WW27 Game Thread: Once there were 12

[Azza]

I was sincere about wanting to suggest no lynch. That doesn't mean that I was certain it would be the optimal play, but I genuinely thought it would be worth considering. I don't get why it would self-evidently be so bad for town. Even if there are various power roles in play, expecting an average of one kill per night isn't unreasonable. And that means we could afford a no lynch. If you would be willing to do a no lynch in the endgame to set up more favorable numbers, why couldn't you do the same on day one?

Lynching is the only reliable way to catch scum. Foregoing that for a cleaner endgame is not a good trade. Furthermore, it's the most reliable source of information on alignments.

But under a no-lynch day 1 there is just as many lynchs (assuming no vig/sk/scum extra kill, all of which I think are unlikely given the small game) as if we lynch day 1. It's not about a cleaner endgame, its about having a larger chance of hitting scum per lynch (both under the higher information, and having targets eliminated).
I agree with zak here, though I wouldn't choose it out of hand, its not a anti-town suggestion.

A larger chance of hitting scum per lynch also means a larger chance of scum being able to manipulate the vote though.

I've said it in previous games, and I'll say it again. The lynch is the single most powerful and important thing the town can use to win. Choosing not to lynch strikes me as being a very poor tactic that allows the scum to control the game.

[Azarius]

I really feel that it is asinine that Zak that no-lynching at the start of the game could be a plan at all. There are a zillion problems. For starts it is not "an average of one" the town needs for your plan to pay out. You need exactly one night kill per night. And it also rips the town off of a lot of information. Giving up a lynch is a major concession and a reasonable chance that it will work out is no-were near good enough. I also feel that it is not reasonable but the level-of-chance feels more plausible...

I would have no problem policy lynching a lurker like Azza or Classical_Hero* but I feel that Zak is or best shot now for not living up to his expectations.

*It's his first game but I'm pretty sure he is a lurker due to not spaming the Civ3 thread up even though he posted it. And his low post count...

I'm aware that much is expected of zak, but we're barely into the first day... Just what do you expect him to have accomplished at this point to "live up to expectations"? I mean really, all he did was float an idea that he himself said can't even be used due to the rules of this game. I don't see the harm in him doing that and this feels like a big overreaction. Your thinking on this just doesn't make sense to me MJW

Also, as Qgqqqqq said, policy lynching someone for lurking because you think they will when they haven't even played a game here yet isn't something I'd want to do.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well, Zak has not defended himself so my vote stays were it is.

Qgqqqqqq:
The problem is not that the average has to be around 1. It would have to be exactly 1 for Zak's plan to work; which is very unlikely.

Azarius:
I just feel that C.Hero is very likely to be a lurker. A type of lurker is someone who just comes to RB for the civ games and plays werewolf on the side. They tend to make a few tangential posts. I think I'm just profilling him. Azza would be much better today because he has a history of lurkering but if the end of the day is C.Hero vs. someone else I have a good chance of picking C.Hero.

Zak is highly regarded and has been with werewolf since the first game. So he has high expectations because of his past. I think his idea of not lynching was truly asinine and just a wolf making stuff up. So I really want to kill him.

[MJW (ya that one)]

He said that he was going to suggest the idea but then saw it was an illegal move. I'm saying that if he was being sincere he would have not even thought of suggesting it.

[Azza]

He said that he was going to suggest the idea but then saw it was an illegal move. I'm saying that if he was being sincere he would have not even thought of suggesting it.

This would be a good point if the idea was suggested by someone more careful with their posts, but my impression of zak is that he's more interested in creating discussion than scum hunting on day one, at least for the first 24 hours. From that, it gives him a read depending on how they react. It's an idea I've tried to emulate at times, so I'm not interested in lynching zak given the evidence so far.

[Jkaen]

Ok, I am starting to regret questioning zak for the suggestion in the first place. Its a scum tell in my mind but a very minor one that doesn't deserve to be the focus of the whole day. I had expected soething more obvious would pop up by now to start talking about.

If MJW's posts had been by anybody but him I would be voting there right now, critising zak's theory when I believe yours was even worse seems a bit hypocritical.

Classical_Hero (going to call you CH for the rest of the game because I am lazy), I would also be interested in hearing how you think RB werewolf is played differently, you seemed to suggest not noticing the PM was why you were slow to post in this thread, but now you are aware it is started can we expect more activity?

[novice]

I think MJW's reasons for voting Zak are poor, so lacking other tells I could lynch MJW for bad reasoning/overaggressive pushing.

If we're policy lynching maybe we should lynch Serdoa. He seems to be too busy for this game, and I usually only home in on his scum persona through a process of elimination, which we may not have time for in this game.

MJW for now.

[Jkaen]

To try and move things along a bit more, I see CH and Matt are being pressured slightly for low posts, but I have seen no real comment towards Serdoa, is this because the wolves want us to policy lynch the other 2 but not Serdoa?

In order to try and discuss something else today other than zak's opening post Serdoa.

[Jkaen]

Cross posted with Novice regarding Serdoa.

[zakalwe]

Well, Zak has not defended himself

I thought I did. My defense can be summarized as follows:
- It was not an asinine suggestion.
- Besides, it was just a suggestion.

Just to share some more about my thought process, I did originally have some ideas about how the wolves might react to my suggestion, although those aren't really applicable now since the move isn't actually allowed. But as a wolf, I would not really be happy with a no lynch on the first day, as I'm always eager to at least get one mislynch out of the way. So I figured the wolves would support the idea so long as that was where the tide seemed to be turning, but would look for opportunities to swing a policy lynch instead towards the end of the day.

Novice - I had similar thoughts about Serdoa. I don't think he's particularly likely to lurk as scum, but he's hard enough to catch as is, so as a policy lynch it makes sense.