The Syndicate

When I signed up, I knew I was going to approach this game with the idea that I would try very hard regardless of alignment. I had never played in such a stacked playerlist before, and I wanted to prove myself.

I especially wanted to rand wolf, because “proving myself” as the wolf alignment is something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time. On my homesite, I’m known as the wolf who usually gets outed super quickly. I either powerwolf and get clapped, or I’m obvwolf and get clapped before I ever approach powerwolf levels. Even in my two wolf games here, I was never really townread and I got clapped super quickly.

And then I rand wolf. Wolf PR, no less. This means I have to go for a deep run, but… I have never, ever been able to pull a deep run before. There has not been a single game where I was townread across the village as a wolf. But if I pulled that off in this game, people would start to respect my wolfplay. People would understand that I am a competent wolf. I can get townreads if my WiM is high enough, and if my time investment is high enough. I. Can. Wolf.

I looked at my team and noticed the lack of Arete in it. Everyone who knew me before randed town (the FoLers), including Arete, who has genuinely never misread me before. The “godread” business wasn’t BS. We have always, always caught each other when the other randed wolf. The streak has never been broken before.

Not only that, but the wolfteam I got was a big unknown to me. Nanook replaced out and KZA subbed in, then declared he was an awful wolf and couldn’t post. Dya was initially demotivated from randing wolf in this playerlist, for reasons I’ll not disclose unless Dya wants to do that themselves. C4 was someone who got caught in CoV and spewed a lot of people as town. I hate saying this, but I didn’t think the odds looked good. With me usually getting caught easily as wolf, having a team I had doubts about (sorry!), plus a bunch of townies on the other side who I knew were good at towning, I felt the odds were stacked against me a LOT. A LOT.

But I still wanted to prove myself in this game. The approach I selected was one of “doing things the people who know me think town!Vulgard does.” I have thought for a long while that people’s reading metrics for my play were faulty, and I was wondering if this approach would work.

It worked. Everybody townread me. Everyone, including people who knew me, including Arete, the person with 100% accuracy on me before this game. I took advantage of me having a proven good read on Gavial to misyeet him. I do genuinely have a very accurate read on him, the only reason I pushed him here was because I was a wolf and spun a narrative of his posts being wolfy. As town I probably listen to Arete’s defense of him.

My team itself may not be in a great spot, with KZA just shitposting and dya not being super motivated to play (that was my thought, anyway), but c4 is playing out of meta according to the village and I’m happy about that. I enter day 2 pretending that my Gavial misread made me lose confidence and I take a “back seat.” It’s all working out fine.

In the meantime, from n1 onwards, I conduct a PR hunt in wolfchat. My fellow wolves help me with this. I manage to iron out a PoE that contained all three PRs, on night 1. A fairly tight PoE, might I add. I originally even suggested roleblocking Hally when they were the vig shooting our wolf rolecop, which would’ve been awesome. Sadly, I was convinced not do this and to kill Hally instead. I don’t blame my teammates, I wasn’t 100% confident Hally was exactly vig, either. I holstered my roleblock n1 because I didn’t want to get tracked.

Throughout day 2, I continued to comb through the PR PoE. Toward the end, we knew exactly who the jailkeeper was. We knew it was Sunbae. I had also figured out Amy was PR sometime during day 1, and I pushed her on day 2 knowing that fact. We had the exact PRs down to the letter in the middle of day 2, and I did a large part of the hunting and ironing out the PR PoE. I have never seriously PR hunted before, and yet in a game with so many good players, I found the PRs as if I’ve always been good at this. And I was still townread, throughout day 2.

Going into night 2, I suspected Sunbae was going to target me. He had been questioning me in a weirdly prodding way on day 2, and was the only person to seriously suggest I might be mafia. Yes, he caught me despite me knowing he would. But then, how did that happen?

I roleblocked and submitted a kill on… Sunbae, that night. I thought that even if Sunbae jailkept me, our actions would cancel each other out because I’m roleblocking him, and he’d die.

“Why did you not ask your team, or the host, how the interaction worked?”

I don’t know.

"Why not roleblock Amy to prevent her from getting a track off?"

I remember thinking that letting her track someone was good WIFOM. But... I don't know.

"Why not have someone else carry the kill if you think Sunbae might jailkeep you?"

I thought dya and c4 weren't in a good position to carry because of Amy. My mindset was a bit weird.

“Why should we believe you?”

You don’t have to. I’m writing this mostly to get this off my chest.

“You’re feeling too sorry for yourself when you were caught fair and square.”

This is why I put this in spoilers, this is a bit of a lamentation, I must admit. I considered not including this part, but including it helps me realign my feelings. Sorry if anyone thinks this is conceited of me to do.

During night 2, I also had a chat with Marl where I successfully convinced him I was just town. I recommend that people read it if it's published, it's pretty funny in hindsight.

It felt so incredibly unfair when there was no kill that night.

On day 3, I actually told you the truth… as far as telling the truth as a wolf goes. I thought Zack jailkept Sunbae and that was the reason our kill failed, while Zack assumed Sunbae was scum because he’d blocked him. I was super excited about this, despite the fact it would mean my PR read was wrong. I softed to Marl that I was happy about Sunbae getting outed because he was in both of our PoEs overnight; I was not making him claim JK for me, it wasn’t conscious. I could pretend it was conscious to make myself seem better at the game than I actually am, but I never intended to have Marl claim JK for me. I did claim JK in my night chat with Marl, but it was a terrible claim and I frankly never thought he would believe me.

Then Sunbae comes in with the jailkeep on me. My team actually wants to concede. I don’t, because I think it’s still possible I get out of this. Sadly, it isn’t. Sunbae hammers in the fact I must be pushed and then I slowly give up as well, seeing that I’m not walking out of this scot-free no matter what I do. At best, I get one additional misyeet if I push really hard, and then die anyway. It didn’t seem worth it.

Also because my WiM was shot. I had the right PR reads, I had the right action targets, I did everything right. I carried the kill n2, because I thought both of my partners had a decent chance of getting tracked considering their thread positions. And because I didn’t think Sunbae jailkeeping me would matter when I was roleblocking him. I was townread by the entire thread. I was playing by far the best wolfgame of my life, my first ever deep run as a wolf in a playerlist so insanely stacked against me I could not believe it was working.

And then that happens.

My thoughts meander in wolfchat a bit. I want to lolcat at the end of the day, but at the same time I don’t. I watch Marl and Arete meander with their reads on me, Arete’s impassioned defense of me, and I’m like. “I did such an excellent job, I am STILL being defended. Why. Why is this happening. I wanted to just prove myself as a wolf one time. ONE. TIME. Why does something ALWAYS have to go wrong?”

I didn’t post for an entire day, and I couldn’t sleep during the night. I felt absolutely awful. Sunbae hammering in the yeet on me felt terrible and I actually had massive enmity toward him for a while. He was dead to rights. And yet it was turned around on me, and he posted in this overly dramatic way I thought was unwarranted for what happened in reality. It annoyed me to hell and back.

Right now, I don’t have such enmity anymore. I have nothing against Sunbae, though in the moment I was annoyed by him. Such are humans, I suppose? Even when you shouldn’t have negative feelings toward someone, since you’re playing a game as opposite alignments, you still feel like they don’t deserve to succeed. Stupid, I know. I’m ashamed I felt that way. It’s not like Sunbae insulted me or anything, he just shut down most avenues through which I could escape. I talked to everyone in the spec/dead chat for a long time and I hope I've made it obvious I don't have hard feelings toward anyone in this game.

I’m just… I’ll never get such an opportunity again, most likely. I had the chance for such an amazing deep run, and it was botched because I decided not to ask a mechanical question that would’ve solved the problem. Not to ask my teammates, not to ask the host. That was stupid. If I know the interaction, I just have c4 carry the kill instead.

Or maybe I have a fake memory because I unjustifiably feel vindicated. Maybe. I don’t know.

Either way, then I got yeeted.

…

I wrote this post while dead. I was really, really looking forward to finally showing that I am a capable wolf. As a villager, I still would’ve tried, but especially as a wolf I wanted to really show my abilities. I had the chance for a deep run unlike anything ever before, something no one who has ever played with me would have ever expected from me.

You could quote a certain video game character and say “Life is simply unfair.” I suppose there’ll be another time, but I don’t know when.

And no, I’m not asking for pity or anything of the sort here. I just wanted to get everything off my chest. You don’t even have to respond, or to read any of this.

And I apologize to my wolfmates if they believe I treated them unfairly in this post, or anytime before then. c4 reached final 3, after all, dya's lolcats were very funny, and KZA. This post is inherently selfish, self-indulgent, and biased. I do not have bones to pick with any of you.

I’d play a game in such a playerlist again. Maybe next time, I’ll get to have a performance I’m genuinely proud of.

And again, I’m sorry. I know some parts of this post are… questionable. I don’t mean to insult anyone. I don’t mean to make anyone feel bad.