Nominating @Arete for a Legacy Award - Best Scum Performance (Individual) - Lord of the Rings FM
This deserves a lot of quotes, and a lot of talking, but since the game was like 13k posts long and is only accessible through an archive, I canāt do this properly.
Instead, Iāll give a relatively brief review of why I think Arete deserves this based on their performance in that game. And by ārelatively briefā I mean āstill pretty long.ā
- On day 1, two villagers were pretty much on the mark when it came to their wolfreads; most of the wolfteam was in their PoE. Arete was the only wolfteam member that consistently wasnāt.
- Arete was an incredibly active wolfchat member, always thinking about contingency plans, optimizing mechanical actions, andā¦ just hanging out, sometimes. Being a towny-looking presence in the thread, moral support in wolfchat, and also the action optimizer at the same time sounds insane, but Arete juggled all of that.
- Arete also came up with several plans for agenda advancement in wolfchat, consistently posting messages about how the wolfteam could win the game under different circumstances and what they could do to achieve that. They also helped with the wolfteamās fakeclaims, andā¦ basically, they had a hand in everything the wolfteam did in that game.
And then, as if that wasnāt enough, you have Areteās day 3 play.
Areteās day 3 play is what I would nominate for best fakeclaim if legacy awards included ābest fakeclaim.ā Picture this situation. At the start of day 3, Arete is bleeding and will die on night 3. They are also a huge suspect in the main thread, and they get pushed from the start of the day. The other wolves are trying to come up with a contingency plan, and different ideas are floated in the wolfchat, from another member fakeclaiming a cop check to just bussing before Arete can die and flip mafia either way. What Arete does is write up several fake messages from dead villagers, check if they are under the character count, and then claim medium. The claim was completely unprompted and came as a surprise even to the wolvesā¦ and it was believed. Arete presented it in such a way that despite them being the threadās top suspect, they changed their minds about their slot. They fabricated paraphrased messages from dead players, players whose ISOs could be backread and who were known by many players in the game, convincingly enough for the village to conclude they were real. And none of this was prompted in wolfchat. The idea wasnāt there at all. They justā¦ did it, and it amazed even the wolves.
But if that were the only thing the fakeclaim accomplished, it wouldnāt be a best fakeclaim contender, nor would it be an amazing play. After all, Arete was still bleeding and would die at night 3ā¦ right?
Well. On the same day, instead of Arete being yeeted as the wolfteam anticipated, the player yeeted was one of the aforementioned slots who had a wickedly correct PoE. The player wasnāt the same, since they got replaced on day 2, but the slot still had two pelts behind it and had tried to shoot Arete on night 2. In fact, they were one of the main Arete doubters.
Areteās fakeclaim and dayplay alongside the rest of the wolves were convincing enough for that player to get misyeeted. That player, who had two pelts and whose previous slot holder had an amazing accurate PoE, was yeeted on day 3 instead of Arete, who started the day as the threadās top suspect and was also bleeding. Their flip was cleaned by the wolf janitor, but the wolves were able to push their flip as a disguised wolf flip on the following day, also largely thanks to Arete gaining the threadās trust.
Wait, Arete didnāt die from the bleed on night 3?
Nope. Arete proved themselves to the town with the claim so much that the town neighborhood, one of its members being Firekitten (a known good villager), decided to invite them. The neighborhoodās leader had the ability to cure Areteās bleeding, and did just that, thus allowing a wolf to survive what shouldāve been a guaranteed death. That neighborhood was the only way Arete couldāve been healed, and Arete was by no means a trusted player at the start of day 3. Yet, within the span of one day, they managed to flip the threadās opinion on them entirely, help the wolves get an important misyeet on a player who shouldāve been clear, and get healed from a bleed that seemed like it wouldāve definitely killed them.
And as mentioned before, they continued to help the wolfteamās agenda on later days, including passing off the cleaned flip as a wolf flip, and feeding the wolfteam information from the neighborhood chat to help optimize their actions further. Later, they determined the best course of action when another wolfteam member was outed by the setupās map mechanic, by bussing them and deciding the best conversion target for them.
I have no doubt in my mind that this is one of the best individual wolf performances in FoLās history. And despite having written so much already, Iām sure Iām missing several amazing things Arete did in that game.