Yesterday, I headed off to another murder mystery free form game. As you may recall from last year, the first time around I lied to a lot of other people in an elaborate attempt to get people to do what I needed them to do. This year, I didn’t lie to anyone. I collected information and drilled them, trying to elicit a response that would be to my advantage. As such, I merely concealed information the same as everyone else. It didn’t help that 5 or 6 people used their ability cards on me and revealed my secret (that I was a cheater at cards). In the end, my character didn’t prove to be too popular; no one trusted me. I started off strong in the game but faded in the middle. I should have trusted my instincts and worked a bit harder on another character who I was reasonably certain had some “information” that I needed. I figure I was out by about two minutes of having the judge rule in my favor. Seriously, had that happened I was entirely prepared to get up and dance a jig. Of course, the whole song and dance of trying to evaluate people’s motives and who stands to gain from what is a lot like international diplomacy.
But onto my better story.
Earlier in the day, I was talking to a friend of mine over the phone. He played a character known as Slick O’Hare. Part of my character was that I did some research on Slick and discovered that he was a notorious thug from out west who’s real name was Saul Jackson. Now, part of his character was that he wanted to keep that information a secret from everyone. So, while we were speaking on the phone, he mentioned that he was playing the character of Slick. Without really thinking about it, I said “Oh, you’re a thug!” I knew this from my character sheet but didn’t know his said to keep that a secret. I kind of blurted it out when I probably should have kept it to myself.
“What the? How’d you find that out? No one is supposed to know that!” he exclaimed.
In that instant, I realized that I may have made a mistake. I decided that I had to recover quickly by thinking fast. Now, this friend of mine knows that I am a magician and mentalist, and that I am good at deciphering body language. I played off that fact. “You just told me,” I said. “It was a lucky guess.”
He “realized” that he had been had. “Oh,” he groaned, “**** you and your lucky guesses!” He knew just then that I had been fishing around for information and that I had, by chance, figured out an important part of back story that he was supposed to conceal. “That’s unfair!” It is unfair, I suppose, that I use some of my abilities to my advantages.
Later on, while driving both him and another friend to the party, we talked about it again. He bemoaned the fact that I tricked him into revealing information. But on the way home, I explained what really went down. “So, remember earlier when I tricked you into revealing that information about yourself being a thug from back west?”
“Yes?” he responded.
“It turns out,” I explained, “that I already knew that information. What actually happened is that I tricked you into thinking that I tricked you into telling me.”
“Argh!” he exclaimed, realizing that he had been had a second time. “I can’t believe you did that… again!” The fact is that I recovered quickly from my earlier error and utilized my own reputation to my advantage to misdirect away from my error. I think that’s pretty clever. That, in itself, makes up for getting my behind handed to me at the game.
The game was a lot of fun. And I won best costume. And I got to trick my friend. All in all, a good night.