TWG CXV: Just a Numbers Game

[BlackDragonSlayer]

TWG CXV: Just a Numbers Game

Spoiler

To some, it's just another day at the office. To others... every day is a life and death struggle to try and slog through another grueling day at work. But today... something's different. Today, nine people wake up in an empty office, tied to chairs in a circle facing away from all the others. There's one rule to the game: pick a number, any number.

Wolves:
1. Head Honcho: Every night, the Head Honcho picks a number between 0 and 100 by PM'ing the host with their selection. Every night, all the other players PM the host a number between 0 and 100. Whoever's number is closest to the number the Head Honcho picks dies. In case of a tie, all tied players die. People who do not pick a number (including the Head Honcho) have their number randomized.

Humans:
2. Number Cruncher
3. Number Cruncher
4. Number Cruncher
5. Number Cruncher
6. Number Cruncher
7. Number Cruncher
8. Number Cruncher

Third Party:
9. The Phantom Number Swapper: Counts as a Human. Every night, in addition to picking their own number, they select one player. The Phantom Number Swapper picks a NEW number for that person, and if they are human, that is their selected number for wolfing purposes. Wins if someone is wolfed as a result of their shenanigans—either if the person who's number they swapped is wolfed, or if someone else is wolfed because of the number swap—or if they are the last Human alive. Can win with either team.

Host Clarifications:

• The Phantom Number Swapper's powers can only affect humans.
• The swapped number that the Phantom Number Swapper picks can potentially be the same number they picked for themself.
• The Phantom Number Swapper can choose not to use their power each night.
• The Phantom Number Swapper can win as a result of their own death if they died as the result of swapping the would-be wolfing target's number.
• The Phantom Number Swapper is informed when they achieve victory. It is not announced publicly.
• An example of The Phantom Number Swapper's victory: Player A picks 20 as their number. Player B picks 21 as their number. The Swapper swaps Player B's number to 50. The Head Honcho picked 21 as the wolfing number. Player A dies instead of Player B.
• An example of when The Phantom Number Swapper does NOT achieve victory: Player A and Player B both pick 50 as their number. The Swapper swaps Player A's number to 60. The Head Honcho picked 50 as the wolfing number. Because Player B would have died either way, this does not count as death-by-shenanigans.
• The number(s) of any killed players will be announced, but the number the Head Honcho picked will not be.
• The Head Honcho wins whenever there is one or fewer humans remaining.
• The game does not have cardflips.

[close]

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Players:
1. A# Minor
2. TheZeldaPianist275
3. Olimar12345
4. E. Gadd Industries
5. ThatHiddenCharacter
6. SpecsFlyer17
7. XiaoMigros
8. magnet
9. Toby

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A# Minor was wolfed, having picked the number 35.

It is now Day 2. Day 2 ends in two days, on Thursday, August 24 at 7:00 PM Pacific Time (10:00 PM Eastern Time).

[SpecsFlyer17]

35... interesting

[SpecsFlyer17]

35... interesting

Wolf did not cooperate with Olimar's plan.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Triple post, but A#'s 35 pick follows the strategy.
I think it's reasonable to say that this was not a PNS related kill.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Day 2 story has been updated. A# had the foresight to ask me to include a special phrase in the story in case she was the one who died. Unfortunately I gave her no guarantees. I think this is a good compromise.

[TheZeldaPianist275]

Yo, what? Olimar, who did you switch?

[SpecsFlyer17]

My prediction is Olimar changed Toby to 50, but the wolf didn't buy the plan. A# got unlucky.

Or, Olimar and the wolf communicated in an effort to through us off, picked a new number (35?), and swapped A# to it. Not sure I buy that story though.

Olimar, care to explain?

[XiaoMigros]

Response to toby's thoughts:

PNS

Olimar

I agree. I have DMs to back it up, more on that later

Variable

Magnet

I agree also. I think it's important to keep in mind that the wolf doesn't actually have to do anything at all to win (theoretically).

Depending on what the number is tonight depends on if he's a wolf or not for me.

what's to say they changed the number after you said that?

Sus

A# Minor

I completely agree with this too (no original thoughts from me today huh)
In fact, my suspicion of them was so strong I played a little mind games with them in DMs (can provide receipts if needed). Had I died tonight, I could've said with confidence it was her. But here I am.

Leaning Human

Xiao

Why of course, why would you ever doubt me? Just because I'm chronically online?

gets human points for being risky there

more on that later

TheZeldaPianist

I have mixed feelings about TZP, but ultimately I decided yesterday that they were worth saving (more on that later). I won't go as far as to clear them, but it will be interesting to see how they interact with us for the rest of the game.

[XiaoMigros]

Wolf did not cooperate with Olimar's plan.

...so far

[Toby]

What numbers did everyone pick?

I picked 90

[Toby]

@Xiao

what's to say they changed the number after you said that?

That's why I posted as last minute as I could, 3 mins before phase end. I figured no one would have time to read my post, think of changing, and change their number before then

[XiaoMigros]

Triple post, but A#'s 35 pick follows the strategy.
I think it's reasonable to say that this was not a PNS related kill.

correct

Yo, what? Olimar, who did you switch?

You to number 5 lol

Olimar, care to explain?

Olimar would probably prefer me to explain, so hear goes:

[XiaoMigros]

@Xiao

That's why I posted as last minute as I could, 3 mins before phase end. I figured no one would have time to read my post, think of changing, and change their number before then

Right

[XiaoMigros]

Bombshell (ish) 2: Electric Boogaloo

Around this time yesterday, A# sends me this:

Anyway, what do you think about Olimar's claim, and do you think the wolf might trust him? Would it make any sense to try and ask him if he got in touch with the wolf during the day phase? (That isn't my idea, but I just want to get as many opinions as I can.) Honestly I'd be surprised if the wolf actually claimed to him, as I doubt they'd trust anyone after two false claims. (I know I wouldn't.) I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not

Nothing inherently super suspicious, but the part about reaching out seems a little... highlighted, compared to the rest of the contents. This analysis in general is pretty against the cooperation idea for some reason, which could make sense from a town POV but I'd expect a little more uncertainty then. A# was already kinda suspicious to me after their PNS claim, and this just increased my doubts.

I responded with (relevant quotes only):

To first sentence: If he really is the PNS, I guess it's fair game? I'm still tempted to lynch him, just in case, especially if he doesn't end up dying to night (who knows what's going on behind the scenes.
To second sentence: tbh, I've considered pretending to be the wolf and reaching out to him? Though I'm not sure of the benefit of doing that besides making me look sus lol

Telling a potential wolf that I'm gonna reach out as a wolf to the PNS might not seem like a good idea at first, but the main goal was to figure out how A# would react to this info. Here's what they said:

To first sentence: I'm thinking almost the same thing. We'd definitely want him gone because they could possibly coordinate double kills and LYLO stresses me out we don't want to end up in LYLO after like 3-4 more phases
To second sentence: The only benefit I see is being able to mess him up completely. But if the real wolf PMs him before you do, then that would be a problem so probably not the best idea unless you feel like dying

Advising me against reaching out again seems a little wolfey, but I agree with the last part of the statement.
Because of said risk, I decided to take a chance and reach out to Toby, telling him to keep a close eye on A# if I die. This, in part, is why I think Toby is town leaning: My message to him was sent an hour before phase change and he probably could've coordinated with Olimar to get someone else wolfed, so I accuse A# the next day and PNS/wolf!Toby survive lynch day. But, it's possible wolf!Toby decided to play solo, or Olimar just wasn't around an hour before phase change, so I can't clear Toby with 100% confidence.

Anyway, on to Olimar: I DMed him without informing A# first, to try to minimise a possible coordination between them. TLDR, I convinced him I was the wolf, and we agreed on the following game plan: Wolf one chosen player tonight, so the PNS meets their win condition. After that, unclaim PNS and try to sow chaos with three people who have claimed PNS (A#, Toby, Olimar).
It's for this reason that I now know the real wolf has not contacted Olimar, and my fears of dying have been mostly alleviated:
Olimar specifically wanted us to keep A# alive, to make the resulting PNS claims situation messier.

I chose the player and the number, and I have no reason to doubt Olimar didn't follow suit; changing TZP's number to 5. I figured this was the best way to keep TZP alive and I was right. You're welcome??, TZP

Why am I revealing all this to the real wolf, you might ask? Because I think the right course of action is to vote out Olimar. I don't feel comfortable voting for Specs just yet, even though they're top of my suspicion list, because if we're wrong there's a good chance of a double kill happening, leaving the town with perhaps too few people left to figure out what's going on. If anyone has a more compelling strategy, please say!
Seeing as the PNS can only get a guaranteed double kill making their number the same as someone else's, I guess there isn't that much to worry about in this regard? But still, I think it's fair to want to put an end to a possibly coordinated effort between wolf and PNS, especially since the wolf can then choose who they'd like to kill.

Also, quotes like these hardly flatter:

I think it'd be way more fun to mess with humans than to hand them an easy victory, if that helps you feel better about the possibility of me outing you.

Happy to share more details of any conversation, if needed

[XiaoMigros]

Specs, what number did you pick?