

Night 3

I thought about a lot of different scenarios here. I was sorely tempted to kill theo, then come in at the dawn and claim Seer myself. I had already outlined the timeline and the posts that I could quote that would provide evidence that I was the Seer who had been saved by Grund. However, it would have necessarily told one of the final two that I was truly the wolf, since I would have to back my Seer claim with an accusation. In the end, I knew that it would have played as much too "gimmicky" and the other player would have probably voted against me, just because it was so convenient and so they didn't wind up being "played." It sure would have been fun to try, though. If I were stessier, maybe I would have tried it.

So, then I had to decide who to kill. Unfortunately, my hands were fairly well tied. I was very clearly theo's top suspect. Knowing theo, I had my doubts that I could convince him with a "you weren't killed to set me up" arguement. I considered the scenarios of killing bb2112 or Isgrimnur, but I thought the odds of theo changing his mind about me were significantly less than getting bb or Issy to look at each other.

Of course, when bb waltzed in and placed his vote on me, my heart jumped to my throat.

Good scoring suggestions everyone. We knew (or at least I knew) we'd find some terrible loopholes in the original scoring system. If nothing else, this season is a beta test for that system. Here's the system that I was told "just go with":

triggercut wrote:

bb2112 wrote:

stessier wrote:

Remus West wrote:The way you have the Seer set up he could get killed the first night and still earn 3 points. I don't think he should get points for wolves killed when he is dead.

It's been a while, but I think the reason I put it in there is because even finding Villagers is useful. Not as useful, of course, but useful. So he should get some credit if he reveals 2 Villagers that lead to all the wolves being caught.

I'm not married to any of this or anything. This was trig's idea and all - don't want to step on any toes if people want the simpler scoring instead.

Yeah, I'm not married to that particular scoring system either, but I like the idea of correct actions/votes being rewarded, while incorrect actions/votes are penalized.

Maybe it is as simple as:

Wolf
+1 for every villager lynched while alive
+1 for a wolf win
-3 for a wolf loss

Max 4pts Min -3pts

Villager
+1 for every wolf lynched which has your vote
-1 for every villager lynch which has your vote
-2 if your vote is on a seer lynch
+2 if your team wins
+1 if you survive to the end
-1 if your team loses

Max 5 pts Min -5 pts

Seer
+1 for every wolf scanned
+1 for every wolf lynched which has your vote
-1 for every villager lynch which has your vote
+1 if your team wins
-2 if your team loses

Max 5 pts Min -5pts

This is just an idea. Not married to this either.

I like this scoring plan somewhat, but let's do away with "seer specific" scoring and just make all the villager scoring conform to that +5 to -5 score range.

Also, I would say that making a wolf team win a +2 for all team members would be a good adjustment.

Let's let this thread die to the bottom and discuss scoring in the other thread.

bb2112 wrote:BTW, Grund, I bow down to you. The way you manipulated the board with being the seer and then casting doubt. Bravo!

Thanks. I hope it established a precedent at least in this sense: if you're the real Seer, always pause to consider whether someone who steps forward as Seer might be one of your colleagues trying to draw fire away from you. Wolves in these games will sometimes emulate the Seer, but it'll be harder for them since nobody has a coroner. That said, sometimes they'll do so precisely because of the preceding two sentences!

Excellent job, Qantaga.