What Makes A Town-Player Strong?

[mhsmith0]

[mastina]

Another way of putting it:
It is impossible to know what the scum think because you are not among them--thus, you cannot know how to act in order to avoid the nightkill.
It IS possible to know how TOWN think.

If a town player sees you as suspicious, they are not going to use a watch/protect on you. If you need said watch/protect because of the scum...well too bad, you were seen as suspicious so no shit you didn't get them.
If a town player sees you as suspicious, they are going to vig you. If you needed to survive because you were a PR...well too bad, you were seen as suspicious so no shit you got fucking shot by them.
If a town player sees you as suspicious, they are going to investigate you. If you wanted their investigation to be on a different target...well too bad, you were seen as suspicious so no shit you were investigated by them.

If the town as a whole sees you as suspicious, they are going to wagon you, and force you to claim. If you don't want to claim...well, too bad, you were seen as suspicious by them so no fucking shit they wagon you to the point you need to.
If the town as a whole sees you as suspicious and EITHER: don't trust your claim OR: don't give you the chance to claim, you get lynched. And if that's not what you wanted...well, too bad, you were seen as suspicious by them so no fucking shit they mislynched you for being a scummy fuck as town.

You don't downplay your capabilities as a town PR. It doesn't end well. Because pretty much the ONLY reason to do so, "To stop scum from killing me",

doesn't even work

, yet there are a MULTITUDE of reasons why doing so will fuck the town over if the town reacts with suspicion to you for your play.

And, no. That's not a dumb town. That's not on them. If these happen, it is entirely on YOU.

[RadiantCowbells]

I can count on one hand the amount of times that I've been correctly saved in games.

People make shit use of PRs.

[mhsmith0]

I dont think I really play PR all that much differently than vt, tho RC might disagree from that one newbie we had where I was Tracker. I’ve randed mason and was never shot, and I’ve randed jailkeeepr and got fear killed by titus after telling everyone she was scum, and then watched people decide I must have been rolecopped , I randed ic in my first game ever and was shot n2 because obvtown *shrugs*

Although I think I’ve been vt WAY more often than PR so idk

[mastina]

I can count on one hand the amount of times that I've been correctly saved in games.

Yes, statistically speaking, the job of a watcher/protective is much harder than it appears.

In a mini, assume a mislynch D1. The watcher/protective has 11 targets to try and find the correct one.
In contrast, assume three scum. The three scum have only 9 targets for their nightkill.

The odds of making the right watch/protect are thus 1/11 * 1/9 = 1/99: 1.01010101010101%.

As a protective/watcher in a mini, on N1. You, statistically speaking. Have a 99% chance of making the wrong choice.

The odds are better in smaller games.

But try scaling that up in a larger game.

Say there are 22 players in a game, five scum, and you mislynch.
Doctor has 20 targets.
The mafia have 16 targets.
1/20 * 1/16 = 1/320 = 0.3125% odds of picking the right target.

The job of a watcher/protective is made slightly easier by having a good target to target. Which playing strongly can give; playing deliberately weaker tends to be a good way to make them NOT target you, decreasing their odds of getting it right.

[mhsmith0]

The odds of making the right watch/protect are thus 1/11 * 1/9 = 1/99: 1.01010101010101%.

As a protective/watcher in a mini, on N1. You, statistically speaking. Have a 99% chance of making the wrong choice.

The odds are = the odds of picking the kill, I.e. more or less 1/12 (you have 11 choices, but otoh scum might kill you and make it moot)

Then again I played a mini where a JOAT with a watcher shot decided not to target the outed jailkeeepr because apparently gamethrowing is fun or something.

[mhsmith0]

Btw I’d say that what makes a town player BAD starts with all of the reasons that a player can be policy lynched or have everyone yell at them postgame... godawful reads, toxicity, flagrant misuse of pr, wild overconfidence, severe over or underposting, etc.

[Kublai Khan]

Now hold on. Strong obvtown players are often picked off on Night 1.

They are also often WATCHED or PROTECTED on Night 1.

Unless, of course, they are the watcher or doctor.

[Mulch]

It’s
Not 1/11 x 1/9

That makes no sense

It’s just 1/11

[StefanB]

No my 2 cents to the doc/watchersituation, a few years ago it was much more easy to predict nightkills. Today you start the day and often react whit that player died, huh?
Doesn't make it easier for doctor/watcher.

[mastina]

It’s
Not 1/11 x 1/9
That makes no sense
It’s just 1/11

You're right, there is a slight math error.
The scum have a 1/8 chance of choosing the non-doc/watcher, not 1/9.
The watcher/doctor has 11 targets to choose from.

But the math still holds. It's not just 1/11 of choosing the right target. It's (number of targets to protect/watch) * (number of targets to kill) chance of the protection/watch landing on the same person as the kill.
11 possible targets for the watch/protect, 8 possible non-protect/watch targets for the scum. The scum know who they are and what they're planning to do. The town protective/watcher does not.

[GreenLiquid]

I think it's just (1/9)*(0) + (8/9)*(1/11)

The doctor can't self-protect, so if mafia decides to kill them, they're hosed. No chance of successful protection. This happens with a 1/9 chance assuming scum shoot randomly.
If the mafia kill someone else, which has a 8/9 chance, the protection is successful if the doctor chooses to protect the same player. The doctor has 11 players to choose from, so this has a 1/11 chance of happening assuming the doctor protects randomly.

It comes out to something like 8.1%, which is only slightly less than the 9.1% chance you'd get if you assumed the protection succeeds in 1/11 attempts. Either way, it's unlikely. In practice, though, there's probably a pool of town-read players who are both more likely to be protected and more likely to be shot, so in real games I imagine the odds are a bit better for the doc.

[mhsmith0]

It's ABOUT 1/12.

Going into night 1, there are 12 players (3 scum, 9 town). Guessing randomly, you have a 1/12 chance to correctly identify the kill. But you can't self-watch or self-protect, which means that you ACTUALLY have 11 targets...

1) Scum have 1/9 odds of targeting you, in which case you're just dead and it doesn't matter what you do.
2) Scum have 8/9 odds of NOT targeting you, in which case you have 1/11 odds of randomly picking the correct target.

8/9 * 1/11 = 8/99

8/90 = 8.08% chance of targeting the night kill with your doc/watch, assuming kill selection and PR targeting were both random (1/12 is 8.33% btw, so yeah it's ABOUT 1/12 )

[GreenLiquid]

Ninja'd. :p

Makes me feel better about my analysis knowing that mhsmith agrees with me.

[callforjudgement]

Mastina: your math error here is assuming that there's only one person who can be watched/protected, and neither the Watcher/Doctor nor the scum know who it is.

That's not the case; a Doctor/Watcher can normally protect/watch any of the other players. So if scum target a player other than the Watcher/Doctor (8/9 chance), the Watcher/Doctor simply has to guess who it is correctly (1/11 chance), leading to a total 8/99 chance of the protection working. (It would be 1/12 if not for the fact that scum know that their buddies aren't town power roles, which makes their PR-hunting a bit more accurate than random.)

[Mulch]

I may be wrong, but at least mastina is more wrong

[mastina]

I may be wrong, but at least mastina is more wrong

By the way, tangent, but this attitude if it's displayed IN game is a fine example of what NOT to do as town.

[the worst]

I may be wrong, but at least mastina is more wrong

By the way, tangent, but this attitude if it's displayed IN game is a fine example of what NOT to do as town.

I was thinking this but I like Mulch too much to call it out

[Mulch]

I may be wrong, but at least mastina is more wrong

By the way, tangent, but this attitude if it's displayed IN game is a fine example of what NOT to do as town.

Fair

[kuribo]

I may be wrong, but at least mastina is more wrong

By the way, tangent, but this attitude if it's displayed IN game is a fine example of what NOT to do as town.

Unless I'm claiming a guilty on mastina, in which case you should follow my lead and definitely lynch her before monday morning

[Taly]

Do you guys think that it happens often, when there's 1 very strong townplayer, but they are drowned out by a town that does not work to solve the game?

[Ellibereth]

If they're drowned out they're probably not very strong.

[Ankamius]

Do you guys think that it happens often, when there's 1 very strong townplayer, but they are drowned out by a town that does not work to solve the game?

It depends on what you mean by strong.

If they just have disturbingly good reads but aren't really looking to get people to follow them, then yeah, it's very possible. Otherwise, it depends on the personalities. Personality clashes are a huge issue when they come up and can singlehandedly devastate a town that otherwise would be a huge lock for a win.

If you're referring to strong charismatically, then... well, it still depends on personalities, but it's far less likely.

[AnonymousGhost]

It depends on what you mean by strong.

No one's perfect.

Having one strong player isn't always a good thing to have, especially if they inadvertently subdue the diversity in a discussion if or when the majority decides to follow the proverbial leader.

Town's strongest when there's a diversity in discussion, IMO.

[Ankamius]

It depends on what you mean by strong.

No one's perfect.

Having one strong player isn't always a good thing to have, especially if they inadvertently subdue the diversity in a discussion if or when the majority decides to follow the proverbial leader.

Town's strongest when there's a diversity in discussion, IMO.

That still means it depends.

It's a perfectly valid strategy to have a couple people in the town who are just there to pull town together in that situation, because that type of gamestate can easily fall into the problem of town being so separated and chaotic that any lynches that come to be will be half-hearted. Those will generally be on town since scum would have very little reason to bus in that situation.