fhomess

I had fun with this game even if I didn't last very long. I'm guessing I looked scummy to Yumiyoshi for trying too hard to look like town, but I'd love to hear more about it. That was a pretty devastating night for scum. My apologies to Darth for encouraging the day 1 lynch, but someone has to go day 1, and as scum, I felt you were the easiest to target. I was impressed that Wully survived the "not-town" investigator result and lasted to the end of the game. Also, a decent effort by Pirelly in trying to avoid the lynch on Day 4 with his doctor claim. Christos was, IMO, the best scum amongst us as he worked the PM's, but kudos to the townies for not trusting him fully and ultimately creating enough confusion on our end. Here's the role PM section relevant to me. I've cut out parts relating to the other scummies, but Biskie was roleblocker.

Oh, I don't think that slow or entirely absent responses are something to be overly concerned about. It's when a response comes back and doesn't fact check or address anything that I start to worry. I also don't think that either town or scum are more likely to have prepared coherent defenses. Both are just as likely to be either invested in this or not. You're right, but if you're really all that concerned about it, why not just vote for one of them and see what happens? Yesterday, you singled out Flanagan and Master Hale as too quiet in an earlier post. Then after voting began, you singled out 6 of the quieter people, but also myself and Cuslo for being too eager to accuse. Today again, you have singled out quiet people in your comments, but not tried to bring any additional resolution to any of those situations. Ultimately, you voted yesterday for an accuser (beloved town member Cuslo) rather than a quiet person, and stuck with that vote because you "knew it didn't matter". Seems convenient to have others put their neck out for you, but I'll do it anyway since we might get somewhere. There are a few people that haven't had much to contribute to the discussion either day, but the one that seems to say the least is Gilly Wooks. The only real contribution to moving forward from Gilly was when he revealed his puzzle piece, but this was the 8th piece revealed and it came after Wully had given his solution. It also was one of the two pieces that came after Zam suggested that only townies got a piece, something I think we have agreed isn't a likely situation, but possibly notable. Gilly's voting pattern has been one with little explanation, merely going along with the bandwagon on both days, voting late for Darth and voting for Wully early, but after Wully already had several votes. Joinging the bandwagon isn't necessarily a sign of scum. After all, the person to get lynched almost always has more votes than there are scum, but the lack of explanation is frustrating. For this reason, and simply to get Gilly talking, my initial vote is Gilly: Vote: Gilly Wooks, the Miller (Gingerwookie)

Yes, I'll likely be more involved in the discussion the rest of the day than I have been to this point. Part of the reason I haven't voted yet today is that I don't feel that anyone stands out the way that Darth did yesterday. Wully is an easy choice and is probably my fallback option if I can't find someone that I feel is likely to be scum amongst all the discussion. That said, today hasn't seen as much action as yesterday did in terms of votes being thrown around. I do like to think through my thoughts quite a bit before posting them. It's important to me that I don't say something demonstrably false, which would likely cause people to vote for me. That said, accusations help information come out. I said that yesterday and I'll say this as long as I'm alive, the more information we have, the more likely we are to be able to solve this thing. We're often quick to criticise those who don't defend themselves appropriately. It sounds like you're now interested in criticising those who defend themselves quickly or well? Fair enough. In terms of trying to move forward with some other suggestions of people who may require some more explanation, let me start with the two people at the center of today's reveal. Voltana: You say the cop trusted you enough to share their results from last night with you, but you don't say why the cop should have trusted you. Given Wully's response, I suspect that your information is most likely accurate. However, unless we can understand why the cop trusted you, it seems dangerous to have the cop trusting someone who may be scum. The fact that you were happy to share that Wully was not town and he then just happened to be the Serial Killer is suspicious. Only the the scum would know that not-town would be a Serial Killer. I admit, this could just be coincidence, and the chance that you are indeed town would be formidable since you would provide some protection to the cop via indirectly passing on the information, but it bears some explanation. Wully: As much as you say you would like to help the town, having your extra kill around each night is only helpful if we really know who scum is, or if we're willing to knock off random townies at a faster rate. If the puzzle is true and there are 4 Witchbreed, then despite the fact that we lost 3 townies already, we still have many more people who would result in an undesirable kill than in a desirable one. If your win condition really is just to be alive at the end, then not only could you choose to side with the Witchbreed, you might actually have incentive to do so. Given that the lynch is uncertain to be scum and the Witchbreed kill is certain to be town, you'd be able to kill off townies and get to your win condition faster. I'll have some more ideas later after rereading the records from day 1 and what has transpired today. Just one additional thought on Wully... if we were further along and had a larger contingent of townies who knew they could trust each other, then I think it would be easier to expect you'd be successful with your kill. That said, we may have to accept some casualties to the town in order to get to that point, so the question is really whether or not we want to accept that risk.

I voted for Darth yesterday because Darth was all over the place in terms of her approach to the day's activities. Darth was, IMO, a reckless townie, who was likely to cause greater division amongst townies in future days if allowed to be kept alive. Darth accused Sir Carrots openly after what was presented as a brief PM conversation. Yes, we're all on a witch hunt (Witchbreed hunt to be precise), but those are best handled in a sane and logical approach when there's a large chance of killing non-witches. I felt like removing Darth from that equation was an acceptable result even if Darth proved to be town, especially given the lack of any real evidence yet on anyone else. Had Darth changed her approach after the voting period began, I may have changed my vote, but that pattern continued. In addition, as the first voter, I couldn't possibly have known how everyone else would respond. It's the bandwagon voters that I believe are the ones you have to watch out for and analyze whether or not they're really thinking through their vote or just trying to piggyback on something to hide themselves. I also don't feel like I really pushed all that hard to convince others to vote for Darth, and even refrained from repeating myself later in the day. Clearly, I was wrong to think that Darth may have been scum, but I stand by my assertion that Darth's actions as a townie would have made the potential for townies to come together and weed out scum more difficult. Finally, while Flanagan was quick to side with me (getting your vote as a result), no one else really hopped on any bandwagon until quite a time after I had cast my vote. The whole puzzle piece discussion came in between.

Oh, wow. That was a pretty bad start to this thing. Three town killed and the king has now asked me to prepare him his special meal of braised lamb shank to quench his anger. Unfortunately, our cop's special liason cannot be protected every night, nor can the cop him/herself. That said, the reveal that Wully is not town is indeed big news. As stated by others, that means he's either an SK or scum, to which he's claiming SK. While his offer to let us all know who he's going to kill before the night begins would indeed confirm that he is the SK, I'm not sure if that's preferable to lynching him regardless. The thing is, unless Wully KNOWS he's going to be killing scum, he's hurting town. Scum wants townies killed as fast as possible, while townies want to have as few random chance killings as possible. Only a guaranteed scum kill really helps town. I'll admit that the SK also has a chance of killing scum, but his chances of killing a townie are also good. I will have to think on this more as I prepare this meal for our noble king. ... just saw your post Wully, but I don't have time to analyze it at the moment. The king is not patient!

Well, my day has been crazy busy so while I've had a chance to catch up on things here and there, I don't really know yet what to make of some of these latter events. I look forward to tomorrow when we have some real evidence to go on. There seems to be a lot of switching of votes, so perhaps we'll be able to use that information tomorrow to gain more understanding.

Yawwwwwnnnn.... I wake up really sleepy from these long naps. I must say, though, I'm a bit disappointed to see how few croissants have been eaten. Don't you like my cooking anymore? I agree with this completely. More talking today may not reveal more confidence in our votes for today, but it should give us more insight as we move through this ordeal. By tomorrow, some of us will have real evidence to go on. I agree that's the most likely solution to the puzzle, and it should be helpful later. I suppose it'll also give us a good idea of how we're doing, unless your last statement turns out to be untrue. The other problem may be that there are additional parties who have their own interests in mind, neither town or Witchbreed. That's a scenario we should keep in mind, but I don't see much point in fretting about it until there's some evidence that we have such a rogue element. I tend to agree that it's unlikely that the puzzle pieces only went to one group of participants. I would expect these to have randomly fallen around the castle where they could've been picked up by anyone. At this point, I'm also a bit surprised that we are still missing so many pieces. Either someone is intentionally holding onto a piece since they have something to gain by not revealing it, or not all the pieces have been found yet. That said, I'm not sure the latter matters so much if it does indeed say what you indicated. That's a very interesting reveal, and the type of thing that comes with having your back against the wall. On the one hand, if you are the roleblocker, we could really use your help. On the other hand, it's not a role that I was 100% expecting anyone to have. All that said, it could very well be true. I'll have to think about this one, but I doubt the Godfather was going to be easy to identify on day 1.

I don't think I ever accused Cecily Seas, but rather Wully Tintin. Your point is the same regardless, and it's a valid question so I will answer it. The first accusation was to get things rolling, to see what would happen as people began to respond. I'm pretty sure I stated that at the time. I believe the best way to catch scum is to talk about everyone and everything. That way, more comes out in the open and we have more to look back on later as our regal boy king so rightly pointed out. I moved to Wife of Darth because of reasons I've stated previously. Since I risk appearing as though I'm trying to pile on, I'll not repeat them again in detail unless pressed further. I have been consistent in saying that I'm not sure of Wife of Darth, but that I have less to go on with everyone else and her behavior seems suspect to me. I can see why my behavior would be similarly suspect, although I also think less so. I've heard the saying that a silent townie is no better than scum, and I don't have any problem with the trend that is now emerging to vote for the more silent members among us. There is almost certainly a mix of both sides among them, and I wouldn't know how to make a choice at this point. I can always unvote later if needed (although, you never know when the wife daughter boss sleep king demands a change to the menu on the spot and I'm unable to respond in a timely fashion). All that said, I like to get the discussions going earlier as that gives us more time to react and analyze. If people don't think that can be helpful to town, then I'll refrain from it in the future.

I really don't think I did. I thought I was just defending myself as best I could. Everyone's free to make up their own mind and there are many votes yet to come in.

Actually, I challenged Wully Tintin before you brought forth your accusation against Sir Carrots. Follow the chain of events: Which was shortly before you claimed the following... Note that you're responding to Cuslo Mizzle in the first part of this quote, not me. My next response was to accept that I had nothing on Wully and see where the discussion on you and Sir Carrots led. I didn't latch on to anything you said until it was clear to me that Sir Carrots did indeed talk to you and claim to be a vanilla townie. Perhaps you were already working together, but you couldn't possibly know that you were both trustworthy at that point (or even now, for that matter). Here's the first time I really made any claim that I thought one of you really was scum, which was quite a ways further in the conversation and a response to Sir Carrots defense. My next contribution was the one in which I voted for you. I don't think there's any evidence that I tried to pursuade the discussion towards a vote for you outside of these two comments. Some other comments have been made to cast accusation to others, but none of those seemed as potentially scummy as what I saw from you. You're correct, that response wasn't helpful in the least, and for that I apologize, but it seems that others got the joke as intended. Fair enough. If one throws a stone one can expect some to be thrown back. However, I have acted in full interest of the town today. I will finish by saying that in fairness, I believe our methods have been somewhat similar today, we both took a risk and tried to see what conversation surfaced. Given that I know myself to be in the clear, and your methods looked underhanded to me (claiming private conversation reveals), you seemed the most likely candidate from my perspective. I admit, the case against you is far from conclusive, it's just that no one else seems to have much of a case against them either.

My, oh my! All the eclairs are gone! I must say that I'm quite pleased you enjoyed them as they're a special family recipe that my mother used to say reminded her of "Holmes sweet Holmes". ... sorry inside joke, I guess. Anyway, you'll see that I was up early today preparing a nice selection of assorted croissants filled with cheese, eggs, berries, and even chocolate. Bon appetit! I hadn't thought of that. Probably something to be a little more wary of. It's possible that it gives insight to who the Witchbreed are. Is it also possible that it provides information to the Witchbreed we don't want revealed? I think this is possible, but until we have more evidence, I'm inclined to think that one of them is scum and the other is not. I agree it's unlikely that both are, but strange things are afoot! And this type of attitude is why I think you ought to be the first to go. All your great ideas so far have only raised suspicion among a large number of us. You wasted no time in outing a person who put their trust in you. While I think it's possible you're not scum, if you are a townie, your behavior seems counterproductive. Instead of working to build up trust in the townie community, you're sabotaging it. At least, I know that I'm going to need some serious evidence to trust you in the future if you do survive beyond today. For that, you're my initial vote. If you really are town, please find a way to convince me. Vote: The Wife of Darth (darthnihilius)

I confess that I have no piece. Given that, I think it's possible that not all the pieces have been found to this point. You are correct on the second possibility. Being investigated as town early would certainly be of aid to her if she is indeed the godmother. As for your other comments, it is clear that you are not denying the accusation Darth has made against you, namely that you inquired of her role and presented yours willingly as "vanilla townie". While I'm not accusing you yet, that is certainly the most logical thing for a scum to claim. Right now, the two of you are probably the top of my list given the strange behavior of today. The fact remains, we have very little other information to go on aside from the puzzle pieces, and I don't think we'll solve that riddle so quickly.

Merely to get the ball rolling. He did pop in and comment, although it wasn't a particularly strong defense. That said, there are other more interesting leads to follow at this point so flying under the radar is probably fine for now. Inconceivable! Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Fair enough, but I'll pass on the dresses, too. My hat's about all the green I care to wear at once, and the discussion appears to have taken off a bit with Darth's claim of Sir Carrots' PM. A puzzle! This is an interesting turn of events I never would have expected. I have seen no such thing in the castle pantries.

It seems that the Wife of Darth is the only one of us who has said anything other than "let's catch these Witchbreed", so we really have nothing to go on. Most of us have checked in to this point, and it seems that beyond randomly throwing out accusations, we've got nothing else really to go on. There's still quite a bit of time before any votes need to be cast, but that doesn't mean we can't go ahead and start seeing how people react to accusations. There's two ways to go about it. We've got a handful of folks who've yet to show up and then there's the rest of us. The ones who haven't checked in may not yield anything early. Those who have checked in, if they're regularly here, will hopefully be able to respond. Darth might be a person to target because she's already encouraging people to contact her (I'm not quite ready to trust you on this one), but I also think it'd be a bit strange for scum to put themselves out there that blatantly this early. So I'll give you a pass for now. Instead, I'll just pick someone at "random" and see what happens. Wully Tintin, you're offering to sell us some fine furs, but are you really seeking our comfort or is that just so you can get close enough to skin us? For the rest of you, please enjoy a nice eclair from the table to the left.

What foul treachery has befallen our peaceful kingdom! I'm sure that with appropriate teamwork, we'll be able to sniff out this evil. Since it's unlikely any of us will be permitted to leave the castle before this riddle is solved, I will set about preparing a buffet of roasted pheasant and assorted harvest vegetables. I'm not sure any of us have any more information than the rest at this point. I look forward to hearing what each person has to say about this unforeseen turn of events.

These guys came around just after I entered my dark age, so I never got any of them, but I do like them. I think the current Kingdoms line would be enhanced tremendously by adding some bandit factions like these and developing a storyline to link them. I liked the old blog background much better. Perhaps create a title bar out of the figures, or a menu bar where they link to the blog posts about that faction. It's just too busy and distracting to have it behind the whole page, IMO.

I have read the rules and am confirming participation.

I must confess that this thread and the ToysRUs BOGO this weekend convinced me. However, more importantly, the information in this thread helped convince my wife that this will be something our kids will be able to fully enjoy more later, and it's ok for me to enjoy it now. I now have the two latest PF cargo trains (7939 and 3677). I actually thought my daughter would enjoy the passenger train more than two cargo trains, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy what appears to be a rather boring passenger train set (7938) when I could get the cargo train for half off. Everything is still boxed up, so we'll have to start exploring over the next few weeks.

Thanks to all for the responses. I may need a little more space than I thought, but I suppose it ultimately depends on what I do with it and how much money I can commit.

Yes, of course. She isn't allowed near this type of stuff without me around, and is actually quite good about not touching things she's not supposed to. I will likely have to build your Koploper if I go this route...

I loved these dioramas, too. As a kid, it never actually dawned on me that I might possibly want multiples of the same set in order to build up armies. I'd always want new sets I didn't have, but I did love the scenes of the forestmen attacking castles, no matter how ridiculous it seems to me now.

I have been an observer here at EB for a while now, although I haven't posted much. I've played mafia in person, but not on EB. That said, I have the time availability to be an active participant (perhaps a bit rough on that at Thanksgiving (USA), but should be ok) and will do my best not to offend anyone's sense of grammar or spelling. I did follow the recently completed CdF while it was running. Hopefully, I have enough posts to PM you! I do!

Thanks for the responses! I'm not too big into the collector side. This is about having fun. My daughter does actually like trains quite a bit already, and I'm hoping that by encouraging that interest, she'll keep it as she gets older. Ok... I do seem to recall thinking that $150 for a starter set was a bit more than HO/N, but for that you get something that is easier to replace parts on and far more kid friendly. Thanks. Both of these comments sound appealing to me. Thanks, this is very helpful. I could probably have a hobby grade set and keep my kids off it, but I'm not sure I'd want to. That seems like something I could reasonably manage. Thanks... one thing I remember about HO/N scale from when I was a kid was that while the trains were ready out of the box, it seemed to take a long time to build up scenery. Custom making anything was always a chore. Thanks for the responses... this thread was probably more about me trying to figure out if I'm really ready to take the plunge. The 7939 is pretty neat, although I may end up being more of a passenger train guy. I knew this was the "wrong" place to post this!

I apologize if this type of question is seen as inappropriate, but from reading over these forums for several weeks now, it's probably worth asking. First, some background. I have a two year old daughter who likes Lego (would rather play with mine than her Duplos), and another child on the way, so for the short term, this is more a hobby for me than the kids, but I want to keep the kids in mind. I like railroads a lot, and still have a Fleischman N-scale starter set from when I was much younger. I've dabbled in HO and N scale model building in the past, but not in many years. I like Lego a lot, and am mostly a castle/town guy, but like to have trains in my town. My problem with Lego is that it seems they refuse to stay with a consistent technology throughout the years. I'm relatively recently out of my dark age and debating whether or not to get into the new PF trains. The last trains I owned were the pre 1990's, but I don't have access to any of that stuff now (supposedly, my dad still has it somewhere). I'm worried that committing to PF will result in frustration when they change technology again. I like the idea of powered rails much better, but that's not what's currently available and I don't want to spend on out of print stuff. I do like that Lego is easily rebuilt into other things, though. Lego trains would be more supplemental to my other Lego, while an HO/N scale layout would be a standalone endeavor. That said, I must admit that I'm still slightly embarrassed to have Lego prominently displayed in my house after a 20+ year dark age, which I wouldn't feel with a more "adult" looking layout. So here are some of my questions: 1. What tends to cost more? Lego or HO/N stuff? 2. How much space do I need for a Lego layout that would be comparable to a 4 foot by 8 foot HO layout? (I do have space, just not sure how much my wife will let me commit) 3. Any other particular opinions on which you think is the right medium for me based on the above? Many thanks!