[WW] Fright Night! (The village wins!)

[noxiousdog]

I can't quite follow your reasoning here.

I know I tried the whole game to get you to understand it.

I would think that it is always desirable to kill vampires, if you wish to win the game with as little friendly casualties as possible.

Why would you want to win the game with as little friendly casualties as possible? The goal is to win. Not to look pretty doing it. In such cases, there is no reason to kill a valuable ally on the suspicion that he's a vamp. The Grund example being perfect. 'Cause he wasn't. And he was a valuable ally. Worst case, it takes us an extra round or two. A win is a win is a win.

If we hadn't gotten lucky and killed vamps in every round, we would still be playing and taking losses.
Someone has to be lynched, so why not try to make the best possible move (from your point of view), rather than any move?

Because your options aren't binary. There's at least 3 scales for every person. Likeliness that they are vamps, likeliness that they are innocents, likeliness they are special allies.

I can certainly agree that Grundbegriff is a valuable player to have on ones side, but on the other hand, if you have serious reason to believe that he may be playing against you, it would be equally prudent to take him out, before that same value can be brought to bear against you.

How can it be brought against you? They don't kill one per vamp, and the vamps -already- have nearly all the information.

[triggercut]

Varity, what if, after noxiousdog posts "Well, I'm one of the Masons" Mr. Bubbles posts "That's fascinating. So am I, and noxiousdog's name isn't the one I got as the other mason."

Or, better yet: what if the alpha sends nd a PM that says "I'm the Fearless Vampire Hunter." That would seem to be the best disguise of all for a Vamp. As long as they don't accidentally kill the real FVH, they can "protect" whatever players the consensus wants them to throughout the game (simply by not attacking that person), and there's NO WAY to prove that the vampire isn't the FVH. (A seer reading on either will reveal the same information).

If a vamp tells the mason he's a seer, the only thing the seer can do if he has three seers is to have all three do readings on the same person, and have all three take a reading on the invisible second mason. In that case, unless the fake seer/vampire guesses right, he's going to have outed himself with the mason, and should/could be easily lynched thereafter. BUT--both seers have absolutely wasted a crucial night by dreaming on a character whose identity has already been established by the village voting bloc.

[Varity]

Why would you want to win the game with as little friendly casualties as possible? The goal is to win. Not to look pretty doing it. In such cases, there is no reason to kill a valuable ally on the suspicion that he's a vamp. The Grund example being perfect. 'Cause he wasn't. And he was a valuable ally. Worst case, it takes us an extra round or two. A win is a win is a win.

Regardless of how you choose to define "win" (personal survival, team survival, minimal loss victory), killing the player that you suspect most of being a vampire has the greatest chance of furthering your cause.
Not having him as your ally doesn't automatically results in you losing the game, it *might* decrease your chances slightly at most.

If we hadn't gotten lucky and killed vamps in every round, we would still be playing and taking losses.
Someone has to be lynched, so why not try to make the best possible move (from your point of view), rather than any move?

Because your options aren't binary. There's at least 3 scales for every person. Likeliness that they are vamps, likeliness that they are innocents, likeliness they are special allies.

They scales on which you judge players are not binary, but the decision you have to take is, so you have to weigh the factors against those of the other players and not let personal preferences enter into that. If you do, you become blind to one or more particular classes of dangers, i.e. you are less likely to play well against a certain type of player.

Since he didn't explicitly claim to be a special ally, the likeliness that he was one was zero. A likelihood > 0 is the prerequisite for being exempt from consideration for lynching, otherwise he would have to be considered on the same scale as every simple villager.
All villagers are equally expendable and you cannot introduce a policy stating that you categorically will not lynch any player who you consider to be more capable than average, regardless of the likelihood that he's a vamp, without hurting your chances overall.

I can certainly agree that Grundbegriff is a valuable player to have on ones side, but on the other hand, if you have serious reason to believe that he may be playing against you, it would be equally prudent to take him out, before that same value can be brought to bear against you.

How can it be brought against you? They don't kill one per vamp, and the vamps -already- have nearly all the information.

My english may not be good enough to get your drift here. Who are "they"? The vamps have all the information?
I meant:
Whatever he can do for you, he can also do against you.

[noxiousdog]

Regardless of how you choose to define "win" (personal survival, team survival, minimal loss victory), killing the player that you suspect most of being a vampire has the greatest chance of furthering your cause.
Not having him as your ally doesn't automatically results in you losing the game, it *might* decrease your chances slightly at most.

Incorrect. I'll explain more at the end.

They scales on which you judge players are not binary, but the decision you have to take is, so you have to weigh the factors against those of the other players and not let personal preferences enter into that. If you do, you become blind to one or more particular classes of dangers, i.e. you are less likely to play well against a certain type of player.

You're overestimating the danger of one vamp.

Since he didn't explicitly claim to be a special ally, the likeliness that he was one was zero. A likelihood > 0 is the prerequisite for being exempt from consideration for lynching, otherwise he would have to be considered on the same scale as every simple villager.
All villagers are equally expendable and you cannot introduce a policy stating that you categorically will not lynch any player who you consider to be more capable than average, regardless of the likelihood that he's a vamp, without hurting your chances overall.

You're simply wrong. How much help was Kelric, Orinoco, Mr. Bubbles, or Chaosraven in catching the vamp? Are you telling me they were equal in value to Grund?

How can it be brought against you? They don't kill one per vamp, and the vamps -already- have nearly all the information.

My english may not be good enough to get your drift here. Who are "they"?

Vamps don't get one kill each.

I meant:
Whatever he can do for you, he can also do against you.

No, he can't. The latter requires misinformation which eventually can be discovered.

Maybe that's the difference. I feel that I can -eventually- see through Grund's obfuscation (if that's what it is). I accept the risk that he's a vampire, but value his input more than fear his misinformation.

[Varity]

Varity, what if, after noxiousdog posts "Well, I'm one of the Masons" Mr. Bubbles posts "That's fascinating. So am I, and noxiousdog's name isn't the one I got as the other mason."

In that case, Leigh immediately enters the stage, proclaims :"I am mason#2 and noxious is my partner". There is no way anyone can believe Mr. Bubbles claim after that and he is lynched right away.

Or, better yet: what if the alpha sends nd a PM that says "I'm the Fearless Vampire Hunter." That would seem to be the best disguise of all for a Vamp. As long as they don't accidentally kill the real FVH, they can "protect" whatever players the consensus wants them to throughout the game (simply by not attacking that person), and there's NO WAY to prove that the vampire isn't the FVH. (A seer reading on either will reveal the same information).

The second best choice for him, I think.
The alpha doesn't wield any power in that position, he cannot interfere with the scanning. The masons will not reveal any of the seers to both FVHs. The seers comb through the villagers normally and expose the betas quickly. The alpha will be killed if the FVHs dies, either from a stray vampire attack, or after being lynched.
One could also contemplate setting up some kind of trap for the fake FVH, but I haven't thought this through.

If a vamp tells the mason he's a seer, the only thing the seer (mason?) can do if he has three seers is to have all three do readings on the same person, and have all three take a reading on the invisible second mason. In that case, unless the fake seer/vampire guesses right, he's going to have outed himself with the mason, and should/could be easily lynched thereafter. BUT--both seers have absolutely wasted a crucial night by dreaming on a character whose identity has already been established by the village voting bloc.

The masons could order scans on the FVH or the other seers. The report should always be "not innocent". If it isn't, boom. The FVH may be used to protect seers "exposed" in this way.

Having 3 seers scan the same target is indeed wasteful, except when you need/want to know the truth about a target immediately. If seers scan different targets the results may be noted but can only be trusted after the alpha or the seer who provided the result dies.

The FVH may be used to create his own web of trust, if he blocks an attack.

I agree that the masons lose scans with this tactic, but an imposter will still be outed relatively quickly.

[Varity]

You're simply wrong. How much help was Kelric, Orinoco, Mr. Bubbles, or Chaosraven in catching the vamp? Are you telling me they were equal in value to Grund?

They didn't have a chance to help with the network, so I cannot be sure how they would have played, if they had been. pr0ner was part of the network, but since Grund already held the positon of chief strategist, his participation wasn't really required. Since this is my first game of this type, I have no idea how well people normally play and can't make comparisions.
I would like to see an AAR from Grund (hint, hint ) to judge his merits better and maybe learn a couple of new tricks.

Vamps don't get one kill each.

Edit: You mean that 3 Vamps are no worse than 2? But they would need 3 rounds to kill, instead of 2, even if you ignore the effort required to uncover them.

You're overestimating the danger of one vamp.

No, he can't. The latter requires misinformation which eventually can be discovered.

Maybe that's the difference. I feel that I can -eventually- see through Grund's obfuscation (if that's what it is). I accept the risk that he's a vampire, but value his input more than fear his misinformation.

Even if that vampire is Grundbegriff? Are you saying that he is a better player for the good side than he would be playing a vampire?

[noxiousdog]

Even if that vampire is Grundbegriff? Are you saying that he is a better player for the good side than he would be playing a vampire?

No. I'm saying that no matter how great the vampire they will have far less impact than an equally great villager.

[Varity]

Even if that vampire is Grundbegriff? Are you saying that he is a better player for the good side than he would be playing a vampire?

No. I'm saying that no matter how great the vampire they will have far less impact than an equally great villager.

Ok. Why do you think so? Is there less strategy required in thinking through all the scenarios I outlined in my respose to triggercuts posts and picking the best one for the vampires side?

[noxiousdog]

Ok. Why do you think so? Is there less strategy required in thinking through all the scenarios I outlined in my respose to triggercuts posts and picking the best one for the vampires side?

Because the villagers effectively have to identify everyone AND have no one to trust. The vamps don't have to identify anyone and already know who to trust.

The villagers have a significant more amount of work to do.

[Grundbegriff]

Some comments as I read. If these have already been addressed in the messages I haven't reached yet, I apologize for the redundancy. (I'll edit later and point to the folks who got there before me.)

Varity, what if, after noxiousdog posts "Well, I'm one of the Masons" Mr. Bubbles posts "That's fascinating. So am I, and noxiousdog's name isn't the one I got as the other mason."

In Round 1 under these rules, the Alpha cannot pretend to be a Mason, because there's a simple and 100% effective counterplay:

• Mason #1 outs himself.
• Alpha "outs" himself as a Mason.
• Mason #2 outs herself. !

Alpha has no response to this, because nobody is cooperating with Alpha in Round 1.

Regardless of how you choose to define "win" (personal survival, team survival, minimal loss victory), killing the player that you suspect most of being a vampire has the greatest chance of furthering your cause.

The strategy you recommend-- killing the most suspicious player-- is flawed. Here's why.

If an innocent villager is skilled, he'll realize that he may be conscripted by the Alpha vampire. He will therefore play both sides to leave himself open options for the case in which he's infected and the case in which he remains a villager.

This is precisely what I did in Round 1, and it's why I looked so suspicious. If I had been infected, I would've had options, since I had established myself as a "leader of the people" while also setting up the FVH for a fall. Some errors committed in PM-- something likely to occur in any game-- had also given me a good idea of the identity of a Seer.

After vamping out, I would've had options. Fewer options would've been open to me if I hadn't done some suspicious things, and there are other suspicious things an innocent villager might do in Round #1 (such as pretend to be the FVH) to conserve options in case of Vampification.

Noxiousdog is right, Varity. Slaying the highly suspicious without further evidence of what they're doing is a good way to damage one's own team, given that many folks in Round 1 are likely to be playing mind games.

...

I would like to see an AAR from Grund (hint, hint)

I'll see what I can do tonight.

[Varity]

Ok. Why do you think so? Is there less strategy required in thinking through all the scenarios I outlined in my respose to triggercuts posts and picking the best one for the vampires side?

Because the villagers effectively have to identify everyone AND have no one to trust. The vamps don't have to identify anyone and already know who to trust.

The villagers have a significant more amount of work to do.

In our game, the vampires would desperately have needed to find the seers or interfere with the scanning process. They failed at that completely and could have done better, I think. The villagers already had a huge advantage from how the rules were working in their favor. Anyone could have won that game for the villagers.

[noxiousdog]

In our game, the vampires would desperately have needed to find the seers or interfere with the scanning process. They failed at that completely and could have done better, I think. The villagers already had a huge advantage from how the rules were working in their favor. Anyone could have won that game for the villagers.

Not true. The Vamps could have killed Grund first, then me, then mark or a seer, and we would have been in trouble.

Once they elected to waste a kill, then it was over.

[Mr Bubbles]

Ok. Why do you think so? Is there less strategy required in thinking through all the scenarios I outlined in my respose to triggercuts posts and picking the best one for the vampires side?

Because the villagers effectively have to identify everyone AND have no one to trust. The vamps don't have to identify anyone and already know who to trust.

The villagers have a significant more amount of work to do.

In our game, the vampires would desperately have needed to find the seers or interfere with the scanning process. They failed at that completely and could have done better, I think. The villagers already had a huge advantage from how the rules were working in their favor. Anyone could have won that game for the villagers.

WE could have done better, but honestly losing one vamp on day one doomed us. I tried to work it but the numbers were stacked against us.. It was just a matter of time.

[Varity]

The strategy you recommend-- killing the most suspicious player-- is flawed. Here's why.

If an innocent villager is skilled, he'll realize that he may be conscripted by the Alpha vampire. He will therefore play both sides to leave himself open options for the case in which he's infected and the case in which he remains a villager.

The innocent player cannot decide to claim to be a good sided special, because he will be most closely scrutinized if he does so (see my posts above on that) and run the huge risk of being caught lying and staked without further ado. This risk is significantly greater than the 2/9 chance of becoming a vampire, so the move puts him at a disadvantage.

If a player decides not to answer the question about his status, the only possible conclusion is that he is either an innocent who wants to keep his options open or the alpha. A special player is not in doubt about his status and will not obscure his identity. So, it makes no difference if the innocents refuse to answer, they'll all be treated equally.

This is precisely what I did in Round 1, and it's why I looked so suspicious.

The suspicious thing was that you tried to convince other people to do the same, which is only a net gain for you if you are the alpha.

If I had been infected, I would've had options, since I had established myself as a "leader of the people" while also setting up the FVH for a fall. Some errors committed in PM-- something likely to occur in any game-- had also given me a good idea of the identity of a Seer. After vamping out, I would've had options.

You are building a case here as to why I would have been prudent to remove that danger, even if noxiousdog seems to believe that he could have handled it.

Noxiousdog is right, Varity. Slaying the highly suspicious without further evidence of what they're doing is a good way to damage one's own team, given that many folks in Round 1 are likely to be playing mind games.

I do not think that the teams chances would have been damaged, if you had been killed out of caution. The game was not so hard to win for the good side that your skill was really required here. We would have won in any case, except maybe with you on the other side.

[Varity]

In our game, the vampires would desperately have needed to find the seers or interfere with the scanning process. They failed at that completely and could have done better, I think. The villagers already had a huge advantage from how the rules were working in their favor. Anyone could have won that game for the villagers.

Not true. The Vamps could have killed Grund first, then me, then mark or a seer, and we would have been in trouble.

Once they elected to waste a kill, then it was over.

They would have needed at least 3 rounds to bring us into trouble according to your plan; we won in 3 rounds.

Killing Grund or you would NOT have brought us into trouble at all, you were expendable. The odds of them hitting anyone important in our netwerk weren't good (thats why they "wasted" a kill); apparently they hadn't got a clue who the seers were (can you comment, Mr.Bubbles?) and they would have needed to avoid being blocked by the hunter, too.

[Varity]

Goodness, looks like I'm setting a new personal record in the posts-in-a-day category.

[noxiousdog]

Once they elected to waste a kill, then it was over.

They would have needed at least 3 rounds to bring us into trouble according to your plan; we won in 3 rounds.[/quote]

Well, had you killed Grund, it would have taken at least 4

Killing Grund or you would NOT have brought us into trouble at all, you were expendable. The odds of them hitting anyone important in our netwerk weren't good (thats why they "wasted" a kill); apparently they hadn't got a clue who the seers were (can you comment, Mr.Bubbles?) and they would have needed to avoid being blocked by the hunter, too.

You're only looking at what happened, not what could have happened.

Let's say Grund dies. It wouldn't have been that hard for me to lynch Mark. In fact, I would have strongly considered it in round 3 had I not been dead and had the vamps gotten lucky and hit you, setaside or leigh in round 2 or 3.

I don't mean to be rude, but Mark was absolutely terrible in that game. Not only did he make a collosal blunder (and I have no clue why the vamps chose crux instead of mark in round 1, that was crazy, the only alternative was JD should have taken that opportunity to claim to be the FVH) by outing himself to everyone, when he went to the lynch grund immediately before he gets a chance to talk card.

So in that situation, you'd have a lynched grund, lynched FVH, lynched CG, and a trusted vamp.

Not good.

[Varity]

Let's say Grund dies. It wouldn't have been that hard for me to lynch Mark. In fact, I would have strongly considered it in round 3 had I not been dead and had the vamps gotten lucky and hit you, setaside or leigh in round 2 or 3.

That would have been ill-considered and illogical. How would you have explained that no other FVH had come forward? Someone playing even worse than Mark?
(No offense meant, to this moment I don't know exactly what you did or did not do, Mark.)

I don't mean to be rude, but Mark was absolutely terrible in that game. Not only did he make a collosal blunder (and I have no clue why the vamps chose crux instead of mark in round 1, that was crazy, the only alternative was JD should have taken that opportunity to claim to be the FVH) by outing himself to everyone, when he went to the lynch grund immediately before he gets a chance to talk card.

So in that situation, you'd have a lynched grund, lynched FVH, lynched CG, and a trusted vamp.

Not good.

We'd have lynched an innocent, had the same chance of detecting JDs suspicious behaviour and lynching him; maybe an even better chance, because lynching Grund would have made available a scan for someone else.

[noxiousdog]

That would have been ill-considered and illogical. How would you have explained that no other FVH had come forward? Someone playing even worse than Mark?
(No offense meant, to this moment I don't know exactly what you did or did not do, Mark.)

In round 3 it would have been out of spite

I'm just saying my distrust was very very high. In round 2, had JD sent me a message that said, "I should have let you know in round 1, but with Grunds death I feel like I can't withhold the secret any longer, I'm the FVH and Mark is an imposter" I would like to say I could have seen through it, but I don't know that I could have.

And you know have a 5 round game instead of a 3 round game.

We'd have lynched an innocent, had the same chance of detecting JDs suspicious behaviour and lynching him; maybe an even better chance, because lynching Grund would have made available a scan for someone else.

You're still under the impression that no villager is more important than another. As badly as Mark played and as well as Grund played, if you can't see that your premise is wrong, discussing this is futile.

[Varity]

In round 3 it would have been out of spite

I'm just saying my distrust was very very high. In round 2, had JD sent me a message that said, "I should have let you know in round 1, but with Grunds death I feel like I can't withhold the secret any longer, I'm the FVH and Mark is an imposter" I would like to say I could have seen through it, but I don't know that I could have.

You should have asked him: "Why did you not come forward in round 1? Are you even more stupid than Mark?" (sorry again, Mark )
After not getting an acceptable reply (there isn't any) you should have lynched JD.

You're still under the impression that no villager is more important than another. As badly as Mark played and as well as Grund played, if you can't see that your premise is wrong, discussing this is futile.

You don't get to pick who you play with, ignoring the cold, hard odds of both cases weighted with the advantages and disadvantages of each case in favor of your personal preferences is not a smart strategy.

I said to Grundbegriff a couple of posts above:

You are building a case here as to why I would have been prudent to remove that danger, even if noxiousdog seems to believe that he could have handled it.

The game was not so hard to win for the good side that your skill was really required here. We would have won in any case, except maybe with you on the other side.

It was more important to keep him from playing with the enemy than he was necessary for out success.

... if you can't see that your premise is wrong, discussing this is futile.

I'm sorry you think so. We will just have to agree to disagree then.

[noxiousdog]

You don't get to pick who you play with, ignoring the cold, hard odds of both cases weighted with the advantages and disadvantages of each case in favor of your personal preferences is not a smart strategy.

And yet, using that strategy I was at least 25% more effecient

Scoreboard.

[Remus West]

Haven't read this whole thread yet, but if it helps...I always try to appear suspicious in the first few rounds. It does 3 things. Should I ever actually be a bad guy I am less likely to stick out more than normal. Second, and more importantly, if I am innocent I am more likely to get scanned by a seer type and thus make the "inner" circle to help with planning. Lastly, if it looks likely to the bad guys that I will get lynched they have to debate whether or not it would be a waste of a kill for them each night. If they think I will be lynched they will leave me alone, but if I look like I'm innocent and make votes they don't like I will likely be offed.

[triggercut]

I'm tellin ya--if a vamp poses as the FVH, the villagers have some problems on their hands.

[Varity]

I have asked triggercut for advice whether to go public in the following matter, but I haven't heard from him since his injury. I am unsure how long it might be before he's back. Since I would like to consider the matter dealt with, I have decided to make a post about it myself.

On the first night of the game, I was uncertain how many seers were in contact with noxiousdog. It occured to me that a way to filter out the correct 2 seers from 3 people claiming to be seers was to have them send the introductory text ("Congratulations, you are a seer ....") they received from triggercut at the start of the game and let noxiousdog compare the submissions.

I had my doubts whether this procedure was "just" borderline or illegal and so I asked triggercut about it.

While there's nothing specifically in the rules to prohibit it, I'd sort of prefer you guys not do that. Those PM's were never meant to be shared, and if I thought that a clever player (such as yourself!) would think to use them as an ID badge, I've had changed the verbiage in them up a bit.

I can't prevent you from doing it, in other words, but I think the villagers have played skillfully enough so far that you don't need to do it to win.

If that helps.

Since he hadn't explicitly disallowed it, I submitted the idea + triggercuts stance to noxiousdog and let him make the call on that; he agreed that it didn't feel right, would be unnecessary and didn't make use of it.

This "trick" can also be applied to other messages from you in game, basically any message that contains some confirmation of players role. (Result of a vision, asking you for rules clarification etc.) In case of the unique messages, the basis of deduction would not be the exact wording of the message, but rather its style and format. Such a message might not be easy to fake for someone with lesser language ability and could still provide clues.

I was already saying to noxiousdog that quoting messages from the gamemaster should be outlawed for the next games, otherwise the nice and flowery descriptions (or its absence) might be used as a weapon and the gamemaster might have additional work writing more text.

So I would ask game masters/moderators to consider adding such a rule to their next games and all players to check with their game masters first, before they use quotes to gain an advantage.

[Kelric]

I have asked triggercut for advice whether to go public in the following matter, but I haven't heard from him since his injury. I am unsure how long it might be before he's back.

Injury? What injury?

We had a game early on in which a PM was screenshotted and posted. I also felt like it was kind of 'cheating' and just didn't feel right.

[Varity]

I have asked triggercut for advice whether to go public in the following matter, but I haven't heard from him since his injury. I am unsure how long it might be before he's back.

Injury? What injury?

We had a game early on in which a PM was screenshotted and posted. I also felt like it was kind of 'cheating' and just didn't feel right.

He stabbed his own hand with a knife.


Ah, I didn't know about that. Can you give me a link?

[Kelric]

I have asked triggercut for advice whether to go public in the following matter, but I haven't heard from him since his injury. I am unsure how long it might be before he's back.

Injury? What injury?

We had a game early on in which a PM was screenshotted and posted. I also felt like it was kind of 'cheating' and just didn't feel right.

He stabbed his own hand with a knife.


Ah, I didn't know about that. Can you give me a link?

I could, but I'm lazy, so I won't at this time. I don't even remember which game it was, but I'm pretty sure Padre created it.