So first things first, I was dealt wolf. Immediately I'm thinking about possible fakeclaims from there. Sheriff and Witch seem natural, since they are in the same bucket. I could use the Witch claim to rub shoulders with other evils in Day Off, I could use Sheriff to try and befriend town. One thing's for sure: Third party is my absolute favorite alignment to play, so I am going to be tryharding as much as I can.
I wake up after d1 and see that Mafia's existence is confirmed. Disaster. I really didn't want to have to go head to head with them. I think that Gun Game is very hard to win with Neutral Killing. I am going to have to take massive risks to succeed here. Even if I make it to final three it's really easy for me to get voted out from there since there's just one of me. I desperately need people to trust me, and to trust me a LOT.
I see that Jalmont claims a witch tried to control him and also claims that someone tried to kill him (from which he was saved). The second one is extremely suspicious. Unless a town killing role randed him night 1 (which is almost certainly a misplay) this is false. The only other way he can say it and be town is if he was Hypnotized. I don't think there's any reason for mafia to hypnotize someone night 1: it doesn't make any sense to me because if a lookout targetted that person they would know the hypnotist, and if that person just claimed like Jalmont did, town would know there WAS a hypnotist at the very least. So there is no upside to a hypnotist using their ability this recklessly, and Jalmont is almost certainly lying. I realize this might sound insane in retrospect. But I was completely sure that a competent mafia wouldn't use the hypnotist in this way. I assumed that at least one person on scum would veto this use of hypnotist. I didn't know why a scum Jalmont would claim what he did, but I suspected it was a dogwhistle to the witch or an attempt to set up some sort of long con where Jalmont was seen to have helped town. Maybe he did it to make it seem like a Hypnotist existed in a world where it didn't, in order to set up further lies down the line.
This fits in nicely with my Sheriff fakeclaim. If I successfully ID Jalmont as suspicious early on and in a documented way, it makes my Sheriff claim into a certainty and I'll possibly be able to skate through the entire game off of it, with no one suspecting I'm the wolf. I believe this type of play is necessary since the odds are stacked against me. If I was Sheriff and inspected Jalmont, I'd claim it as early as possible to a townfirm in order to make myself look as credible as possible. I do this first thing in the morning to Lechen who is almost certainly the retributionist.
The rest of the day, I just act kind of low key. Some people claim to me, such as DBD who claimed lookout, flanders who claimed escort, sunny who claimed transporter. I got these claims because Sunny transported myself and psypsy, while Flandrs escorted me and DBD looked out for me, which lead to them having a bit of a run-in in the thread. As the day goes on I become less and less sure Jalmont is scum. I have this impending sense of dread that I might get outed and it's too late now.
I start coming up with contingency plans for if I am wrong about Jalmont. I give Sunny my role as sheriff because that's what I would do if I actually was Sheriff, and I think he is almost certainly telling the truth about being transporter. I tell Sunny and Lechen that they both know my role and can talk about it with each other. The probability that I'm going to have to try to macgyver a kill on both of them rises every second.
This entire time, Psy has been bothering me about giving him info. I first tell him I was transported, and tell him to give me some info in return if he wants me to claim to him or whatever. He doesn't, he keeps asking for more information from me and then bitches about how uncooperative I'm being when I don't. The entire time he gives me NONE of his information, NOR does he give me any reason to trust him. I don't know the guy from Adam. But that's no problem because he also has no power over me.
Then comes the first big upset to my carefully laid plan. For some reason, Lechen thought that a HAMMER was needed to secure a lynch, instead of a simple majority. So he told Psy that I was the Sheriff and that I had found Jalmont guilty. This would have been a massive info leak and throw from Lechen, if I was in fact the Sheriff. I would be fucked if I were Sheriff and Psy was Mafia. I do not support or condone this play from Lechen, I think it was a big mistake.
HOWEVER, in this case it paid off for Lechen bigtime. I am no longer able to kill one of the two people I've claimed to and then he-said-she-said the other one. Because now there are three people who know my role. Disaster.
As I'm at the peak of my despair, I realize something. If mafia and I both kill town, then town won't be able to lynch me or even expose me without losing on the spot. I prepare the following to send to Lechen and Psy as soon as the day starts, hoping to preempt them outing me in the thread:
We are at 5 town, 4 mafia, one wolf, and one witch.
I am explicitly claiming werewolf. You cannot afford to lynch me today, because mafia checkmates town if you do this. You also cannot afford to make my status as a werewolf known to the mafia. The reason for this is that town has no numbers advantage so you need me to kill mafia members for town to have a chance to win. The witch will see how close mafia is to winning on numbers alone, and she will ally with them by claiming publicly if she thinks she can guarantee her win by doing so. The witch can control my night action indefinitely; I am her puppet. So we (meaning town and wolf) lose if the witch learns that I am the werewolf. By extension, we lose if the mafia learns that I am the werewolf. Therefore you should be very cautious with who you reveal my identity to. If you cast suspicion on me and I am lynched then town will lose. If you pass my identity to an untrusted party who turns out to be mafia or the witch then town will lose. If the mafia learns that I claimed to have inspected Jalmont, they'll deduce I'm the wolf and town will lose.
I am excited to explore the possibility of a fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperative relationship with you and your friends in the town. Let's work together to take down the mafia : )
I was also going to try to force Psy to claim Mafia publicly (lmao):
I was thinking it might make sense for you to publicly and loudly claim that you are mafia and that you know who the werewolf is, and solicit a claim from the witch because you have a way to checkmate town. This way we can trick the witch into claiming to you. After you do this, I will back you up and say that actually I know you aren't scum because I was the sheriff and checked you last night. We can get Lechen to back us up too if that makes you feel better.
Once we lynch the witch, you can make it public knowledge that I'm the werewolf because the mafia will no longer be able to checkmate us based on this information alone. Then I'll have no reason to kill you. What do you think of this plan?
Unfortunately for me, Psy correctly called that I was a killer and sent HH to protect Sunny. Unfortunately for town, he didn't account for the fact that if I was 3p and not mafia, then town loses the game on the spot if he does this. Sad!