ShadowLurker Mole!!! A WINNER IS CROWNED!

[dahill1]

gg trojh
goddammit

[Brutal Assassin]

Meh. I thought it was Flameaxe, although I really wanted to go with Troj until I went all Flameaxe Week 5 and stayed in the game. Kind of committed to it then.

Troj seemed like the only guy who was really playing the game. Everyone else was just doing challenges.

I mean, he even asked for an alliance. Who does that?

[Trojan Horse]

Wow. I didn’t think it was going to be this long. Anyway, here’s my epilogue. Enjoy if you’re interested, ignore if you’re not.

Week 1

Challenge 2 (Mini-Tasks): My first attempt at sabotage fell flat on its face. I was in the Inactive group, and we had to post more times than the Active group did to win money. I planned to post just a little bit- to make it look like I cared- then vanish. With Xpom Telo and Jordan not posting, I decided to post even more. In the end, I made about ¼ of the required number of posts. Surely Anticollie wouldn’t post the remaining ¾, right? Wrong. Lesson learned; never underestimate my opponents.

My first attempt at making an alliance also fell flat on its face. I did swap mole suspicions with another player before the first quiz. Unfortunately, that player was the soon-to-be-executed Jordan. After that execution, I had to find a new partner.

Week 2

Challenge 3 (The Missing Link): Pie should have nabbed me after this challenge. The day before the deadline, I got into a conversation with Pie in scumchat. Neither of us had yet found the link. He suggested we check his posts in Mafia 68, which Jath modded. I went and checked it out; nothing in Pie’s posts. But then (without Pie’s knowledge) I checked other people’s posts in that thread… and I found the link. It was in one of scotmany's posts. It was tough not revealing my discovery; I figured Pie would know I was the mole after that. Guess I was wrong.

Challenge 4 (Hostage!): Unbeknownst to you all, I had a chance to win an exemption during this challenge. The room where I was being held was locked with a combination lock; if I entered the right 5-digit combination, I'd escape and win the exemption, but the team would lose the money. I got one clue to the combination at the start of each movement phase, up through phase 6. I could guess the combination once during each phase, but I could only guess 3 times altogether.

I did not win the exemption. This was the clue I stumbled on: the 4th digit of the combination was "The placing of the person whose debut's sixth was young love." Never figured it out. Jath told me later that this clue was referring to American Idol, and that the digit was 6. But despite more googling later, I was never able to figure out where that 6 came from. Maybe someone who knows more about American Idol than I do can figure it out.

Anyway, once I failed to win the exemption, I got the team disqualified on purpose. That was only half a sabotage. I wanted the team to lose money, but I also wanted to keep the game from dying altogether. And given how slowly that challenge went, I did fear the whole mole game was going to die.

As a final note on this challenge, check out what Pie said about me here, in his “spreading the hate” thread. Heehee. If he only had known.

Challenge 0 and the Bonus Challenge: Don’t ask me who solved these two challenges. I have no idea. I just know it wasn’t me.

Week 3

Challenge 6 (Majority Rules): Obviously, I didn’t sabotage this stunt; you guys made me sit out. But that did lead me to a different kind of sabotage; seeking out a new alliance partner. I actually feared that my cover had been blown, and you ALL were picking me as the mole. I had to shake things up a bit.

Since BA also had received a bunch of votes to sit out, I asked him if he wanted an alliance. We did have several mole-related discussions as the game went on. But to his credit, he said he didn’t want to be in an official alliance. Oh well. It was fun leading him on, anyway.

Challenge 7 (A Shot of Win with Berry Bonery): Jath told me in advance that he would not reveal who voted to let Blackberry in, and who didn’t. So why help the team? I did not vote Blackberry into the game.

Unfortunately, 6 of you guys did, which was just enough. Another sabotage attempt failed.

Challenge 8 (Chain Reaction): My dumbest sabotage of the whole game. My group for this challenge had to solve a total of five logic puzzles. I actually solved all of them the morning that we received them. But of course, I didn’t reveal that fact. I tried to delay, delay, delay.

This challenge overlapped with my vacation in Minneapolis, and I tried to take advantage of that. Acting busy, I sent only the solution to problem 1 to Flameaxe before I went on my trip. I returned a few days later, and I found a message from peg in my box; he had solved problems 2 and 3.

Then, right before the deadline, I sent off a message with the solutions to all five problems, giving credit to peg for problems 2 and 3. But instead of sending it to our leader, Flameaxe, I “accidentally” sent it to peg instead. By the time the group realized what had happened, it was too late. No money for us.

Dumb sabotage. Way too blatant. I now know Flameaxe already thought I was the mole, but this probably was where peg caught on to me, too.

Weeks 4 and 5 coming shortly.

[Trojan Horse]

Week 4

I know moles are supposed to be neutral. They’re not supposed to care who stays and who goes. I definitely wasn’t a neutral mole. I had a couple players in mind that I wanted to lose.

At this point, I knew who I wanted to be in the final five. BA, Eteo, Flameaxe, peg, and myself. Figured that would maximize the confusion over who the mole was. I especially wanted Eteocles to survive; I figured that he had acted more molish than anyone else, including myself. I was determined to get Blackberry and dahill out of the game. (Oman too, but not so urgently.) Nothing personal; just business. Blackberry was a confirmed innocent, and dahill looked less molish than anyone else. I wanted them both OUT.

Challenge 11 (Maze): I wanted to sabotage this one, but in the end, it was my computer that did the sabotaging. Once I started the maze, my computer started lagging like crazy. I don't think I could have gotten through that maze in time, even if I had been able to memorize the route in advance.

Challenge 12 (Fruit Basket): I figured out that the Strawberry was the right fruit less than an hour after the challenge was posted. Don’t believe me? Ask Jath. He’ll vouch for me.

Of course, I couldn’t reveal that information. I had to sabotage the pot, and try for the exemption. I must commend dahill on his sneaky gambit during this challenge. “If the durian is chosen, a random player who voted durian gets an exemption.” Ingenious. Left me scrambling to come up with a gambit of my own. I don’t think mine was as good as dahill’s though. Nice trick, dahill. Well played.

As a final note: I had a couple of crazy conversations this round. One was with Eteocles, while we were waiting to run the maze. We discussed several things, not all mole related. At one point, he asked me if I wanted to be in an alliance with him. I shrugged off the suggestion; I told him that I didn't trust him. If only he could’ve seen the smirk on my face.

The other crazy conversation was with dahill, just hours before the quiz. We swapped mole suspicions; he said he was going for Oman. He also told me that he had a gut feeling that I was the mole, but he wasn’t going to listen to that feeling.

Needless to say: after those conversations, I felt like quite the puppetmaster.

Week 5

Challenge 14 (Riddle Me This!): I posted a cinchy riddle. Obviously, I didn’t sabotage this one. I just thought I should point out that I spent HOURS on Blackberry’s riddle. I wanted to solve it so that he wouldn’t get the exemption. I failed. Well done, BB. That exemption was well-deserved.

Challenge 15 (One of Five): I was only able to sabotage the pedophile portion of the challenge. Somestrangeflea kept vetoing all my attempts to sabotage the art portion.

Our group got four photographs of pedophiles and eight photographs of non-pedophiles (who were all other kinds of criminals, I assume). We had to put together two groups of five photos, with one pedophile in each. The pedophiles group then had to identify the pedophile in each set of photos.

I tried to make it look like we were sending a signal to the pedophile team; I put exactly one woman in each group. Also, the woman in one of the groups was in a black and white photo, while the four men in that group all had color photos. I was trying to make the pedophile group think that the women were the right choices; in reality, both pedophiles I chose were men. I don't know how much influence I had over the outcome, but I do know the pedophiles group got both of them wrong. (Yay!)

Weeks 6 through 8 coming shortly.

[Trojan Horse]

Week 6

My confidence hit rock-bottom at the start of this round. Eteocles, the player I wanted to frame, was out. Also, all four challenges this round had math-related titles. The most obvious mole clue in the world. What to do now? It seemed to me that BA was the best player to frame at this point. I NEEDED him to stay in the game a bit longer. So I set out to feed BA an exemption.

Challenge 18 (Prime Numbered): I’d learned my lesson from the Mini-Tasks challenge. I planned to post just three or four times (to take myself out of the running for the exemption), then vanish. Turns out I didn’t have to sabotage. My team did it for me.

Challenge 17 (Fibonacci Trivia): I honestly didn't know the answer to my question. It was clear that only two of the four possible answers were reasonable, so I guessed between those two at random. Fortunately, I got it wrong.

Challenge 16 (Triangular Number Pyramid): My hope was that I could get an exemption for BA on this challenge; if there was just one player alive at the end, that player would get an exemption. Alas, those hopes were dashed; Oman was the first player chosen by the Terminator, and he declined to challenge anyone. That pretty much eliminated any chance for BA (or anyone) to get an exemption.

So I just tried to win money for the team. (I had sabotaged enough already.) My wrong answer on question #7? That was NOT on purpose.

Challenge 19 (x^3+x^2+x+1): I was partnered with BA, and I decided to go for the money. This was my very last chance to hand BA an exemption… and sure enough, he got it. Hooray!

Jath didn’t give me a chance to celebrate, though:

Bonus Challenge: $40K if BA gives up the exemption. $100K if someone drops out. Oy vey.

Turned out OK, though. BA kept his exemption, and Blackberry (who I wanted out anyway) dropped out of the game. I think that was worth the $100K, personally.

Week 7

Challenge 20 (Irony): Does voting for myself to get the exemption count as sabotage? Probably not.

Challenge 21 (Confidence): These were my three mole picks that I put on the survey: BA #1, peg #2, Flameaxe #3. (Just as I would’ve done if I were an honest player.) On this challenge, I just wanted to do something weird. Something that would leave the group wondering who did what. I passed my #3 mole pick to the player on my right, earning $3K for the team pot. But that's all I passed.

Week 8

Challenge 23 (The Final Puzzle): I found the secret link a week before the deadline. Thought about revealing it, so that I wouldn’t look so molish. But in the end, I decided against it. I figured out that I needed to sabotage $20K this round to keep my pot ahead of the group’s, and I didn’t think I could get that $20K from the other two challenges. (I was wrong about that.) So I just let that $50K from this challenge go.

In any case, with the mole pot now guaranteed to beat the group pot, I then was free to do my best on the very last challenge. (As any good mole should do, if possible.)

Thanks for the game, all. It was fun being a dirty, rotten, no-good snake-in-the-grass.

[Brutal Assassin]

You know, on the Trust game when you basically handed me the exemption I did think for a few minutes about the possibility of you being the mole due to the fact that given my play all game long, you had to have known I would go for the exemption.

Thought the only reason someone would give me an exemption there was if they didn't care and were the mole. Then I forgot about it entirely come next quiz.

[pickemgenius]

Meh. I thought it was Flameaxe, although I really wanted to go with Troj until I went all Flameaxe Week 5 and stayed in the game. Kind of committed to it then.

Troj seemed like the only guy who was really playing the game. Everyone else was just doing challenges.

I mean, he even asked for an alliance. Who does that?

BA U FUCK WE HAD YOU,ME,DAHILL BLACK ALLIANCE NOOB

[Brutal Assassin]

Meh. I thought it was Flameaxe, although I really wanted to go with Troj until I went all Flameaxe Week 5 and stayed in the game. Kind of committed to it then.

Troj seemed like the only guy who was really playing the game. Everyone else was just doing challenges.

I mean, he even asked for an alliance. Who does that?

BA U FUCK WE HAD YOU,ME,DAHILL BLACK ALLIANCE NOOB

This doesn't count. We were more than an alliance. A brotherhood.

[pickemgenius]

Meh. I thought it was Flameaxe, although I really wanted to go with Troj until I went all Flameaxe Week 5 and stayed in the game. Kind of committed to it then.

Troj seemed like the only guy who was really playing the game. Everyone else was just doing challenges.

I mean, he even asked for an alliance. Who does that?

BA U FUCK WE HAD YOU,ME,DAHILL BLACK ALLIANCE NOOB

This doesn't count. We were more than an alliance. A brotherhood.

oh shit good call

[dahill1]

Meh. I thought it was Flameaxe, although I really wanted to go with Troj until I went all Flameaxe Week 5 and stayed in the game. Kind of committed to it then.

Troj seemed like the only guy who was really playing the game. Everyone else was just doing challenges.

I mean, he even asked for an alliance. Who does that?

BA U FUCK WE HAD YOU,ME,DAHILL BLACK ALLIANCE NOOB

This doesn't count. We were more than an alliance. A brotherhood.

oh shit good call

Me: who else should be in blackalliance (BA)?
Peg: hm...
jath: omg BA duh