Since lab rat was innocent, that means my whole suspect list is crap. So I needed to reevaluate and figure out what i'm missing. This being Day 1 posts, that might not get me anywhere.. but I still have to give it a shot.
If Lab Rat had been evil, my top suspects would have been Zaffy, DD, Dag, and Annie because I felt someone among those names was working to prevent Lab from being banished. The fact that Lab was telling the truth and a townie means she was not communicating with either of these people. We know Zaffy was innocent too. So that leaves DD, Dag, and Annie for me to reconsider now. Their opposition to banishing Lab Rat was either genuine (if they honestly believed her innocent) or out of convenience (if they as accomplice wanted to appear somewhat cleared once her role was revealed).
Zaffy's seeming defense of Lab Rat made him seem scummy to me.. as was his lone vote on Ice. I don't believe Zaffy expected to get hit tonight either... the madman choosing him was a pretty smart move by the scum team. Zaffy was in a position to get himself lynched had Lab Rat flipped evil because he'd gone to bat for her so openly in the thread... and he wasn't posing a traceable threat to the madman based on his post content. So Zaffy was a rather strategic kill as a townie who was unlikely to get himself lynched anytime soon once Lab was revealed as innocent. He was also not very vocal by comparison and, therefore, wasn't likely to draw protection against their kill attempt. Someone on the evil team knows what they're doing, be that the madman themself or a well trusted accomplice. (Sure wish we knew if the accomplices were all volunteers or if they were selectively recruited on Day 1 by the madman.) ** Note -- Adding here that we now know the town's doctor just got recruited by the madman as an accomplice. Someone who was innocent and a townie PR on Day 1 is now working against the town. And it means a regular townie just got promoted to a PR.
The fact that the madman didn't kill someone like me, Ice, Dawg, or JL the first night also suggests that one of us is either a madman/accomplice... or... that we're so off-track with our suspects that keeping us alive another day benefits the scum side more than killing us would. Plus, it's usually just a matter of time before we'll turn on each other (if innocent), which only helps to further confuse the town. Each of our posts were rather definitive and we're well known for getting hit by the mafia, working hard to dig up clues that lead to the scum, and being rather difficult to lynch (or banish) for making bonehead mistakes.
DD - Is quite a savvy player who often gets killed easily the first day. As she disagreed with my/our suspicion against Lab Rat, I'm prepared to drop her as one of my top suspects.. for the present time. The position DD took opposing Lab Rat's banishment seems/feels sincere in retrospect and outweighs the case I believed I had against her over her reaction to my posts.
Dag - As a noob to our game, he's hard for us to read. Combine that with his relation to Lab Rat makes this even more difficult. Don't know what his actual game experience is but he seems to be pretty smart, based on the posts he's made. I'm not going to assume though that he's communicating offline with Lab Rat (as JL has suggested a number of times about me and Wizard).
Annie - Was a suspect of mine because he's virtually inactive in this game.. and his similar position to Dag and Zaffy where Lab Rat was concerned. Someone who might rather volunteer for an accomplice role so he'd have someone to communicate with.
Wizard - JL keeps suggesting that Wizard was following my lead this time and he's hinted that we're working together outside the game. Whatever role Wizard has this time, I have no idea. I know the man well in everyday life but Wizard is also very smart and he understands this game very well. I expect he'll be quite good at this on his own... but I've not played with him or against him in this game setting enough that I can read him yet.
Rich - Better than just about anyone at lying low and staying under the radar in this game. That makes him a very good choice either as the madman or someone the madman might have recruited.
FF - Seems to be all over the place and his nonsensical posting resurfaced as soon as nightfall was over. This doesn't reassure any of us about him being pro-town in any way. FF seems (again) to crave our attention more than anything else and I don't believe he actually cares which team wins. The scum side is communicating this time (FF was non-communicating evil in his last game). If he's evil, I don't see that his teammates would sit by watching him post the comments he made tonight, so it's really anyone's guess which team FF is on.
Tex - Has made something of a spoiler of himself, posting disparaging remarks. Definitely not a pro-town person and he probably isn't taking this game seriously. This seems to be a joke to him or something he's joined to pass the time. As an evil, he's playing a laughable game so I don't see him volunteering for the role or being chosen by the madman.
Razz - Totally non-productive in the game, whether he's innocent or evil. Not much use speculating about him, at this point.
I remember in one of my earlier games when DD was being lynched early on. Just before nightfall, she told us to not get caught up in all the little details and look at the overall picture instead. That was very good advice at the time in that game and it's something I try to remember for the rest of them. The best way I've found of doing that is to set aside what people say in their posts and look (more objectively) at voting patterns and such.
This being the first night and faced with 3 dead innocents... we still have very little to go on. But I've looked hard at where the votes fell to make an early estimation of role based on some generalities. Might as well, since my top suspect turned out to be innocent and the others I was leaning as most likely madman/accomplice were largely based on Lab being scum.
We don't know exactly how many evils there were yet before nightfall ended. I would expect whoever they were.. they would likely have scattered themselves among the top 3 candidates up for banishment, instead of all piling on just one.
From tonight's vote...
5 FF - JL Rich DD Dag Lab
Of the 5 votes on FF, we know Lab was innocent. I'm less inclined right now to suspect DD or Dag. That leaves either JL or Rich as likely evils from these players.
6 Lab - Kash Wiz Tex Dawg Ice FF
Of the 6 votes on Lab Rat, I'd probably pick Wizard, Dawg, or Ice over either Tex or FF right now. I can't tell if Wizard is fooling me/us in this game, so I'm no help trying to sort that out. If that's what he needed to do because of the role he was assigned, he'd be good at it. Dawg and Ice are also excellent scum candidates at any time. I'd guess at this point that either one or two of these 6 names are evils.... it's highly unlikely that all 6 of these people are townies. (And yes, to those of you who want to suspect me for being the first vote on Lab.. feel free.)
1 Ice - Zaffy
Zaffy held onto his lone vote against Ice. I'll have to go back through the thread to re-read the case he presented against Ice now that I know Zaffy was innocent and see who else was either suspecting Zaffy or disagreeing with his posts.
2 Tex - Annie Razz
Two votes stayed on Tex. Either of those could be evil or innocent. Since they didn't vote with the others, I'll lean both of them as suspicious.
So what does all this tell me? Not a whole lot... yet. But as an early stab at Day 1 vote analysis, this is what I came up with.
Town - Lab, Zaffy, Zsand.
Unknown - Dag, DD.
Scummy - Tex, FF.
Top suspects based on votes - Wiz/Dawg/Ice (voted Lab), JL/Rich (voted FF), Annie/Razz (voted Tex).
