All right, in case anyone is curious...
I decided to roleblock Strago last night because he suggested we not believe Cranbud's name dropping. I wouldn't have given this much thought if I hadn't already tried to reason out why Cranbud dropped the names he did and the reactions from those involved beforehand.
Cranbud's claims, by themselves, are understandably suspect. He was scum. Scum lie. And so on. What caught my attention, however, was how both Otter and Strago confirmed what he said was true.
- Otter claimed vanilla townie. Even before his flip I was inclined to buy this claim, because Otter is a very Lynch All Liars guy and thus not likely to claim vanilla when he wasn't. (This was all assuming he was town to begin with, of course.) His card flip confirmed what both he and Cranbud said but that wasn't available to me at the time of my thoguht process.
- Strago said that he didn't want to reveal his role unless absolutely necessary. What's important here is what he didn't say: he didn't say Cranbud was wrong. If Cranbud was indeed wrong about Strago having a passive role Strago would have (or at least should have) called him out on it immediately. Someone might say "but then we know if Strago has a role or not!", but that's not entirely true, as Cranbud told town he was a passive role investigator. Strago could have had an active role, or he could have had no role at all. Either way, Cranbud would be wrong, and Strago could have ended all speculation immediately by saying "I do not have a passive role." This catches Cranbud in the act without giving away if Strago has a role or not.
This led me to three possible conclusions:
- Cranbud was telling the truth.
- Cranbud guessed and got crazy lucky.
- Cranbud picked scum buddies that he knew wouldn't call him out for being wrong.
I refuse to believe #2 happened: If Cranbud had already investigated two people then there was ZERO reason to guess at the roles of two others when he had two investigations he knew to be true on hand. He had incredibly little to gain (the hope that someone would stupidly role claim to confirm his guess) and a lot to lose (any chance of spinning things back on Yakumo). This leaves #1 and #3, with a couple of small wrinkles.
- Obviously Cranbud could have guessed at one and used solid info for the other, but I think it still wasn't a risk worth taking given the two people he named because I highly doubt either Otter or Strago would be stupid enough to roleclaim in that situation.
- Also obviously, Cranbud could've used solid info for one and picked a scum buddy for the other. Unlike wrinkle #1, this is perfectly feasible.
Now initially I brushed this off as "well okay I just narrowed my thought process down to Otter either being town or scum and Strago either being town or scum" which is a HURRRRRRRR of monumental proportions. After sitting down and giving it some more thought, however, I realized that the conclusion this train of thought would give me would be completely cemented by whether I thought Cranbud was worth believing or not. If I thought he was telling the truth, I thought Otter and Strago were town. If I thought Cranbud wasn't worth believing, then I thought (at least one of) Otter and Strago were scum.
Then Strago comes in and says that we'd be best off not believing anything he said, and even goes so far as to suggest that Cranbud did not, in fact, inspect either person he named. The latter I very much disagree with unless they're scum, as I've detailed. It struck me as odd that Strago would suggest not believing Cranbud despite not claiming Cranbud to be wrong when his name was dropped, and if I'm not to believe Cranbud as Strago is suggesting, then I'm to believe Strago is scum.
So after all that, I decided to roleblock Strago and hope for the best. Evidently I accomplished nothing, although at least my use of my role was confirmed by my target. Maybe I missed another possibility in my Day 4 thought process?