assuming all three investigators do their thing on the same night, I think there’s good odds that they would turn up at least one scum. if said scum turns out to be a duped result we gain the knowledge that the other two towns are well confirmed. if they only turn up town, we can safely assume that two of them are well confirmed and will just have to figure out which two.
I’m not against the idea of the investigators waiting a night or two, ultimately, but I think they lose a lot of value by not acting as a cohesive group.
I guess my reasoning is that this early in the game, shooting in the dark for investigations, you’re really not going to get quality results anyway. Sure, it’s more likely that someone investigated as town really is town, but you’re not going to get any sort of iron-clad confirmed unless at least two of the three investigators investigate the same target. You’re always going to need that confirmation, but you’re just burning through more investigations to do so. The chance of one (or more) of our investigators being scum + the cloak + little chance of confirmation because it just burns more investigations = very little actual information, if we have our investigators all investigate on N1. IMO, only.
So, the TLDR version: I don’t know that you’re even getting semi-confirmed townies by having all investigators investigate on N1. I’m not convinced you’re getting much of anything at all. But I could definitely be wrong - tell me why we’d get good info by doing so.
Ooh - and what if one of the investigators is scum, and investigates a townie, and correctly reports that that townie is townie in some way that can be confirmed? (Or reveals a scum that takes one for the team and gets lynched?) What then? I know that I’m going to think that he revealed something correctly, didn’t lie, and then think he’s a vanilla townie from then on. It’s a perfect mechanism for scum to hide behind until endgame.
I just don’t like the idea of all investigators investigating N1. I don’t think it’s a good idea. (Clearly!)
Best possible scenario; an investigator claims he finds scum. Worst case scenario; we get results exactly as reliable as if the investigators used their power on a different night.
In fact, the best and worst case scenarios for not coordinating a N1 triple-investigate are the same as above, except that in the latter case we add the possibility of accidentally overlapping investigations, and the chance that investigators will get killed before they can use their power.
The real question you should be asking is “would there be any advantage to saving the investigator powers for later?” The risks for doing so are clear.
None of those concerns are fixed by not investigating N1.
To elaborate, an investigator who got turned to scum can at any point in the game pretend they used their investigator power to confirm a townie, or bus a scum. This is nothing unique to N1.
A change of subject here. I’ve only played in a couple of games that had multiple votes. Is there any different strategy involved? My inclination is to just vote once like I would normally do.
Also, I’ve never played in a game where the scum had a limited number of kills. The scum can only kill 7 of us for sure. That would still leave 8 of us vs. 4 scum? If the town no-lynches every day, the scum could never win. Of course, that means we would never win either. But I’m wondering if no-lynch doesn’t look a little more attractive.
Yes, but the same argument cold be said of all of the powers. So why don’t we just have everyone use their abilities Tonight (or Today, as the case may be), then just play what’s effectively an all-Vanilla game from here on?
i don’t understand your logic. investigations results in this game will suffer from the same issues whether investigations are done on N1 or N5.
furthermore, what do you mean by quality? are you implying that investigations are failures if you don’t find scum?
what makes you think that the investigators will reach a point where they can have a more-informed choice? they could well have been NKd or lynched before then. claiming is not a guaranteed way to save yourself.
and this is a bad thing?
i believe that if scum is investigated as scum, that would likely be a true result. i think it’s smarter play to hide one of them than make a townie appear scum. this may change later in the game when a player considered suspicious will be investigated and scum can make him appear scum.
so i stand by my belief that investigators should use their power toNight.
Some roles have powers that work better the more information the town has. Investigating doesn’t seem to be one of them. There’s a strong argument for saving protection powers for later, for example. Also, other roles don’t have powers that could potentially conflict with another player’s power in the same way that the investigators can overlap.
Furthermore, I do actually think that most of the town should consider using their powers earlier rather than later. The more town get to use their powers before getting killed, the better it is for town.
Hi guys! Excited to play this game for the first time!
So, I see that the main discussion is regarding investigator roles. Here’s my take on it: Right now, we:
Don’t know who to trust and
Don’t know who to mistrust.
Both of those make it very hard to make a good, informed decision as for who to interrogate. Interrogating can dispel or substantiate trust or mistrust, but if we have no idea who we trust and don’t trust, it’s too early to investigate. Further, the rest of us Townies don’t know whose investigation to believe. If A investigates B and tells us that B is Scum, that could mean:
A and B are both Scum; B is taking one for the team.
A is Scum and B is Town; A is framing B.
A is Town and B is Town; Scum C used the Cloak of Lies on B.
A is Town and B is Town; A thinks B is anti-town and believes Town would be better off without him.
A is Town and B is Scum; A is trying to lynch the scum.
If A investigates B as Town,
A is Scum and B is Scum; A is covering for B.
A is Scum and B is Town; A is trying to score Town points.
A is Town and B is Scum; A is fooled by the Cloak of Lies.
A is Town and B is Scum; A thinks Town interests would be better served by lynching C first, and will reveal B’s Scumminess later.
A is Town and B is Town; A is clearing another Town’s name.
Now, some of these are obviously less likely than others. #4 in both lists, for example, require a Townie to act in a pretty anti-Town way. But that’s happened many times, hasn’t it? And even if we ignore those options, we still have no idea what’s really happening. And this is before we even think about a Scum false-claiming as one of the Investigator roles, or even a Town trying to gain favor for their bandwagon.
Now, I’m not saying Investigator roles are useless. But I think we need to have at least some suspicions before we use them. Maybe we’ll have those suspicions by Dusk; maybe not.
I seriously doubt anyone will false claim their role in this game. The roles are all unique, meaning you’d be discovered immediately as a liar if you false claim.
Hmm. Terminology question. Is a scum type claiming the role they would have been had they not been scum considered a false claim? (Granted this gets a little more complicated with the memento scum tool, but I doubt any investigators-turned-scum would bother with that.)
I don’t really have anything more to add about investigators. They will do what they feel is right - we’ve discussed all the issues now, I think and we’re in danger of getting repetitive.
vote visorslash
Partly because of the 3/15 calculation, which does smack somewhat of a Scum perspective, but mainly because of the reaction after being called on it:
One comment immediately, explaining and backtracking, and then nothing for 24 hours. This from a player who started with a vote, and seemed to be of the “shake things up” school of thought. To have nothing to say after being called out for a potential slip looks to me like scum pulling his head in after finding himself exposed.
I was thinking along similar lines, but I notice from his profile Visorslash hasn’t been online since shortly after his last comment.
(Annoyingly, I’m only seeing a last active time for some posters and not others, not sure why.)
So far, we’ve had nothing from Mahaloth and KellyCriteron, and no content from MentalGuy. Have I missed anyone?
I’m not in favour of enforcing an investigation policy either. If I could see an optimal strategy I’d advocate it, but I’m not convinced there is one. A downside to policies is that they tell you nothing about motivation of the person following it. Ultimately, we’ll have to use our judgement when assessing claims, and their explanation of when and how they used their power is an important extra piece of information.
One thing any investigators should consider. We have two potential backup roles, The Squire and The Parson, so there is little risk of losing an investigative power on Night 1.
It has the potential to make a mess of the voting record, and we can only lynch one player per Day. Sachertorte made some good points against it in the pond game. A couple specific things to watch out for:
A vote for the two leading bandwagons is effectively no-vote, and should be treated as such.
Scum could simultaneously push a mislynch and bus a team mate by placing two votes.
I will only be placing one vote at a time.
Right now, not enough people are discussing the suspicions on the table, which is more important than any theory discussions. Town players need to be prepared to take positions, so that the scum must do the same or stand out.
You won’t see last active times for players in Invisible mode. Me, for instance.
[/Random helpful comment]
The Parson will take over the role of whoever dies first - likely Today’s lynch.
I hadn’t even noticed that multiple votes were allowed. Ooops.
While I will generally try and keep only one active vote, there are circumstances in which I can envisage placing multiple votes. The main one is if there are several possible candidates, one of which I am sure is not Mafia; in such a case I will vote for the other bandwagons.
That’s not likely, but I want to keep the possibility open. Just in case.