WW 19 Lurkers: The Corner of Statler and Waldorf [SPOILERS]

[Gaspar]

Hey, I'm back. I was starting to kick myself for not joining when this game started, but looking at 50+ pages again on Day 1 I'm pretty happy to be lurking for now. I really, really like this setup Brick. Tonight should be interesting with all the items around.

I've come to the conclusion that day one its best to avoid the big reputation players and focus on the less reputation guys - there's always at least one scum who will cave to pressure, sometimes more. I don't think Merovech or Mattimeo can handle the pressure if they're scum.

This is an excellent idea, how do you think you'd go about doing this in practice? I guess I'm curious about what you're thinking about here in terms of pressure. A lot of players simply don't respond much until they actually get some meaningful votes on them.

I've only really skimmed through things, but fwiw I'm really torn on the "policy lynch novice". Ultimately I think if novice played things optimally he probably should have only claimed if he was a wolf and another wolf has the card (and not necessarily then, it would be a calculated risk) and not claimed at all if he was a villager, but the the whole "millers preemptively claim" thing is ingrained enough he might not have thought things through. My gut meta-instinct is the village would be more likely to start with the card than the wolves, though. All things being equal I probably wouldn't have gone along with it, but if I had some amount of village read on the other player(s) on the block I could support it as a policy lynch. I definitely wouldn't vote to lynch someone because they suggested it.

Second part first - novice had to claim, he's overwhelmingly the most likely player ever to get scanned as he is probably the only player who is both awesome scum and awesome town. (For example, I'm probably better as village, even though I've won my last two scum games; Selrahc is pretty good at scum but pretty mediocre village, etc.) Whether or not he executed that well, I don't know. But I think novice has to claim immediately. Someone lower profile could probably wait.

In terms of my pressure bit - you don't actually need a ton of pressure. Merovech is so obvscum because he contributed virtually nothing but the only times he got mentioned in the thread he immediately popped up to respond. That's a huge noob scumtell. Same thing happened to thestick in my last game - he got mentioned, his only defense was basically to fall on his sword. You're not trying to catch skilled scum this way - you're trying to catch people who aren't comfortable lying. So in this game, I would have looked at Mattimeo and Merovech - the guys who have limited scum experience and made limited contribution. Its not a foolproof strategy of course, but its better than just getting in a pissing match with zak. Zak, novice, Lewwyn, Serdoa, you, me - we'll start being useful or we won't - that's when you start bringing pressure. Its wasted on day one not only because you're unlikely to get those players to trip early but also because you're never going to get enough votes on them even if you're right. To be more specific - you need the outline of a gun in say, Merovech's pocket to lynch him. To lynch novice, you need an actual smoking gun.

I think I learned a lot about playing better village my last game. It remains to be seen whether I decide I want to risk rolling scum enough to put into practice.

[Injera]

Second part first - novice had to claim, he's overwhelmingly the most likely player ever to get scanned as he is probably the only player who is both awesome scum and awesome town.

That was my first thought too but I was thinking about it some more assuming he's village. Unfortunately I'm thinking in circles as it gets really complicated without knowing which alignment controls which items. It's not straightforward, though. I think the best play would be to claim at the end of night. What a crazy game. Normally I'm opposed to earlier vig but in this game I think I'd be taking a shot every night at the most paranoid-minded folks, because the meta will get pretty twisted. In some ways that's the best reason not to claim the card at all.

Hey wait, didn't novice promise to pass the card tonight?

Edit:

SMH

I told you guys that Rowain was just being Rowain. I can't believe you guys let the scum get away with that.

Does that seem a bit forced? Lewwyn knows as well as anyone that the scum aren't trying to get anyone in particular lynched on Day 1. He was also really eager to hop on to Tasunke and then MJW at the start of the day.

[Rowain]

Second part first - novice had to claim, he's overwhelmingly the most likely player ever to get scanned as he is probably the only player who is both awesome scum and awesome town.

Why claim it with the first post? Why not wait till the day is over and use the day for scum-hunting showing that he is really a villager? There is absolutly no reason to reveal the card that early except you want the day to dissolve into meta-speculation.

Im suprised however, I thought everyone had an item.
A cursury look at the no. of items reveals the flaw in that logic :/

Is Qg a snitch? Does he try to be extra smart (he is scum and wants to look like a villager// he is villager and wants to draw the nightkill) or he is really rather the opposite.

What does the SMH in Lewwyns post mean?

[Injera]

What does the SMH in Lewwyns post mean?

Shaking My Head (as in disapproval ). Seems like a snitch tell to me- he's calling out the village idiocy, but then he blames it on the snitches. Scum don't orchestrate mislynches, at least not on Day 1.

As for Qg, I've sort of just tuned him out...

[Gaspar]

Yeah, Qg, Tasunke, Ryan and MJW are all going to have to really do something to get me to pay any attention to them - their nonsense is basically unreadable at this point.

I see the point on waiting until after the day is up to claim - but then wouldn't he just get accused of trying to avoid being scanned? Its really no win (which is the card's point, I suppose.)

I don't listen to Lewwyn until Day 3 or so - his early games are intentionally erratic, I think. He's a little overextended atm, with PB8, the demogame and PBEM47 - I wouldn't expect a lot from him here.

[Rowain]

Thanks Injera

About Qg et al.. Players should never tune out on someone. It gives scum too much free passes. For example rolands WoT's in WW7.

About novice: He might get accused of that then but it would be a discussion during the night after he spent a day on scumhunting. Anyway I think there is enough information in the thread for the village to still win.
IMO they should lynch Selrahc tomorrow or vigshoot him tonight to get more information.

[Meiz]

Is Qg a snitch? Does he try to be extra smart (he is scum and wants to look like a villager// he is villager and wants to draw the nightkill) or he is really rather the opposite.

He could be holding the bomb or bulletproof vest. But the way he underlined this makes me think he has no item and tries to protect other villagers. Either by drawing a night kill or making possible snitch thief to waste his action on him. If that's the case, I still don't see it working.

[Meiz]

Yeah, Qg, Tasunke, Ryan and MJW are all going to have to really do something to get me to pay any attention to them - their nonsense is basically unreadable at this point.

About Qg et al.. Players should never tune out on someone. It gives scum too much free passes. For example rolands WoT's in WW7.

Agreed for both points, which makes me real happy for not playing and just lurking :D

[Rowain]

But discuss long enough about parts of a case and you can be certain that most villagers will ignore it.

Yes that is exactly the problem. villagers realise that is work to stay on top of a topic and decide to shun that. Then take the lazy route of following some so called vet who is good with words and mislynch happily. This is the main reason why villager lost the last games. (And wiithout the immunities village would have lost Tasunke's game too).

[Gaspar]

But discuss long enough about parts of a case and you can be certain that most villagers will ignore it.

Yes that is exactly the problem. villagers realise that is work to stay on top of a topic and decide to shun that. Then take the lazy route of following some so called vet who is good with words and mislynch happily. This is the main reason why villager lost the last games. (And wiithout the immunities village would have lost Tasunke's game too).

I didn't follow Tasunke's game but in games run by people who are sane, village hasn't won in basically forever. I mostly agree with why you say the village loses, though I do think you are predisposed to disagree with novice and zakalwe and I don't think they're the problem, per se. I think uberfish has nailed the problem - it is just too easy to execute a strategy of "kill the good players." Novice, Zak, Serdoa, et al will make plenty of mistakes, but they will eventually figure it out if they stay around long enough. Unfortunately, its too easy for the scum to just say - forget the items: Day 1, kill Zak; Day 2 - kill Uberfish, etc etc. By the time the endgame comes around its a few wolves and a village split between the crazies and the lazies. I mean, the last game I played is a perfect example. We had a lot go against us AND also screwed up a lot - we had no right to win. But because we had killed off all the best players we had a shot. It was dumb luck that we won, but it just shows how hard the task is for village in our metagame - a game where basically everything goes wrong for the scum and still the village loses.

I don't know what the answer is, and the games are still fun even if the outcome is more or less certain most of the time, but until we find a way to take away the "kill the best players" strategy and force scum to try something different, scum will win most of the time.

(Also agree on players can't ignore anyone and why I'm glad I'm not a player here, since I can totally ignore them.)