Newbies need to coddled the first game or so, and by that I mean just not voted or hunted the first few days. Unless they are an obvious wolf.
Quoted for Truth.
Maybe in a lite game, the seer could scan a newbie and invite into the JL? It would give good experience in tactics, PMs, and give the newbie a person to discuss the game with and receive advice. I have only twice, yes twice, been in the JL in lite. I wouldn't know how to act. The first time I was a seer in Big I took huge gambles (in the No Dice game, ironic in that I was gambling) and still do when I am an important goodie by working off my instincts.
The drawback of having the Seer scan someone early is that they might turn out to be wolves..
Please no mass PMs or re-taking the OT by force. We are not spambots. We are better than that. Please, don't lower us to that level.
We've done some PM spam for a few Big Games before. Once every few months someone does the mass-PM thing, usually targeting people who played before.
As long as the frequency stays low I think it's ok. If we do it for every single game though .. that would be bad.
I play or have played in many other forums that have WW as a sideshow to the main theme of the forum. All of these forums have WW segregated in its own little area; none of them have to keep WW in any main area just to attract attention. What we have here is par for the course.
Very well then. How about just moving the big game to the OT?
We wouldn't be breaking the one thread rule, just using it more intensively. And surely that will end the "where" debate so that we can focus more on the rest of it..
IMO all we need is to have a thread in OT *that we can bump* when either a new game starts, or someone wants to talk about WW.
A big game would bump itself. We don't need more than that.
We are seeing a similar paradigm here; where each game is more or less the same, with the only variation being in some of the wacky and unbalanced roles the GM conjures up. Apparently the very height of a good game is one that ends as predictably as it began. I have a few suggestions for keeping the game fresh; the trade-off, of course, is that it will become unpredictable and chaotic. If this is a bad thing, then, as I indicated earlier, keep digging and you'll eventually find your way out of the hole.
One of the things I don't see often enough is crazy shenanigans. Wolves infiltrating justice leagues and using the Seer as their pawn. Sorcerers apprentices outing the sorcerer in the hope of getting turned into a Seer's apprentice. Wolves who out the Seer as a wolf before he can arrange for his own outing. (Yes, it has actually happened once or twice ..)
And then there is real innovation that often doesn't get recognized - things like the Guardian Council, where 5 people decide on who to protect but some of them might be baddies. Or EL's item passing game, where there were a few special items people could give to each other with various effects. There isn't a lot of it but when it happens we should treasure it, keep the bits that work and repeat it in another game.
I also think that the recent forum slowness might be killing interest as well, especially for something like Werewolf that requires a ton of activity. I gave up on the recent big game because it was taking me so long to read each post in the thread.
Yeah. They need to fix the lag.
I'd love to help them a bit there, since preventing server lag is pretty much my day job. But since they're in Sweden, I doubt they're interested in my services
(If anyone from Paradox strolls by, make sure you read this:
Thinking Clearly About Performance)
So those are my thoughts. I've just wrote down everything that has occurred to me at this time, and it may not all be very helpful, but I hope that at least some of it may be of some interest.
I'm not going to repeat that post entirely just to say "I agree". Marty makes good points here. People need to relax a bit, stop insulting people and complaining, and thus make this game a little more fun. Encouraging RP is another one - that is one of the things that livens things up a little and keeps people reading. I actively avoid lynching / hunting people like that. I wish more people would.
Among these things a villager should never do:
1. Announce that he is a wolf. Even if he really is just a "suicidal villager," he has drawn attention away from the real baddies. Besides, players who want to quit have another recourse -- asking to be subbed out.
No. The village should usually lynch that person, but never say never. I can imagine situations where that sort of thing is a valid playstyle.
However, the way AOK did it in babies - he just should have been lynched.
2. Vote-snipe to create a tie; unless the villager is a member of the JL and the JL has reason to believe the lynchees are baddies. If this happens, a shrewd baddie will claim afterward that he is part of the JL; it is incumbent upon the JL to verify this, and if they do not the village should lynch the tie-maker.
Sometimes you are just convinced someone is a baddie, and want to lynch them no matter who else gets caught in the crossfire. It happens.
Barring that sort of thing creating ties for the sake of creating ties needs to be punished.
But one the other hand, we cannot always have blind bandwagons on days when this happens either. That will just give wolves more places to hide themselves in.
3. Vote-snipe to switch from one frontrunner to another without giving a reason (ie, "I'm convinced now that so-and-so is a more likely baddie due to the weight of argument given by Messrs. Lundgren and Yoshi"). If an unjustified vote-snipe occurs, the village should assume it was done to save a baddie and the next day's lynch should proceed accordingly (either by lynching the vote-sniper or the frontrunner who was saved).
.. but I wanted to save the Seer!
(Drat, can't say that. Uhm ..)
And again - sometimes people just are convinced that somebody is a baddie.
Nonetheless, I agree with the general case - without some justification people who snipe should be viewed with suspicion and probably lynched.
However, if we blindly lynch everyone who snipes we get bandwagons on people without people needing justify their votes further: Excellent places for wolves to hide from analysis that day, in other words.
4. Voting for anyone else on days when a baddie is outed. If there are no other outed baddies, and an otherwise unimpeached player outs someone as a baddie, the village must focus like a laser on either the player outed; or, if his integrity is impeached by an independent source, the player doing the outing. Saying "so-and-so has enough votes, let's try to run up someone else" is just inviting the baddies to save their outed packmate. If the outed player turns out to be a goodie, the player who did the outing has a lot of explaining to do (but unless he has an outstanding explanation, he should be lynched).
Agreed there. And that is usually what happens. Except when it doesn't..
5. Out someone as a baddie who is not a confirmed baddie. If someone has been scanned as a baddie, he should be outed. If he has been pinged because a goodie managed to infiltrate a wolfpack, then he should be outed. If, as sometimes happens, a villager just has a strong suspicion, he should state his suspicion and the case -- but not lie and say he was scanned and pinged as a baddie. Such lies are detrimental to the good of the village and, unless the liar has a god explanation, he ought to be lynched.
This. Very much this.
One significant exception to all the above standards: the JL will do whatever is necessary to kill baddies, and so if an established JLer violates one of the above rules he should of course be afforded enough flexibility to execute his plan. If someone who fancies himself a JLer violates these rules and in so doing fails to identify and kill baddies, the village ought to assume he has been compromised and should proceed accordingly.
hum, that's just silly. It highly depends on the circumstances of the game if someone is considered a "JL member" or cleared or what have you. Sometimes someone has just lynched too many baddies in a game to be considered a suspect. Sometimes the JL spokesperson -is- a baddie. It happens.
EUROO7 and AOK. 11 champion the virtues of guiding lynches by organizing as many votes as possible onto only two candidates -- thus generating data for analyzing. This intent is good and does in fact yield results down the road -- if the shepherd is good. But when baddies organize votes that way, they do so in a way that benefits them and devastates the village.
The problem there is simply that it happens too often and people follow it too blindly. I don't think it's a bad strategy at all if it happens every now and then. But people should not be following that same person day after day after day. That just kills the game.
The person trying to play shepherd is not the problem; it is the sheep who willingly follow the shepherd, instead of regarding the shepherd with deep suspicion.
That's the problem with reading threads a week after the fact ..
He was one of those guys who invested a lot of time into the game -- each day he would put up a dozen or so posts of useful insights and analysis. I suppose if he didn't have time for that, he wasn't going to lower himself to the level of one-post-per-day activity. Sort of like Flowers for Algernon, ya know?
I can understand that sentiment. I stopped playing some other game because of lack of time. I can't just invest myself a little bit in a game - it needs to be wholesale, or nothing.
Though that rule tends to be somewhat flexible of late, I still do the best I can in every game I play.
but prob randy for getting me to play and kaetje for not being mean to me with my retarded protect orders as i was the doctor and did not have a clue what i was doing.
Thanks
I would rather see the Big Games thread in OT, than the impotent New Game-thread.
Someone should ask if that change is possible. Also promise to report and internally work against a posting of more threads than just one. Heck! After a Big Game is done, ask the mods to transfer it here!
Seconded.
True, in "campfire" WW, there is no PM, neither for the wolves.
As someone who has GM'ed at least a dozen campfire WW games, let me tell you: That is definite and completely utter poppycock. Do you think people around campfires just sit there and don't start whispering with their neighbours or pulling people away for a quick chat? Tsk. Think again.
But this is forum-WW, and it is different. A JL that could be created is part of that as well. Restricting PM's is not the answer, I believe.
No, it isn't. If anything people should use PM's more often. -Especially- as a villager. I've managed to get into a justice league with random PM's more than once. One game the whole JL was me the villager and the GA at the start. No seer (there wasn't any in the game) and the priest wasn't in contact at all ..
Regarding the OT-forum: I don't think the mods will look kindly upon the need to manually move a thread once every 3 weeks. We should better not ask them to do that. We just need to maintain self-restraint.
Why ask them to move threads? Old games can stay where they are, as long as they get listed in our giant list of old games ..
The first game I played in had 24 hour days followed by a 24 hour night. However the day would end early if at any time one person had more then 50% of the votes, meaning that at that time a Majority of the village wanted them dead. The extra 24 hours of talking during the night meant that a lot more people threw up votes early, rather then sit back and see how people would might not even be awake for another 6 hours react to the person lynched, and the wolfs had a full 24 hours after the lynch to pick out who the hunt. The seer would get his scan result as soon as he sent in a name, and yes I have seen days with a time of about 15 minutes. Full J-L taking down the last two wolfs when both where scanned makes it rather quick and easy to do.
That is very interesting. It would pretty much eliminate the fast vote switching we see now, but that may not be a bad thing.
However, do be aware that this does mean people under the gun won't have time to put up a defense if there is a fake outing or what have you. Something that can still be a good cause for shenanigans, and something that we should encourage, I think.
I also considered these ideas:
1. Sudden deadline: I was thinking about a trait that allowed the player to call an early end to voting by PMing the GM. From the moment of the timestamp on his PM to the GM, no vote switches will be counted in the final vote count -- although other players won't know this until the deadline. Anyone who hasn't voted will be allowed to cast a single vote (otherwise he will just cast his own vote immediately after the previous day's update, send in his order, and thus control the lynch with a 1-0 final vote). This ability would have to be more than a one-time use thing (otherwise it will become like a leader ability -- never used, since he never knows who is good until it is too late to put it to any good use). But not an unlimited use thing -- don't want him using it every goddamn day, he needs to be somewhat judicious about it.
No. That gives one player a way to control the vote and makes the game entirely unpredictable for no good reason. It will just drive people away.
2. Limit the number of vote switches: I like this idea better than the one above. Say, everyone is allowed one new vote, and one switch -- that way if fresh evidence comes to light later in the day he can switch his vote, but he cannot throw votes around like party favors. It would also provide an interesting dynamic -- not only because people would be more reserved with their initial vote, but also because the vote count would take on an added ominous undertone of the number of unswitchable votes: so-and-so has 6 votes, and 2 of them are permanent; while the runner-up has 5 votes, but 4 of them are permanent. Who should be more nervous as the deadline looms?
I think I like the thing EL described better. It would need some rules to wheedle out inactives but with some tweaks I think it would work. This, however .. I suspect it will just cause people to withhold their votes until the last second.
And in fairness to the muppet pack, the cultist was only known to Kriszo...and he didn't share that information with the rest of us. Kriszo then died shortly into the game, so we were completely unaware of our cultist's existence. It may be useful as the GM to let the entire wolfpack know about a cultist's existence...or if the one who did know gets killed, to let another member of the pack know.
:rofl:
He said that to all of you in a PM. I got bcc'ed on that, so I did notice.
It seems that somehow you missed it though..
I still think people should just focus on the actual cause of the problem, lack of flow of players in, rather than go willy nilly tinkering all over. We simply need to advertise better somehow and try that first.
Move that big game thread over to the OT, is what I say. We simply need the advertisement there.
