Octopus Overlords

Well done, Theo.

Will wait for your rationale before voting, though.

Agreed, well-done theo!

Scan me, bro.

Can I vote for Remus West yet? Because, you know I'm dying to.

Pleasepleaseplease?!?!?

 Remus West 
 

redrun wrote:Lagom, if Saruman scouts, will the ringbearer have time to pass the ring before the journey? Can the ring be passed during a journey?

Ring-passing during a Chapter must be submitted before the majority vote is reached and the Chapter closes, or it will be passed during the following Journey. The Ring can be passed during a Journey. The Ring can be passed at any time and it is instantaneous.

rshetts2 wrote:Is Gollums power to steal the ring a Journey only power? and if Saruman is scouted and dies does Frodo get notified of his freedom during the chapter phase, and still have a chance to pass the ring before the journey phase kicks in?

Gollums Steal ability is a Journey only ability.

If Saruman is Scouted the Chapter moves into a Journey. If a Ringbearer is Imprisoned when this happens, he is freed but cannot pass the Ring earlier than in that Journey.

theohall wrote:If the Ringbearer is freed, does Ring passing come first?

The Ringbearer can't pass the Ring before he's freed. When a Ringbearer is freed from Iprisonment, the game moves into a Journey.

Remus West (4) - theohall, coopasonic, rshetts2, triggercut



Majority is 7

Deadline is Friday October 21st, at 9 p.m. Central European Time (GMT +1)

Thanks, Lagom Lite.

To the Fellowship, working on the rationale post now. Will include posts to support the reasoning. Doesn't really seem necessary, since no one is contesting the claim, but will add the rationale anyway.

Warning - Long Post.

Which members of our Fellowship were examined and why:

Journey 1: This examination had to be done blind. I considered three candidates before submitting orders - Grundbegriff (everyone knows why), triggercut, and Remus West. During recent games, triggercut has kind of given away a small tell when he is Evil, so decided to let him slide. Grundbegriff - wanted to wait to see if he did anything weird - which he did. Remus West - have a horrible time reading him, so chose to examine him and got lucky by finding a Servant during the First Journey. Pure out-right luck!!

Journey 2: Knowing Remus West was a Servant, I made the early post indicating the only good choice was to Hunt Some Orc, but waited to vote in order to look see what Remus West would do and which members of our Journey seemed to agree with his actions. Remus was the first to suggest we should slow down and not Hunt Some Orc so quickly, which made me laugh knowing he was evil. They had already identified a hobbit/Gollum for us and had know more information other than whomever the Witch-King scanned. More talk would only feed them more information while the only right choice at this point was to Hunt Some Orc. Yes, we could use info, but with the Servants having the equivalent of two scans to find the Ringbearer (Witch-King scan/Uruk-Hai capture), more information for them was a bad idea.

redrun wrote:

Remus West wrote:Lotsa folks jumping very quickly towards hunting without much discussion. Are we that certain we wish to hunt rather than try to eliminate one of the Evil ones? Are we that certain we wish to limit talk and thus do nothing to out potential Evil?

Discussion good, after discussion we hunt orc. Unless someone has a tell (via play) or a scan to release, I don't see any reason why we'd risk a lynch as compared to hunting orc.

As you can see, redrun joined the "let's talk more" thing Remus West proposed.

Grundbegriff made one of his early analysis posts and tried to foster some discussion. Initially, this didn't look like a questionable Grundbegriff to me, because it was early analyis. I think this is when redrun started noticing the anomalies in Grund's posts. He didn't mention it until Chapter 2, though.

Remus again tried to foster discussion:

Remus West wrote:How many people voted to hunt within moments of the update? How much do we learn from anyone if all that happens is we vote to hunt and the phase closes? I've been going back over the rules and I'm actually not sure discussion is good. It may be best for us to proceed as quickly as possible through each phase. They do not find out anything any more quickly than we do (we have Gandalf looking for them, they have the Witchking looking for the Ring) but we are not the ones on a timer - they have to find the ring and capture it before time runs out. We only need to not expose it. Discussion is likely to expose things to both sides. Question is which side benefits the most from that.

And, finally, Remus tried to hide behind this post to make him look like one of us:

Remus West wrote:Finished reading and I think I have concluded that too much discussion is a bad thing.
 Hunt Orc 
 

Unfortunately, for him, and fortunately, for us, I already knew he was a Servant.

Qantaga notes we are at N-1 and then joins the "let's wait" bandwagon Remus West tried to get going.

Qantaga wrote:

Grundbegriff wrote: So we don't want to risk killing Hobbits and we don't want to out Frodo.

Why would we then risk sending out a Scout when we have a legal action that liberates a Hobbit?.

This seems to be the crux of the matter.

It looks like we're at n-1 to Hunt Some Orcs.

I am in agreement that hunting is our best option, but I'll withhold my vote for now:

redrun wrote:Discussion good, after discussion we hunt orc. Unless someone has a tell (via play) or a scan to release, I don't see any reason why we'd risk a lynch as compared to hunting orc.

I think it wise to let coopasonic, Mr Bubbles, pr0ner, rshetts2, and triggercut check in before we close the chapter.

So at this point, I have two candidates for Journey 2: redrun and Qantaga. Neither redrun nor Qantaga voted to Hunt Some Orc, so the decision was a toss-up. Don't know redrun's styles that well, yet, so chose to examine him with the intention of examining Qantaga on Journey 3 based on his interactions with Remus West.

redrun turned out to be one of the Free People.

Journey 3: Why Qantaga, still, instead of Grundbegriff? This question deserves some consideration. During Chapter 2, redrun pointed out what seem to be Grundbegriff's intentional anomalies. This leads to is Grund a good person trying to find Servants, is he a Servant trying to find powered members of the Fellowship, is he Boromir, or is he Gollum? No idea, but his early analysis posts don't tend to appear when he is completely Evil, so continued looking at Qantaga. Qantaga and Remus West's interaction were a bit different this time and read like they were "staged" to me. Why? During Chapter 1 they were in agreement, yet only one of them voted. Their excuse will be they wanted more discussion, but they really wanted to avoid being the Nth vote with Remus West having cast the N-1 vote at the end of Chapter 1.

Remus West continues in Chapter 2 trying to look like one of us with the Gollum and finding Evil discussion. Had I not known he was a Servant, already, this might have mattered. Like I said, he is hard to read.

During Chapter 2, triggercut became the engaged player he seems to be when working for the Good guys, so I did not even consider scanning him.

Qantaga doesn't say anything prior to just voting to Hunt Some Orc which is very unorthodox for him. He almost always discusses things prior to taking an action which made his lack of saying anything really stand out. This is Qantaga's only post during Chapter 2, which indicated not only was he posting out of his usual helpful self, he was trying to hide, too.

Remus West then makes sure to semi-castigate him for casting the Nth vote while avoiding to vote himself.

Remus West wrote:

Qantaga wrote: Hunt Some Orc 
 

I wish you hadn't done that yet although I suppose it wouldn't matter since either way Lagom answers we would still be hunting Orc rather than chancing a scouting mission.

Prior to the Nth vote was when redrun pointed out Grund's anomalies, but I felt Qantaga was the better scan at the time, because what Grund was doing he's done before when either Good or Evil.

My question - after we Scout Remus West or Qantaga - whom would the Fellowship like me to examine. There are issues with what to do next in terms of looking for the last Servant or identifying Hobbits for Mr Bubbles. He has to pass the Ring as soon as he is freed, or Gollum will steal it.

This is an important point in the rules about Ring-passing:

Frodo and Hobbit Ringbearers may Pass the Ring to another player at any time by sending a PM to the Moderator specifying which player the Ring is to be given. The recipient of the Ring will be told the player name of the player who sent the Ring to him. Be careful about to whom you Pass the Ring! Only Hobbits can carry it without succumbing to darkness.

There might be some way we can use that to our advantage during Chapter 6.

Questions?

FYI - these are our known Hobbits/Gollum - Mr Bubbles (Frodo), bb2112, tru1cy

Grundbegriff claims to be a Hobbit. I don't believe anyone else has made any claims of Hobbitness. Grund's rules anomalies may have been him trying to find the Ring-bearer while indicating he is a Hobbit. Wouldn't put that past him.

Tools for our consideration

1. Grundbegriff - claims Hobbit
2. redrun - Free Person
3. theohall - Gandalf
4. Qantaga - Servant
5. bb2112 - Hobbit/Gollum
6. rhsetts2 - ?
7. Remus West - Servant
8. RMC - ?
9. tru1cy - Hobbit/Gollum
10. triggercut - ?
11. Mr Bubbles - Frodo
12. coopasonic - ?
13. pr0ner - ?
14. Newcastle - ?

So we have 7 unknowns with one claimed role among those 7. The Servants do have a problem, though, if we manage to kill Saruman.

There are 4 Journeys left. If they go after me, they aren't acquiring the Ring and they have to acquire the Ring to win which means spending at least one of those three Journeys capturing the Ring-bearer. This should cause them some consternation - do they go after me, or do they capture hobbits again in hopes of getting the Ring-bearer after Frodo passes it when freed?

What scares me right now? Gollum. If he gets passed the Ring, we will know he has it when the next Chapter starts. We Scout him and he will pass the Ring to whomever he desires, essentially deciding the game.

1) He passes to a Servant unknowingly. We don't know the 3rd Servant. Will be a difficult road to finish, unless we are lucky enough to find that Servant, but - the Servant then passes the Ring to whomever he desires when Scouted and it won't be a Hobbit. (then #2 below comes into effect)
2) He passes to a Free Person. They become Corrupted and now win with the Servants. Good luck to us finding a Ring among the Free People.
3) He passes to a Hobbit leading to two endings
3a) The Servants capture whichever Hobbit received the Ring - Servants win
3b) The Hobbit isn't captured and passes to another Hobbit for the Fellowship win.

I am sure there is something missing here, so feel free to pile on.

This is going to be a difficult finish for us.

theohall wrote:What scares me right now? Gollum. If he gets passed the Ring, we will know he has it when the next Chapter starts. We Scout him and he will pass the Ring to whomever he desires, essentially deciding the game.

Red not as a question, but for later discussion....

Theo's observation suggests the value of a change to the rules for FotR III.

Most of the changes have improved the game, which is now efficient, intense, and enjoyable. But the Ring-passing is a problem in Gollum's hands. In FotR I, the Scout-to-Recipient mechanism was Random(.org). In this iteration, the Scout-to-Recipient mechanism is Scout's Choice.

I think the happy medium might be to use Scout's Choice for non-Gollum players (since they're clearly aligned) and to use Randomness when the Scout is Gollum.

That would fit the story/character better, and would also eliminate the weird problem of Gollum's selecting a winner.

A couple of quick thoughts.

We know four hobbit like creatures. I would put forth that either a hobbit still hasn't checked in, or that Gollum is still hiding. If Gollum keeps hiding, he'll prove our hobbits.

Timing of orders will be very important once the final vote to scout goes in. However, Gollum has a problem. He only has one ring grab, and if it fails, he's toast. However, he won't know if we've scouted Saruman - only that we've scouted a Servant of the eye. So, if he jumps in as soon as we've scouted, he's risking his only chance to win. However, as soon as Mr. Bubbles is freed, he can issue a ring pass.

Lagom - when in the turn will we be notified that Mr. Bubbles is no longer imprisioned - as soon as Saruman is scouted, at end of day, at start of the next Journey -or- Chapter?

Can anyone see a way to ensure Mr. Bubbles is available to send in a ring-pass order ASAP after being freed? The best I can see is to ensure the final vote goes in at a time when he's posted in the past. I think the final vote should be put in (for now) by Gandolf - this way, if someone else puts the final vote in at the wrong time we've got another evil or Gollum suspect. Of course, Remus & Qantaga will be happy to screw with things.... need to think about this, but I'd avoid getting anyone within three votes of a lynch until we decide how we want to do this.

I still prefer Qantaga as our first scout, but will happliy vote for Remus if folks prefer him first.

I'm a Burrfoot

Nice reasoning, redrun. So...

 withdraw Remus West 
 


I would posit that either of us place the final vote, because I know you are a Free Person - although you could be Boromir, which has it's own risks.

Whomever the group wishes to send Scouting is fine with me, as long as it is one of those two Servants.

Interesting gambit, theohall. Yet what is your plan for when I die and am proven a Fellowship member? It really doesn't matter but it will still reveal your lie. I was stumped on that for a while until it occurred to me that you really don't care. The entire goal of this play is probably to get Gandalf out so you can remove the major threat to Saruman. My only confusion is if Qantaga is on your side or (and I'd think this the case) another Fellowship member. What are you going to do if the real Gandalf steps forward and also claims scans on us? I notice you did not say what redrun is. Lets look at your scans. 2 Evil and 1 "Fellowship". Gandalf could give us more than that. Did you not want to risk calling redrun the wrong thing and thus outing yourself before Gandalf came forward to counter? Its interesting that nobody wants that type of confirmation. redrun himself has bought fully into your lie.

Sorry guys, things have been so crazy in my world that I haven't been my normal analytical self.

Awesome job Theo.

And with great pleasure:

 Remus West 
 


I told you to stop molesting the little people.

Remus West wrote:I notice you did not say what redrun is. Lets look at your scans. 2 Evil and 1 "Fellowship". Gandalf could give us more than that. Did you not want to risk calling redrun the wrong thing and thus outing yourself before Gandalf came forward to counter? Its interesting that nobody wants that type of confirmation. redrun himself has bought fully into your lie.

Rulez wrote:Gandalf

Gandalf may determine the nature of one player once per Journey.
Frodo and the Hobbits will scan as Hobbits.
Aragorn, Gandalf, Boromir and Warriors of the Free People will scan as Free People.
Corrupted players, Uruk-Hai, Saruman and the Witch-King will scan as Servants of the Eye.
Gollum will scan as Gollum.

Maybe there's double trouble going on here, but I think the simpler explanation is most probably true: Remus is the vocal front man because they'd rather that we scoutify him than Qantaga. They need to protect Saruman, so that would make Qantaga Saruman (unless someone else is Saruman).

On the whole, I think we should  scoutify the heck outta Qantaga 
 

Remus West wrote:Interesting gambit, theohall. Yet what is your plan for when I die and am proven a Fellowship member? It really doesn't matter but it will still reveal your lie. I was stumped on that for a while until it occurred to me that you really don't care. The entire goal of this play is probably to get Gandalf out so you can remove the major threat to Saruman. My only confusion is if Qantaga is on your side or (and I'd think this the case) another Fellowship member. What are you going to do if the real Gandalf steps forward and also claims scans on us? I notice you did not say what redrun is. Lets look at your scans. 2 Evil and 1 "Fellowship". Gandalf could give us more than that. Did you not want to risk calling redrun the wrong thing and thus outing yourself before Gandalf came forward to counter? Its interesting that nobody wants that type of confirmation. redrun himself has bought fully into your lie.

redrun is one of the Free People which I already stated. Of course, being a Servant of the Eye, you are making a weak attempt at obfuscating the fact this was already said.

And this is not a Gambit. You are a Servant and will be dealt with after we Scout your Silent Partner, Saruman - who we suspect is Qantaga - as Grund and redrun have mentioned or hinted.

Finding the third member of your triumvirate is what concerns me - and it clearly doesn't seem to concern you for some reason. Who are your supposed Evil candidates, Servant? I haven't seen any mentioned, yet.

One other thing, Remus: You should consider it a compliment that I scanned you first, because you are so hard to read most of the time. Had I not scanned you, I would not have suspected you of being a Servant.

redrun wrote: Lagom - when in the turn will we be notified that Mr. Bubbles is no longer imprisioned - as soon as Saruman is scouted, at end of day, at start of the next Journey -or- Chapter?

"Scouted"/"End of day"/"start of next journey" is the same thing, the same post. This post will announce if an Imprisoned player is freed from having Scouted Saruman (much like the result of Hunt Some Orc on Captured players is handled).

Well I am pretty sure occams razor applys here. Its pretty unlikely that Theo is playing us when under the circumstances it would have been a far better strategy to for the Servants to stand pat. They had all the advantages and absolutely no reason to try to play us. Remus, are you playing lightning rod here? Trying to draw our attention? I think its not a bad idea to test Qan first if thats the case so:
 WITHDRAW Remus West ... appoint Qantaga as scout 
 

Remus West (3) - theohall, coopasonic, rshetts2, triggercut, bb2112
Qantaga (2) - Grundbegriff, rshetts2


Majority is 7

Deadline is Friday October 21st, at 9 p.m. Central European Time (GMT +1)

I agree with Grund's assessment about Q being more likely Saruman than RW.

Warning: Another hair brained idea from bb that Remus will not like.

Now someone poke holes in this...

If we scout Q first, and he is Saruman, then Frodo immediately comes back to us and Frodo has to make a decision on passing the ring.

If we scout RW first, and Q is Saruman, then Frodo stays captured. If Frodo is captured then isn't the ring in a safe place for one more turn? Thus getting us a little farther on our journey? Then we scout Q next turn.

If neither are Saurman, then we are in trouble anyway.

Completely agree we need to switch to Qantaga for this Chapter.

Will attempt to wait and cast the Nth vote (when we get to that many votes) when Mr B is around so he can pass the Ring.

 Quantaga 
 


<shrug> I will follow with the rest of the fellowship on this.

I think Theo and I simulposted.

Can we at least discuss the idea of RW vs. Q?

The lack of a "passionate defense" from Remus really bothers me...and lends more weight to what theo is sayinig.....i just see a "innocent" remus being more vocal about it; throwing out scenarios...etc....his response was weak at best.

I really want to hear from Q though; to see what he has to say. In the end I'd be happy to lynch either of those. Q staying so quiet and flying under the radar had perked my interest earlier; especially his vote to seal in day 2. So i'd be happy to vote for him; even if he raises a spirited defense.

Can anyone see a reason for an "evil theo" to come out and claim that? Just tryin to cover our bases here.

I think the big thing we need to start thinking about is the following:

-if either of those are sarumon....what does frodo do? does he toss the ring immediately and start playing hot potato? how many journeys does he have left? (BB & truicy being the destinations) i need to run those numbers actually (hmm i think that will be my next post....

-i think tossing to either of those, would be able to create some trust and obfuscate who has the ring for a couple of turns and potentially hide it from gollum

-so bubbles when (if) you are freed start thinking whom you want to toss the ring to;

QUESTION TO ALL- IF YOU were gollum would you try to steal the ring immediately? Or would you wait and bide your time?

Another question as well: what happened last night? There was no capture/kill? Did they pass (is that even an option?)

LAGOM - CAN EVIL PASS IN THE EVENING...IE DECIDE TO NEITHER CAPTURE NOR KILL? AND IN EFFECT CHOOSE TO DO NOTHING?

I know you said may earlier; but i just want it crystal clear (pretend i am a dumb american

bb2112 wrote:I think Theo and I simulposted.

Can we at least discuss the idea of RW vs. Q?

+1

i say wait; we have them, lets see what they have to say; and judge it from that. This is an important decission for us.


MORE IMPORTANTLY- It also gives us time to plan out and theorize what would be the best move for bubbles to do. Since protecting the ring is our #1 goal from here on out!

UPDATED


Remus West (3) - theohall, coopasonic, rshetts2, triggercut, bb2112
Qantaga (3) - Grundbegriff, rshetts2, RMC


Majority is 7

Deadline is Friday October 21st, at 9 p.m. Central European Time (GMT +1)

bb2112 wrote:If we scout RW first, and Q is Saruman, then Frodo stays captured. If Frodo is captured then isn't the ring in a safe place for one more turn? Thus getting us a little farther on our journey? Then we scout Q next turn.

That's actually not a bad idea. It buys us time by bringing us closer to the endgame without any risk of losing track of the ring. The only proviso is that we must be disciplined enough to nuke these two back to back.

I believe Qantaga is probably Saruman, but there's merit in leaving Frodo in the tower for a turn.  Remus West 
 
.

numbers:

d3- lynch x
n3 - bubbles free tosses ring to hobbit 1
d4 - lynch y
n4 - hobbit 1 tosses to bubbles/hobbit 2
d5 - lynch/free hobbits
n5 - hobbit 2 tosses to bubbles or bubbles keeps ring or bubbles tosses to hobbit 3
d6- lynch/free hobbits
n6 - bubbles (2nd time) has to hold ring/toss ring to uuntouched hobbit
d7 - we win if ring goes to correct hobbit....

So if we free bubbles today...pretty much we have to get through 4 more "legs" of playing toss the ring. It would also mean that bubbles would have hold the ring on at least 2 occasions (i think)

I am assumin int he above that truicy & bb are pure hobbits and not gollum.

Can an argument be made for delaying our lynching of the two for a couple of days? To maybe enable safekeeping fo the ring.....actually scratch that....we dont know for sure if those are sarumon actually...we have to lynch them to free up the ring and know for sure that we have sarumon; if neither are sarumon that means on d5 we have lynch someone and have 2 more tries to find sarumon.

I dont think an argument can be made to keep them alive...we have to lynch them, we have to free bubbles and the ring; because if neither are sarumon; it would mean we have 2 shots at finding him out of the remaining pool.

Why I prefer a Triggercut scan, as compared to a Grund scan:

Grund has come out as hobbit. Let's see if we get to five hobbits.

Triggercut was the final vote on day one, prior to everyone checking in.

At the start of chapter 2 he pushes for hunting, but suggests we take a little time to discuss if there is a meta play going on (there is - evil has already found Frodo and is trying to make the night come quickly):

triggercut wrote: I mean, the obvious thing to do here is Hunt Some Orc, right?

Maybe we could at least take a little time before we do that to figure out if they've got some sort of meta play going that isn't easily apparent.

bb2112, hold on a sec and we'll come get you.

Yet, four hours later, after only seven other players have posted, Triggercut puts the second to last vote in:

triggercut wrote:  Hunt Some Orce 
 
(And then send Grund out scouting pretty soon.)

He follows that up with a post about how we'll soon have two folks to pass the ring to (without a disclaimer about Gollum), then right afterwards he follows up to Grund to say that evil is only scanning one person a night. No matter if evil was sending in scan/capture together or one after another - why would they only go for one person a night? Who would want us thinking such (evil, to keep us from knowing how quickly they were searching). Also, he jumps on the "evil must have scan and than capture ability" bandwagon - which will be proven false):

triggercut wrote:

Grundbegriff wrote: Meanwhile, let's pause to note that the chance of finding yet another Hobbit/Gollum is good but not great. However, they're coordinated and they actually scan with the Witch-King before Hunting, so they get two guesses.

This means that there's a decent chance -- a more-than-decent chance -- that bb2112 is Frodo, scanned by WK and then nabbed.

What's obviously happened is that they've scanned tru1cy and bb2112 both before each became a target. Both came up as not holding the ring. Unfortunately for our servants, both also ended up being Hobbits, just not the Hobbits They're Looking For.

Remus brings out that Grund and Triggercut seem to have special knowledge, Triggercut follows up to say he got the idea from Grund:

triggercut wrote:

Remus West wrote:triggercut and Grundbegriff have both now made comments about the bad guys scanning before targetting at night. I was assuming this game worked the same as the majority of others we have done in that all orders are submitted all at one time and then processed in order. Is there somewhere in the rules that I missed saying they get results before choosing their next action? I can see bb2112 as having been scanned but that first night had to have been done blind.

I didn't realize it until Grund said it

Remus reinforces the Grund/Triggercut mistake again (and states that Remus didn't read that far down into the rules - so here, I'm really wondering why Remus is working so hard to push this point home):

Remus West wrote: My point was not the order things get done but the apparent assumption both you and Grund seem to imply regarding the question you put in red. I had assumed that, as typical, the results of orders were not given until all orders were given. You both seemed to assume they had the results of the scan before they chose their attack. Really means nothing unless Lagom says they do get the answer first. Then it becomes much more interesting since it shows you both had implied knowledge that things were not being run in the ordinary fashion. I couldn't find anything in the rules to suggest orders would be processed differently that typical. I asked about it though because I don't put it past myself to have missed it. I didn't read that far doown the rules post.

After the final vote to scout, we know that team evil is thinking about the fact that they scanned Frodo last night, so should they imprision him... will he have passed the ring during the second Chapter?:

triggercut wrote: The other piece of info they get is completely in flux. The Witch King may know that Bubba (who is revealed to be a Hobbit in the next turn sequence) doesn't have the ring *this* turn, but that information gets more likely to be bad information with each chapter that goes by.

Which is why team evil made the grab on the third journey.

Next, he serves up some gobbledgook (his words). Note the odds - They look fine the first night, then that second night - what happened to his math? You'd think he wanted Frodo to feel safe for a bit longer:

triggercut wrote:Ok, I'm fighting a nasty cold and am Day-Quilled to the gills. This struck me as great insight, but it may also be very clear to everyone already and I'm late to the party. It may also be utter gobbledygook.

Let's assume Team Shadow plays this correctly during the Journey part of the turn. Let's also assume that Frodo holds onto the ring as a constant (which we'll see becomes a *really* bad idea going forward)

1. Night 1, they had about an 18% chance or so of finding the Ring. Night 2, they had a 22% chance of finding the ring. Night 3 that chance goes up to about 29%, if Frodo's held the ring. If he continues to hold it, his odds of keeping it collapse. Night 4 there's a 40% chance they get it. Night 5 they've got a 67% chance of finding it. If Frodo continues to hold the ring, on Night 6 he'll be captured and lose it.

Only a 4% jump after a scan of 2/11's more people? With a nice disclaimer at the top if anyone challenges his math.

Shortly thereafter, Remus again makes a point that Triggercut didn't know how the rules worked for the evil team:

Remus West wrote:

triggercut wrote:

Grundbegriff wrote:
What's interesting is that orders are resolved simultaneously.

Yep, it didn't seem that way by looking at the rules.

It did to me. Running them in an order but having them submitted before running any of them seems to be the default for these games. That was why it perked my interest that you and Grund seemed to know it was different than that.

So, team evil is thinking about their options on the third night... since they've got Frodo lined up, should they hunt at all this turn? Somehow, at this point, Triggercut clues in on the no-hunt possibility:

triggercut wrote:Lagom, a question:

Must the forces of Shadow hunt the Fellowship for kill or capture each turn, even if they currently are holding a captured or imprisoned a ring bearer?

After the revel, how many good players wanted to call for Gandolf to waste a scan on them?

triggercut wrote:Agreed, well-done theo!

Scan me, bro.

Can I vote for Remus West yet? Because, you know I'm dying to.

Pleasepleaseplease?!?!?

 Remus West 
 

So, everyone has finally started talking about what to do...but Triggercut stops.

Remus could have been making a big point about the rules to show he wasn't on team evil. Triggercut could have figured out the exact points that evil was thinking about. Triggercut could have messed up the math. Too many "could have" for me.

d3- lynch x
n3 - bubbles not free
d4 - lynch y
n4 - bubbles free tosses to hobbit 1 /hobbit 2
d5 - lynch/free hobbits
n5 - hobbit 1/2 tosses to bubbles or bubbles keeps ring or bubbles toss to hobbit 1/2 or tosses to hobbit (3/4)
d6- lynch/free hobbits
n6 - bubbles (2nd time) has to hold ring/toss ring to uuntouched hobbit or hobbit 1/2 tosses to bubbles
d7 - we win if ring goes to correct hobbit....

so if we dont free bubbles today; we have 3 days of playing toss the ring around.

I think triggercut's posts made sense from his perspective, given how he had been thinking about the rules. So I don't see much hay worth making there.

That doesn't mean that he's non-evil or non-Gollum, nor does it mean that he's beyond anyone's suspicion, including mine. However, I don't think that the paper trail is much use in trying to figure out his alignment.

oh feel free to correct my above numbers also if i am wrong; i want to get as clear of a picture as possible of what we are dealing with; and possibly best ways for us to end this journey sucessfully!

bb2112 wrote:I agree with Grund's assessment about Q being more likely Saruman than RW.

Warning: Another hair brained idea from bb that Remus will not like.

Now someone poke holes in this...

If we scout Q first, and he is Saruman, then Frodo immediately comes back to us and Frodo has to make a decision on passing the ring.

If we scout RW first, and Q is Saruman, then Frodo stays captured. If Frodo is captured then isn't the ring in a safe place for one more turn? Thus getting us a little farther on our journey? Then we scout Q next turn.

If neither are Saurman, then we are in trouble anyway.

When Frodo is freed, we have to deal with the Gollum problem. The longer we wait to free Frodo, the fewer chances we'll have to deal with Gollum if he gets the ring. Once we have the ring back, we will need some sort of code that the hobbits can use to tell each other where the ring came from and where it can be passed.

Newcastle wrote:d3- lynch x
n3 - bubbles not free
d4 - lynch y
n4 - bubbles free tosses to hobbit 1 /hobbit 2
d5 - lynch/free hobbits
n5 - hobbit 1/2 tosses to bubbles or bubbles keeps ring or bubbles toss to hobbit 1/2 or tosses to hobbit (3/4)
d6- lynch/free hobbits
n6 - bubbles (2nd time) has to hold ring/toss ring to uuntouched hobbit or hobbit 1/2 tosses to bubbles
d7 - we win if ring goes to correct hobbit....

so if we dont free bubbles today; we have 3 days of playing toss the ring around.

(Minor note - order is night 1, day 1, night 2, etc.):

D3 Free Mr Bubbles via lynching Saurman.
N4 Mr. Bubbles tosses the ring to hobbit 1 (Hey, Sam, Catch)
D4 Sam holds onto the ring.
N5 Hobbit 1 passes ring to Hobbit 2 (Hey, Pippin, Catch)
D5 Pippin holds the ring
N6 Hobbit 2 passes the ring to Hobbit 3 (Hey, Merry, Catch)
d6 Merry holds the ring
N7 Merry passes the ring to Frodo or Gollum... hmmm... Not as useful.
D7 Whatever hobbit holds the ring must pass it to another hobbit or Gollum. Doesn't matter if they previously held the ring.

So, we'd really want a pass to Frodo in there, and that is less useful.

On the other hand:
Servant dies tonight - 1/3 chance it's Saruman (assuming random odds)
Second servant dies tomorrow - 1/2 chance it's Saruman (random odds, with first night not Saruman)
If I were Gollum, I'd take the chance tomorrow and issue the ring grab as soon as I saw the final vote.
However, if we assume that Lagom will not let Gollum or Frodo issue orders to take place as soon as night starts (ie: neither can submit a steal or pass order until Lagom has posted the lynch results), than it matters less which order we do the lynch, the only important thing is if Gollum or Frodo is faster with the steal/pass order.

Lagom, at what point will you accept night orders - after the last vote or after you post the writeup? Does imprisionment make any difference?

On the gripping hand:
D3: Free Bubbles, N4 Gollum grabs the ring
We've got D4, D5, D6 to find him.
D4: Free Bubbles, N5 Gollum grabs the ring
We've got D5 & D6 to find him.

I still prefer going for Qantaga tonight.

Lack of a passionate defense? What am I supposed to do? Scream "I'm not Evil"? Wouldn't matter. The only intelligent thing to do is test the scans of the claimed Gandalf. When you scout me I will show Fellowship and theohall will be shown to be a liar. Today or tomorrow (if you scout Qantaga today - I say you as for obvious reasons the only players I'd be willing to vote for is theohall) it doesn't matter to me. I will get vindicated.

theohall, I actually missed you finally naming redrun as Free People as you buried it in that long post well into the day - and since I know you are lying I did not bother to continue to read all your lies. Sorry. However, you were not forth coming with that information early. I figure you for the Orcs as they are easily dispensable.

This is a tough choice, I can see holding off on Frodo but there are also risks involved. Be aware holding off on Frodo allows the servants to start trying to kill off specials and Free People. They cant win without the ring and setting Frodo loose forces them to try to grab the right hobbit, instead of killing people off. Now perhaps sacrificing a few of us is worth it but if we lose either Gandalf or Aragorn, that could also prove costly. Aragorn, for example can start protecting hobbits and even further limit the Servants odds and Gandalf can still expose Gollum, which is very important at this point. Im not sure which path is best but I thought we should look at the consequences of both paths.

another rule question: Im pretty sure it doesnt but for clarification, Does Aragorns protection work against Gollums "steal the ring" power?

Newcastle wrote:LAGOM - CAN EVIL PASS IN THE EVENING...IE DECIDE TO NEITHER CAPTURE NOR KILL? AND IN EFFECT CHOOSE TO DO NOTHING?

Yes, evil can choose to NOT Hunt.