User:Wingsowisdom

WingsOWisdom is a recurring participant in the Rogue OM Squad games. She has participated in several rounds, dating back to ROMS IV.

ROMS IV Lime, Townie, Victory, Survived
ROMS IV Lime was my first adventure into the world of ROMS. Many of the old salts were in the other game, Coconut, so it was a nice chance to learn about the game without a lot of the pressure that today's new players face. Unfortunately, the rogues ended up basically giving the game to the town, because of the three rogues, one banned them self and another basically gave them self to the town in a PM scandal.

ROMS V Wild Mango, Designated Officer (pro-town), Victory, Survived
While many will remember Wild Mango for the way the bunny circle took most of the fun out of the game, and how the game seemed greatly stacked against the rogues, I will always remember it for all the behind-the-scenes fun I had. I was the second link in the DO chain, with the other members being Argemone, Piplicus, and 7hranduil, although only Argemone and I were known to the public. Unfortunately, because the chain of innocence only ran one way (I knew Piplicus was innocent, but had no idea what Argemone's status was), there was only minor communication between us initially. At some point in the game, Argemone left on a two-week vacation. Around the same time, my role was confirmed by the role diviner, and I more or less ended up on the list of confirmed innocents (not quite part of the bunny circle, but they believed I was innocent). This ended up being the catalyst that would fuel communication between Piplicus, 7hranduil, and I.

So, while everyone else was tarting about being led around by the bunnies, we were running our own little circle, with one or two lengthy PMs per person per day. I think what made this much more fun that a true circle of confirmed innocents was that our circle was defined at the beginning of the game, and couldn't grow. Thus, most of our information that we discussed was information that we gathered from the thread (and were worried to address in-thread) or else any information we could gather from schmoozing (Piplicus was astoundingly good at this). I suppose it also helped that, for most of the game, most people believed that Argemone and I were the only DOs, so we were largely left alone by innocents and rogues alike. We also did a pretty good job of protecting our own. At the end of the game, Piplicus was perhaps the only role not publicly known (and even 7hranduil's role was not completely known, only that he was connected with the DOs).

And did I mention that we just had a lot of fun?

ROMS V.V, Townie, Loss, Banned Round 7
I'll be honest. In terms of my experience, ROMS V.V was pretty nondescript. Looking at the wiki reminds me that this is the game where Lyaka the rogue managed to convince the town to lynch two innocents in a special double-lynch round, and that this was also the game where the moderator, Sashamorning, quit in the middle of the game, and the sisters Jolyma and Taelac (both dead in the game at this point) ended up taking over moderator duties. But there's nothing that really makes this game unique to me.

I guess it was the first game in which the rogues thought I was enough of a threat to merit banning.

ROMS VI, Townie, Victory, Banned Round 6
Although I didn't ultimately contribute much to ROMS VI, I actually had a lot of fun. There were a few simple roles in the game (PWS, doctor), although I was just a plain vanilla townie. I'm not sure why, but at some point early on, I thought about how it might be useful if I could convince the rogues that I was the PWS. Initially, there wasn't much to my plan, other than to discourage public discussion of pro-town role strategy, for fear that the rogues might be able to use this information to their advantage. Perhaps I worked in a little more than that, too, because I ended up getting a PM from the PWS-alt asking if I was the doctor.

During the game, I ended up getting both very busy and rather sick, which deeply cut down on my play time. However, I was determined to use this to my advantage. I kept my posts rather quiet, trying to maintain an appearance of trying to avoid the rogues attention. Eventually, the real PWS discovered that Selgnij (who had been voting for me for "confrontation avoidance" -- with increasingly poor spelling, a true highlight of that game) was a rogue. Given the timing of events, the rogues still had a ban before the town would be able to lynch him. The rogues banned Shaimus, and Selgnij made it clear that the rogues believed he was the doctor, and that they knew the identity of the PWS, and they were the next target.

Since the PWS was supposedly without doctor protection now, I really hammed it up in this round. I tried to convey a sense of nervousness in my posts. To really seal the deal, in my last post after Selgnij's lynch went through, I tried to cram as many "I'm the PWS!" ideas into one post: A wishing for more time, a promise for more content in my next post, and my personal favorite, a wondering about whether the rogues were stalling (because if the doctor was dead like the rogues thought, and I was the PWS and already sent in my guess, I would know that the rogues were stalling on the ban). I guess it paid off, because sure enough, I was banned.

I was amazingly excited to see that I was banned, because it meant that my work had paid off, and I had managed to reasonably convince the rogues that I was the PWS (as from comments after my death, I apparently had Sasha's suspicion too). Also, it meant that I didn't have to worry about the game anymore, which was nice because I really didn't have the time to play it (I considered resigning on three separate occasions). The down side to this was that without adequate time, all of my suspicious were rather half-baked, which I think misled the town a bit as they tried to analyze my work. I had a short ban scene written up that basically said that I knew the rogues were coming for me (so sort of implying that I was the PWS). Taelac, the real PWS, ended up thanking me via PM for that. Of course, I was just proud that I'd managed to throw in a sneaky me-as-rogue-bait metaphor in the scene. And then the real kicker was that Shaimus wasn't the doctor, so between the two of us, we'd completely confused the rogues. It was just a shame that the real doctor randomly took protection off of Taelac in the next round, and the rogues just so happened to ban Taelac at the same time.

If all that crazy rogue-deceiving wasn't enough, there was apparently some controversy behind the scenes that compromised the rogues (or something). The ultimate decision was to add in a re-balancing measure of some sort. I later found out that it would be in the form of another role, and that I had actually been selected for this role. The moderators just wanted to wait a little bit to make it less obvious that the role was connected to the re-balancing. So, if I had not been banned at that point, I would have ended up getting the role. Not a bad game, if you ask me, because that means that if I had failed in my plot to convince the rogues I was the PWS, I still would have gotten a role. I could live with either scenario.

ROMS 6.5: Wild Humor, Banana Republic Leader (neutral), Loss, Killed at Game End
Wild Humor was both a fun and a frustrating game. I ended up being one of four Banana Republic Leaders, with the ultimate goal of simply being alive when the game ended. Unfortunately, one of the other neutral factions won the game in a way that killed most of the players, so I ended up losing this one. Anyway, as a Banana Republic Leader, I had the opportunity to build up a supply of tactical nukes by voting for Pass and including the word "stockpile" (or "stock" and "pile" with nothing but punctuation in between) in that post.

I was initially upset about the role, because the nukes could only be used upon my death (so when I lost), but I decided to play aggressively. I was going to stockpile in every single round (because you could only stockpile once per round). In order to disguise the fact that I would be voting for Pass every single round, I ended up pretending to have some sort of Vote Crazy role. I pretended that I had to vote for a person. In my next post, I had to unvote this. In the next post, I had to vote for Pass. And then I had to unvote that. All of my posts during the day followed this pattern. I think people thought I was sketchy and crazy at first (combine that with a rather incriminating booch on the first day, too), but eventually they "figured out" that it was related to my role. I also refused to acknowledge the pattern directly, claiming to be indecisive if necessary. If I had known that I was going to use this pattern, I would have requested a fake role of Indecisive, so that my behavior matched the information from the clues better.

The only problem with my weird voting was that I often didn't post enough during the day cycle to get to the part of the pattern where I could vote for Pass. As a result, I resorted to double, triple, or occasionally quadruple posting, pretending to forget something in my post. At the same time, I missed a lot of early votes, so I tried to make an effort to end on a vote for a person at the end of the round. I think this helped justify a lot of my multi-posting, even if I never came out and said that's what it was for. At the same time, all the crazy voting often got me off the hook for not really hunting for any rogues (because as a neutral, I could really care less). I could just make up a silly reason for voting, and someone eventually pointed out that I was probably just voting because I had to, rather than because I actually found them suspicious. That was nice.

Hiding the word stockpile in my posts was never much of a problem. I also managed to throw in a line from Total Eclipse of the Heart. I had thought it was not very well hidden at all, but Lyaka apparently thought I was genuine (which then made me feel bad, because the line made it seem like I was depressed or something).

While my early-game booch convinced most people to steer far clear of me, Sashammorning/The Joker discussed some mutual Anti-Computer group. At the time, I was quite afraid of being lynched if discovered, but I think the game would have been more fun if I had agreed. Outside of that, I ended up getting involved in two different conspiracy plots. The first plot was trying to convince a Hunter to kill me, in the hopes that I would use my nukes to revenge-kill The Computer. The second plot involved AhoyLindsay, a Hunter, asking me for information to kill a Banana Republic Leader who was part of the first conspiracy group. The first group was not successful, but the second group was. I even got to (very lamely) spread information that the other Hunter (Prosperity) was looking to shoot one of the Banana Republic Leaders.

ROMS 6.875: Pussycat, Townie, Loss, Resigned
Due to some unusual circumstances, ROMS 6.785 was actually run in the middle of ROMS 6.5. I had signed up for the game, but was apparently too busy to handle the speed game. I gave out a proxy while I tried to tackle school work or whatever it was keeping me busy, but when I came back, there were simply too many posts for me to catch up on. I tried to read them all in a day or two, but ultimately gave up and resigned. I didn't like doing it, but it was for the best.

ROMS VII: Neapolitan, Rogue, Victory, Lynched Round 7
ROMS VII was my first game as a rogue. I'm very much glad that I was a rogue, because it was a welcome change to my ROMS playstyle, and at the very least helped delay ROMS burnout. Regardless of the outcome of the game, I had a lot of fun. First, it was nice to belong to a group, where the other members of the group knew and trusted me. Second, it was really nice to have somewhere where I could post whatever I wanted. I didn't have to worry about content, or making sure nobody would find it suspicious, or anything. If I only had one sentence to contribute, I could post that one sentence without taking suspicion for deviating from my traditional one-post-per-day style. Third, I think we all got along really well, which makes everything that much more fun.

Some people will say I wasn't a very good rogue. I'd like to think I wasn't overly obvious, but I ended up getting caught by a PWS/Diviner/Ailing Hacker/Whatever the heck we called it in this game. As soon as my name came up, several other people chimed in with suspicion of me. But whatever. Without the hacker role, I probably would have lasted at least through Round 7, which I think is pretty respectable for a first-time rogue.

Of course, if I hadn't been caught by the hacker, then the game wouldn't have taken such an interesting twist. See, just the round before, someone had been hacked as a rogue. However, they posted in the thread that it was part of their role to appear a rogue if hacked, but they were really on the town's side (which was actually true). They provided a screenshot of their role PM as evidence, and the town seemed to accept this, so they weren't lynched. The very next round, I was hacked. Some of the other rogues had been complaining about how the first player got off simply by posting a PM, and lamented that I couldn't just do the same. With a little suggestion, I thought I could come up with a reasonable argument about why one of the other roles, the Book-keeper, might be hacked as rogue. More importantly, I resolved to not give up. Getting hacked is a depressing death sentence. It's hard to deny it when an alt says you're a rogue, but do you gain anything by admitting your rogueness?

In what is arguably one of the most gutsy moves ever made in ROMS history, I faked a PM stating that I was the Book-keeper, and posted it in the thread. Of all my ROMS memories, this is by far my favorite. And for the most part, I was actually successful. I had a decent number of people convinced that I was indeed the Book-keeper. The problem was that, due to the nature of the Book-keeper role, some of those who believed me voted for me anyway. But it was darn close. The lynching vote came within five minutes of the deadline. But above all, it was *fun*. There is nothing like that style of play, pulling out every trick in the book, making bold-faced lies to the town, and to come that close to pulling it off was more that I could ever have dreamed of.

Of course, Neapolitan also included the Masquerade Ball for the first few rounds, in which I got to play as Grigori Rasputin. Who doesn't love Rasputin?

I also wrote an epic three-part death scene, which won Best Lynch/Ban/Survival Scene!

ROMS VIII, Townie, Loss, Removed for Inactivity
I felt really bad about leaving ROMS VIII, especially because I ended up leaving without a trace, but in the end, it was for the best. For me anyway. I guess I can't speak for the rest of the town. I ended up getting swamped in schoolwork, and that unexpectedly limited my time for posting. Two things ended up influencing my decision: 1) The thread was already dealing with Meeper, who was continually posting "More content later" short posts. I easily could have done the same thing to keep myself alive until I had more time, but I felt like I owed the town more than that if I was going to say in. 2) I somehow convinced myself that I'd rather leave from inactivity than bring myself to resign. I think it was just me procrastinating on doing the one thing I knew I should have done, because I find it hard to willingly leave, and I knew how much inactivity was hurting the town.

A week or so later, I came back to the thread to see that very few posts had been made since I left, which made me regret leaving. And of course, the town loss (which was really a massacre) makes me wish I'd done more to help my team. But unfortunately, real life didn't really leave me that option.

ROMS 9.25: Mob Madness, Pyromaniac (pro-town), Loss, Lynched due to mod error Round 12
After a several month hiatus, I returned to the forums to find that the signups for the next game were active. I figured it was some sort of sign, and joined ROMS 9.25. I ended up with a very interesting role for this game. Part of what made it interesting for me was that, unlike some of the other roles (PWS, doctor, etc.), the existence of my role was not general knowledge. I was the only one who knew, right up until my lynch.

The Pyromaniac role was one that would kill the last person to vote for me, if I were lynched. If I were banned, I would have the opportunity to guess the identity of a rogue. If correct, that rogue would be killed. If incorrect, nothing would happen. This caused me no end of frustration, as I generally have a terrible rogue-dar, and indeed was often quite incorrect in my guesses this game. If I had been banned, I very likely would not have killed a rogue.

One problem that I worried about was that, if I were to claim my role, people would be less likely to believe me. After all, "Don't lynch me, I'll kill the last person to vote for me" sounds like a nice rogue tactic for not getting lynched. And after the fake PM from VII Neapolitan, I figured people weren't very likely to believe any screenshot I posted. So, I had to find another way to "prove" my role, if necessary. So, I decided to hide clues in my posts. I may not be very good at finding rogues, but between stockpiling (6.5) and "I am not a rogue"ing (VII Neapolitan), and my experiences from this game, I'm pretty good at hiding text in my posts. The complete run-down of what I hid can be found in the dead thread. It's excessive to the point that I was probably wasting my time with most of them, but surprisingly fun. And certainly substantial proof that I wasn't making up the role mid- to late-game, if I needed it.

Unfortunately, I made it very late in the game, and wasn't doing a very good job of making myself lynched or banned. Granted, I was trying very hard *not* to be lynched, but it seemed very silly to be alive in Round 12 without using or even claiming my role. If I remember correctly, the Rogues were one mis-lynch away from winning (although we innocents didn't know it at the time), and when one innocent voted for me, they took the opportunity to pile on at the last minute. Of course, I had seen the potential for my lynch coming, and refused to let the town lose in the event that it was an innocent that sealed my fate, and was also on at the last minute to booch the lynch (by voting for someone else to tie up the lynch, or otherwise booch it due to the clear leader rule). Which, technically, I was successful in, but only because a rogue (who was holding a fellow rogue's proxy), forgot to unvote the proxy vote when switching to me. By the letter of the rules, I was not lynched. Unfortunately, the mods missed that the changed vote was invalid due to lack of unvote, and posted the announcement that I had been lynched, that a role was triggered, killed of the last person to vote for me, and revealed their alignment (I was free to reveal my own through a lynch scene). Oops.

Unfortunately, a number of us were online at the time, so it was impossible to undo the damage. That is, the mods couldn't just say that I wasn't lynched and proceed on to the night phase, as someone's status had been revealed, and my role had been essentially revealed. So, the official ruling was that the lynch, although technically not valid, would still stand. The rogues banned someone that night and won the game.

The mods handled the affair as best as they could, and in the fairest way possible. And in the end, whether or not I was lynched probably didn't influence the end of the game very much. The rogues were very, very close to winning. Had I not been lynched, the town's only hope was that the rogues banned whoever was holding the ban-proof sweater, or that they banned me and I named a rogue to kill.

On the bright side, getting lynched allowed me to write the dark lynch scene that won Best Lynch/Ban/Survival Scene.

One other interesting note about this game was that there was a lot of lying about roles in this game. In particular, two people claimed to have the Medium role, when the real Medium had been banned the first night. The first, Luvessy, provided the text from her "role PM," but no screenshots. The second, DementedDuck, provided screenshots. We eventually lynched Luvessy to prove that she was lying, but I caught DementedDuck (actually an innocent) by noticing a bad message ID number in the URL (wasn't in the correct range for the time the PM would have been sent). This is really only note-worthy because the same thing was noted as the only flaw with my faked PM from VII Neapolitan.

The only downside to this game (other than losing) is that, between being busy, and being a very slow poster, I was barely active during this game (and I feel bad, since I was also a role holder). This only set the stage for the next game...

ROMS X: Vanilla Vacation, Rogue, Victory, Survived
Technically, I played in ROMS X. Technically, I won! However, I was minimally active for most of the game. Part of that is due to being busy, but most of it was due to my inability to write posts in a timely manner. Perhaps my brain had gotten lazy over the years, but the process of reading posts, finding suspicious things in them, and forming these things into coherent arguments and suspicions was extremely tedious and time-consuming. This had nothing to do with the fact that I was a rogue, as I'd had the same problem in the previous game.

As a result, I didn't post very often (between limited time and the time required to write a post, I often didn't post for days at a time). The general consensus seemed to be the usual, which was that, when I posted, I did have content. But the general playerbase seemed to be fed up with the abysmal frequency of my posting (justifiably, since I had slipped from a once-a-day poster to a once-a-round poster). Compounding the problem was the rogue forums, which rogues were only allowed to post at Night in. See, when there's no pressure to have solid content in every post, it's a lot easier to write something quickly, so I tended to post more often in the rogue forums, because you can say whatever without fear of being lynched/banned/whatever. At the end of the game, there were a few comments that made me feel less than welcome in upcoming games (although even I knew I had a problem with my posting rate). Looking back after several months, the comments were much less harsh than I originally read them, so I doubt that I was actually unwelcome and I have no idea what I was thinking.

The game itself was nondescript (it was a vanilla game, after all), but we did have an all-female rogue team. I also learned that my patience for massive, constant data-collection is approximately three rounds (I tried to keep track of everyone's FOS lists to help with banning decisions).

My Pirate
I rarely log in these days, but when I do, it's as Winniedemon of Emerald (previously Hunter) Ocean.