Newbie Game Stats, and Solution?

[MrBuddyLee]

I'd like to see a correlation between length of day one and town's success finding scum on day one. I truly believe the weakness in the standard newbie setup is this:

Guaranteed two newbie town. (Or is it three now?)
Sooner or later on Day One those two newbies are going to vote for the same townie, enabling scum to finish that townie off by slapping their votes on (odds are one scum's already on it).

The only way for town to overcome this is by playing methodically. It falls on the IC townie(s) to slow the game down and make sure scum know they'll be held accountable for quicklynches. I'm pretty sure a lot of those town losses are newbies making thet mistake of jumping on and voting impulsively, and the only way to avoid that is to have strong, active IC town discouraging a quick Day One.

So yeah, I think the current setup is fine, and its simplicity superior, but it does require responsible IC players.

[MrBuddyLee]

I know this is anecdotal, but I'm 5-1 as town in newbie games. I love the challenge, and it's fun to teach the new players how to be good town regardless of outcome. Fritz and MeMe set great examples as scumhunters and cautious players in my first game, though I must admit the Fritz thing puzzled me at first. I probably wouldn't have stuck around if it weren't for the good examples they set.

So yeah, keep separate stats or whatever. Aspire to a 50% win percentage as town. And most importantly, help create more good town via your influence. After all, that's the main goal of newbie games.

But yeah, the game should stay as simple as possible to help teach the most basic principles.

[MrBuddyLee]

Also, how much of the "town is more likely to be on a lynch of town" is due to the fact that there are 4 town and only 2 scum who could be on it?

[MrBuddyLee]

Newbies should be helped along a LOT, and in games where the IC players either don't coach or don't really contribute, the newbies are more likely to make mistakes. Add in the significant possibility that scum can coach newbies to make bad decisions, and the result is a disadvantage for town.

Unless the pro-town IC aggressively coaches newbies through the game. Only if that happens does town have a chance, and I've seen plenty of lazy, lurking IC town in newbie games. I have a feeling that's what skews the win percentage so badly towards scum.

Here's another thing, since these are teaching games, if a newbie makes a terrible mistake day one, maybe IC scum could NOT jump all over the mistake and push the advantage for victory. It's a tough call, but at the least maybe IC scum should avoid hammering hapless town in the first few pages of D1.