TWG CXVII: The Lantern Keeper Redux

[TheZeldaPianist275]

Two hours remain!

[BlackDragonSlayer]

It's getting close to the end of the phase and I already have a few players I want to talk about, so I figure it's about the right time to post an initial suspicion list.

SUS Tier:
- Oricorio: Aside from what I've brought up earlier, I feel like Oricorio has had a shift in behavior after my post bringing up suspicion on Oricorio possibly being the Strange Man. Whereas before, a lot of Oricorio's posts just felt like talking for the sake of talking, it seems like Oricorio has at least somewhat tried to pivot away from that since then. I'm inclined to stick with my initial inclination that Oricorio is either the Strange Man or a fish-out-of-water human, though the change in behavior does make it seem like Oricorio could be a wolf who's worried about getting put under actual suspicion (i.e. suspicion of being a wolf, not of being the Strange Man).

Mild Wolf Lean:
- SpecsFlyer17: Emphasis on mild, but I do agree somewhat with Oricorio that his early behavior was a bit strange. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe he had already at least started catching up by the time he made his first post, and it's a bit weird to me how he basically just copied a joke I made earlier. Feels almost like a weird sort of buddying behavior, though maybe I'm looking too much into it.
- XiaoMigros: Xiao is notoriously tough to read. So far Xiao's biggest move in the game has been backing me up against Oricorio's tactics, which feels like it could potentially be buddying up to me to gain my trust—but at the same time, Xiao did similarly last game when I was a wolf and Xiao was a human. Xiao's place on the list is likely to fluctuate greatly. I'm also not sure if Xiao's comments about me being the Strange Man were just a joke or not.

Neutral:
- The Musical Poet: Hasn't posted much of substance yet.
- Robbie89: Hasn't posted at all yet.
- ThatHiddenCharacter: Has made one post so far (a comment springboarding off of my earlier post) and that's about it. Seems like he's at least caught up to the point where he posted.

Mild Human Lean:
- davy: After last game (which was the first time I played alongside davy in years) I think I have a bit of a better grasp on what human davy is like, and so far it seems about par for the course. As with Xiao though, I think davy's placement is liable to fluctuate a lot.
- A# Minor: Has been absent since yesterday, though from the PM response I got from A#, I get the feeling she was overwhelmed by all the activity from Oricorio. Aside from that, her contributions in the thread seem human-y enough so far.

Human Lean:
- threalmathguy: Came in swinging with good analysis. Interested to see if he keeps up that momentum.
- BlackDragonSlayer: Well, what did you expect?

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Well, sure has been an interesting phase. o7

[TheZeldaPianist275]

TWG CXVII: The Lantern Keeper Redux

Spoiler

On a dark and stormy October night, 10 friends found themselves in a small, lantern-lit village. The village was strangely dark; entering it seemed to drown out all the light from the moon, rendering it difficult to see anything clearly. The only things making anything visible at all? Three old, rusty lanterns hanging from poles lining the street.

Wolves
1. Master Wolf
2. Wolf
3. Wolf

Humans
4. Seer
5. Human
6. Human
7. Human
8. Human
9. Human

??
10. The Strange Man
A man who DOES NOT WANT to be seen. Every night phase he will privately guess the identities of the lanterns holders, and upon correctly guessing their identities, the lanterns are lost to the night, and their holders are killed, along with one normal wolf. He cannot be wolfed; if an attempt to do so is made, the public will not be informed.

Items
3 Lanterns of the Night: at the start of the game, 3 randomly chosen players will become Lantern Holders and receive a Lantern of the Night. Each night, the 3 lanterns holders will privately vote to seer one of the holders. That holder's color is then privately disclosed to the other two holders. A lantern may be passed to another player who does not hold a lantern once per NIGHT PHASE ONLY. The recipient of the lantern will be randomly selected from the pool of those who do not hold lanterns, and he will be informed both that he received a lantern and of the identities of the other holders at the start of the following night phase.

Misc.
-The Strange Man will never hold a lantern.
-If someone is killed while in possession of a lantern, it will be publicly announced that a lantern has been put out, and the Strange Man will only have to guess the holders of the remaining lanterns. However, if all three lantern holders are killed before the Strange Man guesses their identities, the Strange Man will die as well.
-The Strange Man's lantern guess applies to the players who held lanterns at the start of the night phase, not the players who received the lanterns at the end of it.
-No cardflips, instas are on. Classic rules, natch.

Victory Conditions
Wolves win when their numbers are at parity with humans & The Strange Man combined.
Humans win when the wolves are dead.
The Strange Man wins upon successfully guessing the lantern holders, but the game does not necessarily have to end at that point. Either of the other two teams may win with the Strange Man.

[close]

-----------------

The Players
1. SpecsFlyer17
2. A# Minor
3. davy
4. threalmathguy
5. BlackDragonSlayer
6. XiaoMigros
7. ThatHiddenCharacter
8. Robbie89 Toby
9. Oricorio
10. The Musical Poet

A# Minor was found dead, a peculiar grin on her face.

It is now Day 1. Day 1 ends in 48 hours, on Monday, October 23 at 20:00 Central Daylight Time.

Can you hear him? He is very close.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

A# Minor was found dead, a peculiar grin on her face.

Can't say that's an especially surprising pick.

[Oricorio]

So A# minor is town, as there are no other deaths. That leaves our numbers at 5-3-1, or 6-3 in terms of parity. No lantern was taken out, so the chances of at least one lantern holder being a wolf have risen to over 82%, at least assuming that each faction is equally likely to pass the lantern on.

[Oricorio]

So A# minor is town, as there are no other deaths. That leaves our numbers at 5-3-1, or 6-3 in terms of parity. No lantern was taken out, so the chances of at least one lantern holder being a wolf have risen to over 82%, at least assuming that each faction is equally likely to pass the lantern on.

So if we lynch someone who doesn't have a lantern, the odds don't change at all as the result was rolled when there were nine living players, eight of whom could hold lanterns (but it would affect the odds of the Strange Man guessing correctly). If we do lynch a lantern holder today, though, the odds of a remaining lantern holder being a wolf decrease by a bit under a third.

Anyway, enough math, let's get to solving!

[BlackDragonSlayer]

So A# minor is town, as there are no other deaths. That leaves our numbers at 5-3-1, or 6-3 in terms of parity. No lantern was taken out, so the chances of at least one lantern holder being a wolf have risen to over 82%, at least assuming that each faction is equally likely to pass the lantern on.

I think wolves have a 100% chance to pass the lantern. Very little reason why they'd want to keep one, not only since it risks them being seered red, but also means the Strange Man can take out two wolves in one go (on the other hand, a 3:1 ratio of human deaths to wolf deaths is very favorable to the wolves). As for humans, I'd think the seer would also definitely want to pass a lantern on, but for normal humans I think it just depends on the risk the individual player is waiting to take.

The more lanterns are taken out of play, the less risk humans take teaming up with the Strange Man. If there's, say, only one lantern left, trading 1 human for 1 wolf is a good tradeoff for the human team.

And, as I said before, if N1 was 2 humans and 1 wolf holding lanterns, I think N2 is very likely to be 3 humans holding lanterns, especially if the wolf was the only one to pass their lantern.

[Oricorio]

So if we lynch someone who doesn't have a lantern, the odds don't change at all as the result was rolled when there were nine living players, eight of whom could hold lanterns (but it would affect the odds of the Strange Man guessing correctly). If we do lynch a lantern holder today, though, the odds of a remaining lantern holder being a wolf decrease by a bit under a third.

Anyway, enough math, let's get to solving!

One last clarification: The odds would change if we are playing with flips of course, but since we're playing flipless we can't be 100% certain of whether we've lynched a wolf or town today (unless we have a red seer result lol). Anyway, let's do this

[Oricorio]

I think wolves have a 100% chance to pass the lantern. Very little reason why they'd want to keep one, not only since it risks them being seered red, but also means the Strange Man can take out two wolves in one go (on the other hand, a 3:1 ratio of human deaths to wolf deaths is very favorable to the wolves). As for humans, I'd think the seer would also definitely want to pass a lantern on, but for normal humans I think it just depends on the risk the individual player is waiting to take.

The more lanterns are taken out of play, the less risk humans take teaming up with the Strange Man. If there's, say, only one lantern left, trading 1 human for 1 wolf is a good tradeoff for the human team.

And, as I said before, if N1 was 2 humans and 1 wolf holding lanterns, I think N2 is very likely to be 3 humans holding lanterns, especially if the wolf was the only one to pass their lantern.

Isn't it the safest option for town to pass on the lantern as well so we don't end up in that scenario? But I guess you can make no guarantees on how others play

[TheZeldaPianist275]

One last lantern clarification—if a lantern holder chose to pass along a lantern, that turnover does not take effect until the start of the next night phase. Any lantern holders still have lanterns through the day, regardless of whether they chose to pass them along, and if they are lynched during the day their lantern dies with them.

[Oricorio]

Okay, so who we lynch today will affect the odds. Damn, why can't the math be easy here?

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Isn't it the safest option for town to pass on the lantern as well so we don't end up in that scenario? But I guess you can make no guarantees on how others play

Depends. I think having a lantern get passed to the seer is the riskiest option, because if we lose both methods of seering in one go, it's basically just vibes from there on out. Plus, if a human has a lantern and knows they have a high likelihood of being wolfed, they might wanna keep it to have a better chance of taking the lantern out of play.

[Oricorio]

Depends. I think having a lantern get passed to the seer is the riskiest option, because if we lose both methods of seering in one go, it's basically just vibes from there on out. Plus, if a human has a lantern and knows they have a high likelihood of being wolfed, they might wanna keep it to have a better chance of taking the lantern out of play.

Of course, you have to consider the Master Wolf, who might want to be seered. But of course, it's a big risk either way

[Oricorio]

Well, anyway, enough mechanics talk, who do you see as wolfiest? I still think THC's (nice acronym) entrance is weird, especially as it received no follow-up