wlf-071

wlf-071 was an August 2019 13-player (10 village, 3 wolfpack) Online Werewolf game in which Leucosticte, as village militia MaryWatson, tried an experimental and controversial tactic of claiming as militia in the closing moments of Day 1 and indicating his intent to shoot fellow player ClaudeRavache on Night 1, as a way of proving his role and village alignment.

Background

Prior to this game, Leu had researched the history of N0 vig shots in wlf- games, and found that in the three games in which this had been tried, wlf-024, wlf-038, and wlf-045, a wolf (a shapeshifter, a bloodletter, and a bloodhound, respectively) had been hit. Also, in two out of three of those games (wlf-38 and wlf-045), a village victory had occurred. However, the shot had not been announced by militia beforehand.

ClaudeRavache was chosen as a target due to her having appeared at the top of the player list. This character, who had the Diseased role, was played by Diamond_Dove, who happened to have also been killed in their prior game, wlf-068, on N1 by the wolfpack of which Leu was a member.

Events

Player	Role	Objected to N1 militia shot?
JamesMoriarty	Gravedigger	Yes
SebastianMoran	Villager	Yes
JohnWatson	Seer	Yes
LordBlackwood	Lycan	Yes
Dredger	Protector	Yes
MrsHudson	Shapeshifter	Yes
RobertCecil	Bloodhound	Maybe
KarlHoffmanstahl	Villager	No
Gladstone	Alphawolf	No

Multiple players explicitly expressed objections to this militia shot:

2019-Aug-19 08:04:04 JamesMoriarty For wasting a valuable Militia shot and could be an Alpha

2019-Aug-19 08:05:31 SebastianMoran They're either a militia useless enough to waste their shot, or an opportunistic alpha.

2019-Aug-19 08:38:40 JohnWatson I think doing shit to 'live' is a bad play

2019-Aug-19 08:59:30 LordBlackwood You could have shot the Protector or Diseased though...

2019-Aug-19 11:27:37 Dredger We don't have any other militia, so to use it was a bit risky

2019-Aug-19 18:55:10 MrsHudson Mary's actions are irritating

2019-Aug-19 18:55:15 MrsHudson shooting blind, if she did, is ...

2019-Aug-19 18:55:25 MrsHudson not pro-village in my opinion

Of these commenters, Gravedigger JamesMoriarty, Villager SebastianMoran, Seer JohnWatson, Lycan LordBlackwood, and Protector Dredger were village, while Shapeshifter MrsHudson was wolfpack. Vanilla KarlHoffmanstahl, Alphawolf Gladstone, and Bloodhound RobertCecil did not voice any objections, although RobertCecil did say on D4, in response to Mary's change of vote from SebastianMoran to him,

2019-Aug-21 12:54:09 RobertCecil Mary : as fast as switching meta as she's pulling militia trigger

Additional setbacks to the village faction were that LordCoward, played by experienced player SavvySteve, was also killed on N1; that on N2, LordBlackwood, the Lycan, was lynched because of a wolf check by Seer JohnWatson; that seer JohnWatson was killed on N3; and that on N4, vanilla KarlHoffmanstahl was mislynched.

Three relatively inactive players were Gladstone, RobertCecil, and KarlHoffmanstahl. Based on meta, Leu's preferred lynch target was Gladstone, since he was at the top of the list of players. Leu voted initially for Gladstone on Days 3 and 4. On D3, however, there was no lynch; the final vote was No Lynch=5 (KarlHoffmanstahl, Gladstone, RobertCecil, JohnWatson, MrsHudson), RobertCecil=2 (MaryWatson, SebastianMoran)

On D4, RobertCecil stated, ""I'm not fan of the just pick someone randomly and prefer to follow my guts" to which Leu responded that this "can sometimes mean 'I'm a wolf and want to pick out a villager rather than following a meta that would cause us to pick a wolf'".

Leu opted to go along with the lynch of KarlHoffmanstahl because it had been suggested by Dredger, who had been cleared as village-aligned, and because as nightfall approached, there were not enough active players left who could shift their votes to an alternate target such as Gladstone without tying the vote, as Dredger and Gladstone seemed to be the only players left who were active in the final hour. The final vote was KarlHoffmanstahl=4 (Dredger, MaryWatson, RobertCecil, Gladstone), MrsHudson=1 (SebastianMoran), with MrsHudson not voting.

The game ended with wolves achieving 3-3 parity with the N4 mislynch.

Post-game, critique of the N1 militia shot continued.

Mods opted not to include militia in subsequent games wlf-072 and wlf-073.