Um. Apparently I made a typo. Oops.
I'm going to kill myself for posting it now, but it's such a lovely case. I can't resist the urge to post it now rather than later. :/
And. here. we...go.
I'm typing this on 11/10/11. I planned on posting it in lylo, and with luck, that's when you'll be seeing it. Otherwise, it means things went bad quickly and I felt like if I didn't post things now the knowledge would die with me.
(And if it's the latter scenario, let's just say...THOR ARE YOU FREAKIN' DENSE?!? >_<)
Anyway. Let's cut to the chase and be as blunt as possible:
It's Oversoul.
do you understand?
...You don't? *sigh*
Well, this'll take explaining.
But...well...it should've been obvious to you all.
I suppose the best place to start is the beginning--where my suspicion formed. I'm unsure
where the suspicion started, But I have a general idea--I think it was around post 1933, iso 127. I certainly HAD it around then, at the very least. (Going through my QT notes, the first where I show Oversoul suspicion is on 11/4/2011. Not sure when that was in-thread, though.)
Note how I said I wanted to confirm both Oversoul and redFF are town.
Oversoul.
And redFF.
Tied together in that manner.
And in my next post, I said that I had gone through redFF's ISO to a specific point--yet gave none for Oversoul. (I gave specific points for every single player I ISO'd.) Why? Because I didn't. Because I was beginning to have the horrific thought that he was the SK.
(My notes also point out a lack of percentage on him--did I give those for everyone? I dunno; the note I'm pulling up was the
drunk
tired posting night so I might've meant something else when I said percentage.)
Another huge hint was in 1957 (iso 139). Note.
I list NS as being just as town as Evil and Thor.
Not just as town as Oversoul. His absence was quite intentional.
The first post I have in my quicktopic basically outlined how Oversoul *could* be scum, and laid the first draft (so to speak) of my plan to help prove or disprove it. Yes, I cracked up a whole plan, an entire gambit, off of an initial suspicion, even though the suspicion wasn't strong at the time.
The plan? Suck up to Oversoul and see if I made it to lylo. If I did, he was the SK for having spared me and hoping to manipulate me. Of course, things never go quite according to plan; my tactic had to morph a little bit in order to survive.
For starters, when I made the plan, I wasn't thinking it was him; it was made during the closing days of Day 7, after all. Later-on, I became more sure it was him. (But we'll cover that later.) The problem came with my day play:
The more and more into day eight I went, the more I revealed of my mindset--dangerous, as every word I said was a potential clue for the SK to use. Every sentence of clarification was one more sentence giving the SK a greater chance of realizing the truth. Which if I am right, would mean Oversoul figuring out I knew it was him.
So, It became less and less "buddy to Oversoul and see if I survive" and more and more "try to leave enough hints that the town can get it if Oversoul kills me, while simultaneously leaving myself suspicious enough to make sure he doesn't".
And that's how it got started and evolved. After fat revealed he was town and we had mislynched, you will recall I made a post which contained predictions.
You know, at the end of day seven?
Mastin wrote:It's pretty sad that I can predict exactly what will happen tonight. I know exactly who's going to bite the bullet. And I have a fairly good idea of the lynch tomorrow. Which I only give a 60% chance of being on scum. And if it's not, then I know the NK for the night after. And exactly who will be alive in 4P mylo. And how we'd no-lynch. And who would be the NK THEN, and exactly who would live to 3P lylo. (I'll type it out in my QT to prove I'm not BS'ing this.
)
Yeah, this. I actually saved it as a draft, since I was on my desktop rather than my laptop (where my QT was) and didn't copy it until after I had already done most of my calculations and research. (More on that in a moment.) So I'm not going to lie to you:
Originally, it wasn't accurate. I predicted a Thor-NK, because a Ninja-SK can be seen by a Voyeur but not by a Tracker, making Thor more of a risk than Evil. redFF was the lynch, at 60% likelihood of being the SK. Then came the Evil NK, and an obvious No-Lynch. My prediction for the NK was Nobody Special, due to his townslip that day effectively clearing him.
Leaving Empking and myself in lylo against Oversoul.
Of course. Then I realized after doing my work that if Oversoul was the Serial Killer, Thor would NOT be the NK. Evil was beginning to suspect Oversoul, and with Evil dead, Oversoul would have full uncounterclaimed control of claiming what has transpired in the neighborhood QT.
Or put bluntly: my original prediction would be accurate for everyone except for Oversoul, so if Evil died, it would be further evidence against Oversoul.
But otherwise, it remained the same. I did toy with the idea of an Empking-NK instead of an NS-NK, but I decided that Oversoul would believe he'd have a better chance with Empking and myself than NS and myself. This changed day eight, of course, once Oversoul had me and NS as "almost interchangeable". Essentially a DEAD giveaway for his intentions in lylo, "going to kill Empking".
So suddenly, the idea I had dismissed became my main theory.
But let's go back to the night of Night Seven. Night Seven is where the bulk of my Oversoul case was formed. And I tell you, it's quite extensive.
The background info is of course that I went into night effectively clueless, other than my pet-Oversoul-SK theory. Fat was my main suspect, Oversoul was my secondary suspect which I had only essentially gut on at the time. So I decided to do a little work. Compile a little from here and there, see what I came up with.
...I didn't like the result.
Step one: tallying all the night actions.
Thor wrote:Night 1 - watched DX - he was jailkept
Night 2 - watched Oversoul - he was protected and roleblocked
Night 3 - watched redFF - he was tracked
Night 4 - watched Foolish Fool - he was nightkilled
Night 5 - watched Oversoul - no actions targeted him.
The most important thing to note here is night two. Not the protect, but the roleblock.
Otolia, Mafia Watcher wrote:Nobody visited Xeras D1.
Nobody visited Hoppster D2.
This created a potential reasoning for Xeras to have been nightkilled, via the SK scum-hunting and thinking Otolia watched his buddy.
I have a different theory, mind you, one which I'll bring up later.
Otherwise, not important.
Oversoul's claimed Hoppster JKs wrote:Night 1: Jailed DavidX
Night 2: Jailed Empking
Night 3: We had problems with activity in the neighborhood. He said he would jail Xeras but I don't know if he was actually there to send in the action.
We know the David JK is a fact, and we know the N3 JK was actually Oversoul. There's nothing suggesting the N2 Empking jail is false, so I've been assuming it's true.
TOGTFO speaking of N3 wrote:Watched Oversoul last night,
Hopster and FoolishFool visited him.
Note once more that Oversoul is (double) roleblocked.
I unfortunately wasn't initially able to deduce much from these actions. As mentioned, we know David was jailed, and Empking was probably jailed. That's about it, except for one very vital fact:
Oversoul was roleblocked on both N2 and N3.
The only thing missing to paint an OverSK picture is "what would interfere with Night One?"
So, unable to make anything clearer, I made this:
-Evil tracked ?, ?, redFF (?), ?, ?, Oversoul. And if Oversoul is to believed, it's ?, Xeras, redFF, Mastin, Empking, Oversoul, all going nowhere.
-Thor watched David (JK'd), Oversoul (protect+block), redFF (tracked), Foolish (NK'd), Oversoul, and ?.
-Otolia watched Xeras, and Hoppster.
-Hoppster jailed David N1, Empking (?) N2, and Oversoul N3.
-BV protected ? N1, and Oversoul N2.
-TOGTFO investigated BV N1/2 (one of them; not sure which), Watched Oversoul N3, and protected ? (Oversoul?) N4.
-Scum roleblocked ? N1, Oversoul N2, Oversoul N3, and ? N4.
-Scum killed Estyn N1, BV N2, Hoppster N3, and ? N4.
-SK killed ? (David?) N1, ? (Empking?) N2, ? (Oversoul?) N3, Pine N4, TOGTFO N5, and Xeras N6.
Working from this, I made a few conclusions.
We know the scum blocked Oversoul two nights where there are failed kills. We've been told that Empking was blocked N2 as well, and that's the only night he could have been blocked. (Other than N4.)
-For Empking to be the SK, he'd need to have targeted David or nobody N1. He'd need to have targeted Oversoul N3 and been a ninja.
-For Oversoul to be the SK, he'd need to have either been roleblocked N1 (this roleblock is unaccounted for), killed David, or chosen nobody. Additionally, he needs to have not been blocked N4. (This is the other roleblock unaccounted for.)
-For NS/redFF to be the SK, they'd need to have targeted David or nobody N1, Empking or nobody N2, killed nobody or Oversoul N3 and rely on being a ninja, and kill Pine N4, without being roleblocked.
And my finishing thought?
"Why is there a VT-claim in an otherwise-PR neighborhood?" This was an older thought of mine, but it was rekindled by looking at the night actions. And from this, I did further investigation.
I fell to role-balance.
My first attempt made some miscalculation along the line. I'm not sure where it was, but it said, more or less:
Original Faulty Math wrote:Out of twenty players, we have seven PRs.
-Two even-night roles. (Vig/Commuter.)
-Two protection roles. (Bodyguard/Jailkeeper.)
-Two visiting/weak investigation roles. (Voyeur/Tracker.)
-One oddball, the JOAT. Said joat had an extra protect, visit, and investigation.
We also know the scum have two PRs.
-A watcher.
-A roleblocker.
Making 9/20 PRs, plus an apparently uber-SK. Half the game as power roles?!?
...Apparently.
Of twenty players including scum roles,
-Two even-night roles. (Vig/Commuter.)
-Two protection roles. (Bodyguard/Jailkeeper.)
-Two roleblocking roles. (M. Roleblocker/Jailkeeper.)
-Three visiting/weak investigation roles. (M. Watcher/Voyeur/Tracker.)
-One oddball, the JOAT. Said joat had an extra protect, visit, and investigation.
The SK is not immune to the Voyeur, their kills still apparently visible. But the SK is still up against three night actions which can catch them: Watcher, Tracker, and extra-Watcher.
(*BREAK*)
-For a fact, we know that there are seven town PRs.
*Oversoul acts as a weak eighth, via neighborhood.
-There's also two scum PRs, bringing the total up to ten.
*Lew/Hip acted as a weak third, via neighborhood.
-This brings the total up to eleven, plus the SK.
*Assuming the SK is not among the eleven others, that'd leave eight VTs.
...So......
-VT x 8.5
-Neighbor
-Tracker-Neighbor
-Jailkeeper-Neighbor
-EvenNight Vig
-EvenNight Commuter
-Bodyguard
-Voyeur
-JOAT
VS
-M. Neighbor
-M. Roleblocker
-M. Watcher
-M. Goon
VS
-Ninja SK.
I knew something wasn't adding up. I had made a false conclusion somewhere between the first half and the second. There was a miscalculation, which needed to be fixed. I needed to check my math.
A quick mental check left 7.5 VTs if Oversoul were to be town, so I tried to count manually in order to confirm.
Johhog, PR. One.
Hiplop, scum. (Two.)
BV, PR. Three.
Otolia, M PR. (Four.)
Hoppster, D PR. Five.
Ironhead, scum. (Six.)
Pine, M PR. (Seven.)
TOGTFO, PR. Eight.
Fat, PR. Nine.
Evil, D PR. Ten.
Thor, PR. Eleven.
SK, PR. Twelve.
Oversoul, Neighbor. Half-PR.
Twelve and a half.
Leaving not 8.5 VTs, but 7.5. That didn't make much sense.
Unless Oversoul were to be the Serial Killer. Suddenly, Oversoul's the SK and the neighbor, taking the twelfth slot without needing a thirteenth, and leaving us with a nice even eight VTs.
To top it all off, I thought about the neighborhood. Look at it for a moment:
Everyone else is effectively a double-PR. Neighbor-JK. Neighbor-Tracker. Neighbor-Scum. Neighbor...VT?
It didn't fit in. Oversoul was the odd-man out of the neighborhood. And with the math falling into place, suddenly things were beginning to make sense, even if I didn't want them to.
Xeras--suspecting the neighbors--was NK'd.
Evil--no longer confident in Oversoul--was NK'd.
I am alive, despite being such a competent scumhunter, meaning I was wrong before on my suspects. Which were...everyone EXCEPT for Oversoul, essentially.
The Scum-SK-PR-PR neighborhood lingering in my mind.
And then, process of elimination.
Thor was confirmed town and destined to bite the bullet.
NS had townslipped.
That left Oversoul, redFF, and Empking.
I was 85% sure it was Oversoul. With redFF lynched and Thor NK'd and me living to lylo, it'd move up to 95%. And I wanted that extra 10%. I wanted to remove the doubt in my mind about redFF and by proxy, Empking. Because...
The math says it's Oversoul.
Game balance says it's Oversoul.
General mechanics say it's Oversoul.
Night actions say it's Oversoul.
My original notes said it was Oversoul.
The case was formed, and I knew it was solid.
...But...it had a hole in it. That hole essentially boiling down to a tl;dr of "...what if I'm wrong?!?"
If redFF and one of Empking/NS were scum+SK, then it'd bring the total number of VTs down dangerously low, to 6 without Oversoul acting as another, plus with a fifth scum in this scenario, the numbers changed. It didn't make nearly as much sense to have Oversoul scum if one of redFF/Empking/NS were a different-scum. So I needed to make sure it wasn't redFF, I pretty much knew it wasn't NS, and with only Empking left, he'd be pretty much clear.
...If that makes sense.
So, I needed to remove that doubt. The only way I could do that was by lynching redFF.
Yes, bad as it may sound, that's what became my plan. Remove all the variables I possibly could. Do you understand now why redFF was a wild-card? Because my math wasn't perfect, I needed to know it was correct despite being imperfect. redFF was the only lynch I could conceive of which would remove that doubt.
If he flipped town, I would know Oversoul was the Serial Killer by my calculations. If he didn't flip town, either the game would be over or I'd know my calculations were off, and that Oversoul was indeed town as I wanted him to be. (More than that, confirmed-town, making him a risk for the remaining scum!)
Hence, not wanting to lynch Oversoul first. He's been my strongest town-read since Day Two, after all. I couldn't lynch him. Not when he could potentially hurt the scum, and not when he was a strong townread of mine.
And that's why I couldn't lynch my SK-suspect. Do you understand now why I couldn't accept who the Serial Killer was? Why I wanted to ignore the logic? Why in the battle of not-so-ultimate-logic versus ultimate gut, how I didn't want my gut to be wrong? Do you understand now why I wanted redFF to be scum of some kind even though I "knew" he was town?
Well, even if you don't understand, at least you know. Now you know
I had the "What if I'm wrong?" reaction to my SK-read. And just how that meant I could no longer have my normal Mastin-level confidence.
Reverse. Confirmation. Bias. At its absolute worst. The inverse to my Confirmation Bias towards Magister Ludi in Sexy Sedilla. I was 95% sure he was scum. I couldn't see him flipping town, I couldn't fathom a scenario where he wasn't scum, to the point where I gambited and told the town to auto-lynch me if he was town.
...Yet he
town. And I was devastated. I thought I had cost the town the game. I thought that I was going to be lynched, and that it was my fault for having gotten such a strong read which was so wrong.
The same only in reverse happened here. Facing instead of a scumread proven wrong, a townread which should be wrong. I didn't want him to be scum. I didn't want to get rid of my reverse-confirmation-bias. The person I think is the SK is the one person I shouldn't think is the SK, the one person who if I'm wrong about being the SK would completely and totally screw the town over.
More than that, if I were wrong, I'd have lynched the guy who was most-town of us all. And caused--be it SK or hidden-fifth-scum--a scum victory out of what should've been a town-win.
And if I let them KNOW this, then any hope I have of removing the doubt is obliterated. If I were wrong, then they could intentionally keep Oversoul alive for a mislynch instead of nightkilling him.
And there was the risk that by revealing this case on Day Eight, Oversoul would be lynched THEN, because I made a dang-good case against him in the QT. And me being wrong would be entirely on me.
That is why it was so hard to speak on the subject. I wouldn't have kept it a secret unless it was just that vital to me. I'm not even sure Oversoul didn't figure it out, but obviously, if you see this, then it doesn't matter if he did or not.
Yes. The gambit is in the open, now. I was pleased Oversoul suspected me (that was the entire purpose of asking if he trusted me--I needed to gauge roughly how likely it was that I'd bite the bullet), because that'd mean I wouldn't get NK'd by him. I was letting myself (somewhat-intentionally) garner up some suspicion, specifically so that I would live 'til lylo. But simultaneously, I was trying to avoid tipping Oversoul off. And at the same time, leaving enough hints to be useful. While also making sure I wasn't being manipulated into thinking Oversoul was scum if he wasn't.
I wanted Thor's trust for the gambit, since he not only was going to be the NK, but generally also does not approve of Mastin-gambits. I wanted his seal of approval, his confidence that I could pull this one off.
I wanted redFF's trust since not only was he going to be lynched because of the gambit (with me wanting him to have confidence in his primary lyncher being able to pull through with a town win), but also because he cast Oversoul suspicion and I wanted his trust that I would follow through.
Honestly, this all should've been incredibly obvious. I started 'crumbing with my constant references to Sexy Sedilla. If that weren't bad enough, I had given perhaps the largest hint of all in the post where I said redFF flipping not-town and my suspect flipping town would have the same outcome. (Me being lost.)
Logically and for most players, this would mean going through and attacking said suspect. Think about it--why would I hesitate to attack Empking? Who I had cast minor suspicion towards? How about NS? Who was also on my suspect list?
No, the person I wouldn't go after was Oversoul, and only him. Meaning the only person who I wouldn't attack would be him. It was a dead giveaway.
Now you know why I responded the way I did to Oversoul's inquiry about the SK in 2010 (iso 148). Now you know why I didn't really fear the SK-NK. Now you know why I was capable of placing 'crumbs.
Now you know why nothing the SK could say would influence me, but what the SK would DO would. Now you know exactly why I was having trouble communicating this concept without revealing my read.
Now you understand why I did what I did.
And now it's all in the open. Let's finish this.
I. Will. Not. Cause. Two. Serial Killer. Wins. In. A. Row!
Unvote, VOTE: Oversoul.
