when to start a competing wagon

[Plotinus]

As town, if it’s earlyish in the game (day1-2) and you don’t have strong opinions yet about the leading wagon but you’re not opposed to it either because you understand/support why it exists, but you have a stronger scumread elsewhere, is it better to start a competing wagon or hang back and see what happens with the current wagon?

i can kind of see it both ways. an argument for waiting to see what happens* is because you want to see how your stronger scumread reacts to this wagon (do they join it, do they ignore it, do they start a counter wagon of their own). an argument for joining the existing wagon might be that you’re not townreading the person being wagonned in particular and you want to see how they act to more pressure. an argument for starting your own wagon is that this way you’ll be voting your primary scumread not somebody else’s.

*I don’t mean waiting forever. I mean hanging back but asking people questions and otherwise participating in the thread until you have a stronger feeling about the player being wagonned than “yeah i can see it kinda”.

i’ve been thinking about this for a while but had to wait until i was finished with the game that made me start wondering about this. (in that game, the person being wagonned was actually scum and i chose to hang back, so voting them would have been right and starting a counterwagon would have been wrong but i didn’t know their alignment at the time)

[Vi]

As long as you can competently justify yourself if and when you're asked about your behavior, it doesn't really matter what you do.

Beyond that, strategically, you have the right idea that there are good reasons to jump on, counterwagon, call attention to yourself not doing anything, or active lurk. As long as you have some idea of what you want to get out of your behavior, you can choose any option you like and you can generally switch between options as you like.

I think, however, that starting a counterwagon on someone is not usually different from doing nothing unless you hit a huge groundswell of support or you're trying to toy with the person who's currently getting wagoned.

[Plotinus]

Thanks for replying!

One of the reasons I hanged back in that game was because I felt that starting a counterwagon might provide a distraction, giving the person on the main wagon an excuse to avoid doing what people were asking them to do. I also thought they were crumbing cop but then they claimed VT and the crumb was literally the only reason I wasn’t scumreading them, so that was that.

[Majiffy]

Wagon relentlessly. Always.

[Vi]

Wagon relentlessly. Always.

Cobalt's Law ("be on every wagon of consequence") is pretty fun in practice, and not all that bad in theory.

[Plotinus]

I heard of Cobalt’s law but I didn’t know if it was a towntell or a scumtell for someone to be on every wagon.

[Titus]

Depends on if Colbalt's tell is consistent with reads.

[Plotinus]

ok, i wasn’t sure. in my first few newbie games I was on every major wagon but unfortunately all of those wagons were against town and I was town myself, so i was starting to think it was a bad thing. I am starting to better at being on wagons that are against scum.

[Vi]

It wasn't a tell. It does, however, mean that wagons that exist are more effective simply because it puts the person being waived one step closer to death.

I fully understand what it means to be on every wagon without trying to be, and for all of those wagons to be on Town. But, no one says you have to stay on the wagons, and openly refusing to join a wagon can be a strong move if you want one of those.

Playstyle, etc.

[Faraday]

vote your top scumread unless you're not voting them as a way to troll them imo

[Majiffy]

I heard of Cobalt’s law but I didn’t know if it was a towntell or a scumtell for someone to be on every wagon.

The votes themselves mean relatively little. The motivation and reasoning behind the votes is what's important.

And I prefer to get people to take hard stances between wagons rather than just have everyone float around until the sediment settles, because the latter gives scum a really easy place to hide.