WW47: Small Mafia Shenanigans

[pindicator]

Instead I am curious how you suspect El Grillo will use his list to fish out newbies in a newbie game, Alhambram.

I can't even blame mixing up 'lose' and 'use' on using a phone in this case, but that should make more sense than my last post.

[T-hawk]

Yeah, I was out all day, coming in now.

1. How actively do you intend to monitor the thread and post?
2. What is your preferred style of scum-hunting?
3. What is your experience with forum mafia?

1. Pretty active on weekdays (I've got a work from home job with lots of down time, why I finally joined in for once), though often out and busy on weekends. That said I don't always get much time in the mornings before noon Eastern which I think is when the deadlines are.

3 is none other than lurking here, and maybe four games in person years ago, so I don't know what to say for 2. I guess reading back through everything a lot and looking for tells. I'd approach it like I talk about reverse-engineering Codenames clues - what role would make you think of what you said as something to say.

I have no idea how to approach day 1 before there's any real information other than past-game reputation. Is it considered normal to park a vote? If so I'd do WarriorKnight for parking his on me, though I assume that's just to make sure I start talking.

[Alhambram]

Quick response before going to work:

Expanding on #2, one thing I like to look for as a scum tell is not so much the first person to make an argument or even a bad argument against a player, but who jumps on to an existing argument and why. Now for instance, you could look at Kaiser as he put a second vote on me just now but for a completely different reason than thrawn:

pindicator, I would love to hear your thoughts on random voting vs. discussion on topics for the first day. Maybe you can also chime in on the role discussion on day 1 topic

I hate day 1 in that I'm no good at it. Though I was reading past game (WW26) last week and apparently I had a run years ago where I successfully hit scum several night 1s in a row with role powers. If you count scooter last game, i guess that streak continued? In any case i don't think I'm as good day 1 as a Gaspar or a Lewwyn. But I can see how forcing people to come up for reasons for voting for people can actually give hints for how they align. I don't see how discussing outside topics does the same, but I'd like to understand a new way to play if it actually works.

But Kaiser's question isn't really piggy-backing on thrawn's accusation any and it seems more like a poke-him-to-make-him-talk kind of vote, which I'm generally in favor of. So Kaiser's question isn't a bad thing in my mind.

Instead I am curious how you suspect El Grillo will use his list to fish out newbies in a newbie game, Alhambram.

Well, it is my first time ever playing werewolf/mafia type game, so I am quite pessimitic about my chances to survive, likely to be lynched at day 1 or killed at night 1, or by some miracle standing alive at end of game either victorious or losing.
And I have no idea how start this all and El Grillo's list is a good place to start as I stated in before. But I am not 100% sure whether he did have good intentions with that list, after all he is a veteran while I am complete newbie.
So the list may be a way to check who has played some werewolfs offline too aside online. I answered honestly: never. Therefore I am most logical useful idiot to coerce into mislynch and I rather to avoid being used like that.

[Meiz]

When I've been a wolf, I've usually been very happy whenever town starts to heavily discuss roles. So this was more as a general comment, and you can take the feedback as you wish. As town, I will simply ignore it as it's a null tell to me of your role.

I would be interested to know why you think that. I would expect most people to likely claim vanilla today, so the discussion would be more focussed around roles in general and how they interact
I was considering starting a discussion on possible setups and roles as Brick gave us some information in advance about what we can expect and to see other peoples take on this. But I will hold for the moment to get a better understanding on your take.

Your example of most people claiming vanilla today seems very pointless. There is no need to claim anything, as it doesn't tell anything about your real role and is just a null tell on town players. But let's imagine thrawn is town here, then the wolves know that and can now make a judgement call if thrawn would be bluffing as a power role, or making a rookie mistake to tell his vanilla role. The claiming just seem very unnecessary to me.

The talk about roles can be useful in a newbie game if people have no idea how to use their roles. But in this setup I'm not sure if there's much confusion on how the roles work or what would be the best way to use them. Regardless my small take on the roles:

Town cop should scan supicious players and hope to find a wolf. If they get a town result on the player, that is very valuable info as well.
Town doctor should keep their role hidden as best as they can, as they cannot protect themselves from a night kill.
Friendly neighbor can easily reveal his role for wolves if he targets one by accident.
Town jailkeeper works as a protector role, or alternatively can target a wolf who is making a night kill, and then prevent that kill from happening.
Town tracker should try to target suspicious people, to catch a wolf making a nightkill. If tracker sees a player visit another player who is then killed, it's very likely he has catched a wolf making the night kill.
Town masons are very valuable players as they can easilly prove their innocense. This setup also means that there are no town protector roles, so revealing their roles too early just makes them easy nighkill targets for wolves.

That being said, what often happens is that the wolves already have more info on what the possible setups are and can make judgement calls on people discussing the roles. If not today, then possibly later when the setup is revealed. For example if I'd now start to insist on the best plays for town tracker to make, and mafia has pulled 2x mafia goons as their roles, they would know that tracker cannot be in this came and could try to make a judgement call on if I'm just a clueless town, or trying to do some gambit as a town PR while trying to mislead the wolves. Just one example, so there are several other scenarios like that and I've found them more often helping wolves to narrow down town power roles.

[Meiz]

About the cop, when does he usually claim? In the offline version I played you got a 1 minute speech on death and cops could claim posthumously and there was no need to reveal themselves early just because they would be under danger of dying. But here if you get killed all the information would be lost.

That's a good question. We could have just a town cop, or town cop together with a town doctor. Without the doctor, cop will be night killed 100% after his reveal, as wolves would at that point know the setup based on their own roles. I would say if cop scans a wolf, he should reveal that information later in the day if that wolf player is not about to be lynched already. Otherwise I would try to get at least 2 innocent scans and then reveal to confirm 3 players as innocent (if all are hopefully alive). Hard to say for sure what the best play is though.

[Meiz]

Out of the openings so far.

Still awaiting some inputs from three players who hasn't posted yet.

Pindicator has a point though, El Grillo's question list is not only good way to start discussion but also for fishing out which potential newbies can be used to lure into mislynch.

Well, it is my first time ever playing werewolf/mafia type game, so I am quite pessimitic about my chances to survive, likely to be lynched at day 1 or killed at night 1, or by some miracle standing alive at end of game either victorious or losing.
And I have no idea how start this all and El Grillo's list is a good place to start as I stated in before. But I am not 100% sure whether he did have good intentions with that list, after all he is a veteran while I am complete newbie.
So the list may be a way to check who has played some werewolfs offline too aside online. I answered honestly: never. Therefore I am most logical useful idiot to coerce into mislynch and I rather to avoid being used like that.

This seems like quite a strong accusation on what I see as a neutral opening. El Grillo could easily be doing this as helpful town, or as neutral wolf play, but the possibly malicious intent seems far fetched. I get a feeling that Alhambra is pressured here to give out a suspicion and a vote based on it, and following along the initial prod by Pindicator is easy step for wolf if Pindicator is town.


I think thrawn has answered quite nicely on the prods against him so far. Good pick on his reply to El Grillo about the accusation (#46).
"I'm suspicious of thrawn's play so far, where he spammed the beginning of the day and then immediately jumped on pindicator for asking a reasonable question, especially in light of pindicator's response that he hasn't seen questions like mine before."
It's true that El Grillo's initial accusation was party due to thrawn voting Pindicator despite his later reply of not seeing similiar opening plays. But like thrawn said, he made the vote before Pindicator's post. The discussion continues a bit later (#47) but I still feel like the initial reason to justify El Grillo's vote was a bit off. Still, we are in a early prodding phase and I don't really mind the prod itself.

WarriorKnight, what made you switch you vote away from thrawn to T-hawk?

[WarriorKnight]

I have no idea how to approach day 1 before there's any real information other than past-game reputation.  Is it considered normal to park a vote?  If so I'd do WarriorKnight for parking his on me, though I assume that's just to make sure I start talking.

Correct and while I'm glad everyone has now checked in, 1 post is hardly better than 0. But since Kaiser and Amicalola are also at 1 post and you were away at game start, I'll let it go for now.

Well, it is my first time ever playing werewolf/mafia type game, so I am quite pessimitic about my chances to survive, likely to be lynched at day 1 or killed at night 1, or by some miracle standing alive at end of game either victorious or losing.
And I have no idea how start this all and El Grillo's list is a good place to start as I stated in before. But I am not 100% sure whether he did have good intentions with that list, after all he is a veteran while I am complete newbie.
So the list may be a way to check who has played some werewolfs offline too aside online. I answered honestly: never. Therefore I am most logical useful idiot to coerce into mislynch and I rather to avoid being used like that.

From 1 newbie to another, doing nothing because of inexperience will not help. Which is why I'm voting for players with minimal content to get input from everyone.

[WarriorKnight]

Using black font makes it difficult to see your question on a black theme Meiz.

WarriorKnight, what made you switch you vote away from thrawn to T-hawk?

To ensure everyone is contributing. I wasn't completely satisfied with his answer at the time of switching, hence the followup question within that post, but at least thrawn was contributing.

[Meiz]

Sorry about that, it must be something to do with a hyperlink and that color being kept on the followup text. I'll just bite it and switch to classic theme so I can at least see if it happens from preview.

[Kaiser]

I refuse to believe that wolves would lie about their expected activity levels for this game 

That is correct for the first, but I actually think his 2nd question is quite good as it forces the wolves to lie or at least show hopefully some inconsistency when replying as they are not really on the hunt. At least not for wolves.

We could WIFOM this all day, ...

I was wondering this already in the last game, what does WIFOM mean?

pindicator, I would love to hear your thoughts on random voting vs. discussion on topics for the first day. Maybe you can also chime in on the role discussion on day 1 topic

I hate day 1 in that I'm no good at it. Though I was reading past game (WW26) last week and apparently I had a run years ago where I successfully hit scum several night 1s in a row with role powers. If you count scooter last game, i guess that streak continued? In any case i don't think I'm as good day 1 as a Gaspar or a Lewwyn.   But I can see how forcing people to come up for reasons for voting for people can actually give hints for how they align. I don't see how discussing outside topics does the same, but I'd like to understand a new way to play if it actually works.

Thanks for your thoughts.

It will be interesting to see if you can keep that streak this game as well. My lurker intuition last game would have been Bob or Superdeath on day 1, mostly due to their horrible participation and non help in the discussion. While both were bad intuitions, I believe they were neither good townies.

What is your take on the role reveal discussion ongoing? 

Well, it is my first time ever playing werewolf/mafia type game, so I am quite pessimitic about my chances to survive, likely to be lynched at day 1 or killed at night 1, or by some miracle standing alive at end of game either victorious or losing.
And I have no idea how start this all and El Grillo's list is a good place to start as I stated in before. But I am not 100% sure whether he did have good intentions with that list, after all he is a veteran while I am complete newbie.

Luckily I think surviving is less important than making sure that some villager survive. For that purpose getting as much information is in my opinion the best course of action, even if it means that you are being in danger of being nightkilled or lynched.

Meiz

Your example of most people claiming vanilla today seems very pointless. There is no need to claim anything, as it doesn't tell anything about your real role and is just a null tell on town players. But let's imagine thrawn is town here, then the wolves know that and can now make a judgement call if thrawn would be bluffing as a power role, or making a rookie mistake to tell his vanilla role. The claiming just seem very unnecessary to me.

The talk about roles can be useful in a newbie game if people have no idea how to use their roles. But in this setup I'm not sure if there's much confusion on how the roles work or what would be the best way to use them. Regardless my small take on the roles:

Town cop should scan supicious players and hope to find a wolf. If they get a town result on the player, that is very valuable info as well.
Town doctor should keep their role hidden as best as they can, as they cannot protect themselves from a night kill.
Friendly neighbor can easily reveal his role for wolves if he targets one by accident.
Town jailkeeper works as a protector role, or alternatively can target a wolf who is making a night kill, and then prevent that kill from happening.
Town tracker should try to target suspicious people, to catch a wolf making a nightkill. If tracker sees a player visit another player who is then killed, it's very likely he has catched a wolf making the night kill.
Town masons are very valuable players as they can easilly prove their innocense. This setup also means that there are no town protector roles, so revealing their roles too early just makes them easy nighkill targets for wolves.

That being said, what often happens is that the wolves already have more info on what the possible setups are and can make judgement calls on people discussing the roles. If not today, then possibly later when the setup is revealed. For example if I'd now start to insist on the best plays for town tracker to make, and mafia has pulled 2x mafia goons as their roles, they would know that tracker cannot be in this came and could try to make a judgement call on if I'm just a clueless town, or trying to do some gambit as a town PR while trying to mislead the wolves. Just one example, so there are several other scenarios like that and I've found them more often helping wolves to narrow down town power roles.

You are correct that the statement itself is a null tell, but I was hoping to get people to start a discussion about possible game setups and how to behave as roles. I believe such a discussion could help finding tells on wolves, as they would likely need to participate in the theorycrafting around how to react/behave in certain roles. At least we would have something to read up on in a later reveal situations.

I also hope to incentivize people thinking about their individual roles and what this could mean for the game setup as well as how they should communicate and act in the game.
For example friendly neighbors could consider clueing the people they are visiting somehow, so we can seach for these clues when a friendly neighbor villager dies.

I realized that my answer to El Grillo's #2 was a little off the original question, so what are my scum hunting strategies:
- I would like to try to start game related discussion likely forcing the wolves to lie/invent their positions on these as they have a different game target than the rest of the village
- I will try to watch out for contradictions and think it is good to cover potential later coming topics early so it will be more difficult to hide inconsistencies

I feel there might be a good discussion here possible. WarriorKnight, do you have a take on how to play the possible roles in this game?