Game begins - roles are assigned. The bad guys Boydy (Imp), P_3 (Poisoner) and Mr X can't believe their luck when they find out that their bluffs are Fortune Teller (Boydy), Investigator (P_3) and Mayor/Virgin/Soldier (Mr X). They know the town has no information on them from the get go and no way to actually get any proactively. They adopt a wait and see approach in case there is an undertaker or empath, both of whose abilities stand to gain from executions in one way or the other. This worked out well as it was the prevailing view of the town.
The 1 person with information at the start was Pepe, and his information was surely dud. Fortunately, this bad info wasn't as harmful to the town as it could have been, because the outsider he thought he saw wasn't the drunk, which would have been next level confusing.
So the game goes on and not much happens.
Boydy chucks in a random let's kill Mahow lol line, but no one is interested in killing anyone.
The the night comes along and we assume Boydy went for Baz, who was protected by the monk, but also, as chance would have it, is a soldier. I mean, what are the chances? And yet we probably have to believe that that happened. The only alternative would be this as an extreme long shot poison the imp target the scarlett woman gambit based on the soldier bluff being the final unknown bluff. I would love for this to be true but I don't think it is. You could save that shit for down the road.
After a second day with no execution I was at a bit of a loose end and so got to chatting with a few folk, Mahow being one of them. We had had some cursory chat on the first day, but this was the first substantive stuff. He brought up P_3 and how he was suspicious of him as they had concocted some sort of plan and P_3 hadn't followed through - the plan being the virgin check test. This was interesting to me as P_3 had also said to me privately that he had some info he was going to share publicly on Day 2 and he never did - blaming being busy at work I believe. Obviously at this point Mahow's role was known to P_3, whether he was good or bad. As the poisoner I wonder if P_3 thought he would gamble on poisoning Mahow on the belief he would try to force a virgin test somehow or other the next day? During the course of our discussions I revealed my role to Mahow. I was reticent, and whilst he was also guarded he made the first move, I believe the words were "fuck it, I'm the virgin" or something to that effect.
From this point on my role was compromised as the following night, the night of the death of Pleb, I was poisoned, seeing him as the poisoner, which made no sense on any level given what I had been told. Mahow said he told P_3 about an undertaker, it is possible he deduced it was me from my in thread mild exasperation at nobody being executed. If so, well done him. It is also equally possible Mahow just told him.
Mahow did say to me he'd rather just nominate and execute Pleb, although I did caution against this as it would likely draw the retaliatory nomination. He did it anyway.
Throughout these events I was most suspicious of Boydy and Jimmy, as a few of the non-bad guy characters should be able to attest. I don't think I let on about these suspicions to Jimmy as I thought he was a wrong'un, instead I was busy trying to sow seeds of doubt in his mind about Mahow and the Pleb pursuit.
Anyway, Pleb dies, but P_3s info is wrong, just how wrong I didn't apprehend. Thommo dies and is the monk, by this point Baz has claimed the soldier role. Most of the pieces seem to be falling into place but there are still unknowns (and Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns as it would happen). Mahow's power is burned [do not like that mechanic by the way - does it also apply to a slayer shot?] and Pleb looked as guilty as sin with everyone bar Jimmy buying it. How he didn't buy it I don't really know, and this is where the doubts about him creep in.
We interact a bit but I'm not at all trusting of him.
P_3 has been quite evasive by now so I decide to see if Manc has anything interesting to say. Around now Boydy hits me with his fortune teller schtick. It is ill-conceived and poorly executed, perhaps by design. Mahow and I both press Manc quite hard to use his power on Boydy, only he will be able to tell you who persuaded him to do it [if it was either of us at all].
The shot succeeds, the game doesn't end, P_3s goose is cooked, but the bad guys have somehow kept the ace up their sleeve and we simple townfolk have been plebrolled.
And here we are
Do we believe that Jimmy, with help from some heroic poisoning work from P_3 [Pepe N1, ???? N2, Mahow N3, Me N4] and some perhaps predictable madness from Pleb has managed to glide under the radar throughout whilst claiming a frankly dangerous role for the bad team quite openly, and apparently to one of the bad team?
Or is it Mahow, the deceitful virgin, who expertly conspired with his fellow bad guys to weave this tangled web once they had their hands on my completely pointless powers?
Perhaps the question should be, given the bluff of the mayor, or the virgin, which would you put on the scarlet woman? Or would you have used the other bluffs differently?
I'm coming round to still believing Mahow, somehow. What's the internet parlour game version of Stockholm Syndrome?