I don’t want to reveal everything, just in case a player pops in, either purposefully or accidentally.
Yes, the GA can protect themselves.
If one of them is killed yes, i’ll announce it, just as I did for Menocchio.
If the Seer’s killed, i’ll say “So-and-so, the Seer, was killed” - so people will know they’re telling the truth. Whether or not to reveal is up to the GA; if they find two werewolves, for example, they might take the risk of hanging on for longer in order to find more, or announcing and being protected by the GA (and hoping no one counter-claims).
Yes, they can detect the head vampire. Necessary since vampires are the most dependent on their leader.
Yes, vampires can convert a vanilla townie once a night. But those vampires in turn can’t convert; only the head honcho can. They win by being a controlling faction, like the werewolves can. But bear in mind this is just how i’m used to playing it. You can change things about pretty well, as long as you keep it as equal as possible.
There aren’t 3 Masons in every game, and the amount of Mason wasn’t revealed to all. So for a townie either claim could have been possible. And yes, it only worked for a day (since on lyching one Mason their lying was revealed) but they only needed one more day, since lynching the Mason and then a killing at night got them to a winning ratio.
Sorry if this has been answered already. It probably has, but I wanted to give it a go not really to answer, per se, but also to sort of explain it to myself at the same time, see how it sounds.
Two things.
I’m just learning the game myself but read all of that other topic so I feel I know the answers to your questions. However if I’m wrong, please, anyone step in to correct.
One, the Guardian doesn’t KNOW who the Seer is. So a fat lot of good that would do. The Guardian chooses someone to protect randomly, so as far as I know, they don’t know if they’re protecting wolf or villager. Me, I’d think it’d be wise for the Guardian to protect themselves for a couple rounds, at least until it’s clearer who is who or what is what.
Secondly, no, it wouldn’t be wise for one to say they are the Seer. Picture this, if you will, the Seer can find out EACH NIGHT the status of someone. So if someone were to say, near the start “HEY, I’M THE SEER”, you can BET they wouldn’t last long as the wolves vote on who to kill each night. It seems likely to me a known Seer would be very, very high on their kill list if they knew who it was, cause that’s the one member who KNOWS who is who. Thus the conundrum the seer is placed in. Reveal you know someone is a werewolve and most likely get killed the next night? Or bide your time until you know a lot more info?
I was a long time poster here, but I kind of drifted off. Today I resubscribed to post in a book thread. I also noticed that you are playing werewolf. I am a member of 2+2, the largest forum of poker players in the world. We have an entire forum devoted to the game if you want to see some of the variation and complexities. I am wdcbooks over there.
I will have to stick around here and sign up for the next game. At this point I would guess I have played in over a hundred games that last from a couple of hours to a month.
Hey that’s awesome! When the Werewolf game started here I checked out the 2+2 forums out of curiosity because I’d never heard of the game before. The games were pretty fun to read, and you were one of my favourite players.
I will play or maybe mod the next game here. Lord knows I have enough experience doing it. It is funny that the way you guys are playing is the same way we did over there. Within a month there was a forum that was dedicated to the game. When we started we had open ended day cycles, but found that set times worked better.
Some tips in case I miss the next one:
Having AIM is wonderful for wolf chat
Don’t allow the Angel to protect the Seer, it is almost always too powerful
Replace posters who aren’t posting in the first day unless they give advance notice
Masons are also awfully powerful, better is masons whose partner may or may not be a wolf.
Really, the best play as scum is to be the perfect townie during the day. When someone makes a mistake, pounce on it. Even if it’s made by one of your buddies. Don’t be afraid to attack buddies if they genuinely slip up. Only defend them if you have a solid, public reason to do so. That’s the best way to avoid detection.
Of course, executing that theory is a lot harder it sounds.
Typically, roughly 1 in 4 players are scum. That can go as high as 1 in 3 and as low as 1 in 5, but you’ll need to tweak abilities to keep it balanced.
3 is a common number for masons, as is 2. 4 is rare.
Sometimes. Depends on flavor, really. If the flavor is that they’re a doctor, probably not, as how can a doctor operate on themeselves?
You should always reveal character name, role, and alignment upon death, and be truthful about it.
Lots of strategies for playing this role. Leaving breadcrumbs about who you investigated is the universally accepted best play, though.
Thanks… this idea is a little bit off the regular bit, though.
Aliens are ‘scum’, but sortuv halfway between weres and vampires. The aliens meet every night and pick someone to ‘abduct’ to their spaceship.
After the abduction, just before dawn, the Alien Overlord can choose to return one abductee to town… either normal, or ‘brainwashed’. Brainwashed townies are still townies, and do not get to vote in abductions, but they are flipped in alignment to favor the aliens and vote as such for lynchings. (Not sure how much brainwashees know about who the aliens are.) It is revealed that they are brainwashed if they are lynched, or ‘scanned’ by the nerd genius’s scanner ray (Seer equivalent.)
If the abductee is returned the same night, it is not clear if anyone was abducted at all. No alignments are revealed after abductions… or at least not unless the alien overlord is lynched, stranding all abductees in the spaceship and out of town.
Certain special roles might be immune to brainwashing.
In regards to the vampires, I assume that when someone is converted by the head vampire, no announcement is made. However, if a vampire convert is lynched…
Is it announced that they’re a vampire. (Pretty obviously.)
Is there any way to find out WHEN they were converted? Otherwise you have a case of… 'okay, this guy was scum for the previous day. But was he a good guy the day before that? Or maybe he was scum all the way back to day 2 - how can we tell??
I’ll just say that, in general, I am not a fan of roles that change a player’s alignment. I think they need to be used very, very sparingly, if at all. Some game designers use them all the time, but I disagree. My reasoning is simple.
The main way to find scum is to analyze patterns of behavior, looking for inconsistencies. If on day 5 you’re hunting for scum that may have been town-aligned for the first two or three days, you only have a little bit of data to work with, and the first two days tend to be the longest by far. That means in this example, those scum might have 90% of their posts be genuinely town-aligned. Worse, if they’d been investigated on those three days, they would have confirmation from the Seer-equivalent that they are town. How on earth are you supposed to catch them?
I thnk it makes for games that are far more luck-dependent, and not skill. That may appeal to some, but not me.
Example: there was a game on Misetings based on Deep Space Nine. One player was given the role of Gul Dukat, townie. He was investigated night one and found to be town. On night two, he was told that he is now aligned with the mafia, and introduced to them. Now the town believes him to be ont hier side, and the mafia knows that he’s actually with them. Finally, on night 4, he was set free to win on his own, when everyone else is dead, and given a nightkill of his own. The game was his to lse at that point. That’s an extreme example, but I think you get my point.
Ahhhhh, I forgot that masons are different in the game here. In the games I play masons can talk only to each other and can do so privately outside the game thread.
So if you trust your mason is village you can work out strategies and talk over opinions.
We use serial killers fairly often, but it is very hard to win on your own.
Most of the games we play have a ton of different roles and dynamics and it can take a while to figure out what your role can do and the correct strategy. I was just the “Flying Great Pumpkin” in a recent game and it would still be difficult to explain my purpose.
A really obvious question, but…the townspeople win if they kill all the wolves, yes?
How about if the wolves manage to become the majority? Does the Game Manager announce that the wolves will inevitably win and end the game at that point?
That’s right. Once the wolves have a lock it is over. We also play games with vote buyers and some people having double votes. In that case when there is a vote majority the game is over.
If/when a second game gets started (and I’ve already requested in!) could we have shorter ‘days’ and ‘nights’ from the get go? A speed version, you could call it?
Because with 21 players, and week long days and three-day nights…we might be looking at a six month game. :eek:
Open ended days and nights just don’t work unfortunately. People lose interest and drift off. It just takes too long.
I would suggest running the game in real time. Days open at 9:00am. Night falls at 10:pm with the leading vote getter being lynched. Wolves and seers get their night actions in the by morning. Weekends are one long day.
This can then be adjusted if you want more time. You can have 48 hour days if you want. I think you will find it adds to the drama as well, as having a fixed moment that night falls leads to some pretty wild vote melees with a few minutes to go.
Rubystreak and I fell to the same flaw: We let our poker face slip. Noob mistakes, in an online game where we could have taken a breath and revised our posts before sending them.
Where I was too cocky, Ruby wasn’t cocky enough. Her defensiveness really turned off a lot of people. She could have even kept her voting strategy, at least for this turn, if she just didn’t make such a big deal out of it.
