Discussion: The similiarites between this and mafia and random voting

[nmego]

This game is quite similar to mafia. Actually I think the only difference is that you can't switch vote (and the different theme, which doesn't matter a bit)
There's probably another difference is that there are probably more "good roles" for the villager party.

So, it should logically follow that the strategies of mafia apply to it, Right?

So, there's this huge mafia community, probably the biggest. called Mafiascum.

The people there are crazy pros, with hundreds of games over their belts. There are tens of thousands of games there archived.

Most importantly, they have 4000+ of topic over the game theory. For over ten years. There's no denying that their conventions are of the most success.

One of the main ideas is random voting IN DAY ONE. There are dozens of discussions there (this feels like i'm advertising, but I'm just trying to prove a point through sheer numbers) over this topic. And they've concluded that it is definitely better to random vote in day one than to not.

Another huge idea is discussion and activity. People who are just lurking and hiding in the shadows are usually targeted. at least until they become more active.

When there are more roles for the villager party. The game might actually become unbalanced in favor of the villagers with good activity and random voting.


So to recap, TL;DR

1. The differences between mafia and werewolf are not that big, so similar strategies can be used
2. RVS and activity are ones of the major things that are quite important in mafia, therefore they should also be staple in werewolf.

[Caninski_Jen]

I stopped playing werewolves here on BGA, i do love the game and i am in favor of random voting ( you get a chance to even kill a wolf..) without random voting you kinda let the wolves easily target another villagers.. another thing that annoyings me in the game are the random sentence, and all the chatting and people taking lots of time to target someone ..

i love the game in rl much more you can hear and see who is lying or not, here on bga it kinda ruined it

i agree what you wrote here

[hberger]

you can't compare mafia and wolves.
Best Strategy on one game cannot be applied to the second.
Random voting on first turn ruins many games.
the game IRL is very different to the digital game also.
And yes, game is unbalanced : with exp players, villagers have much more chance to win (unless luck like killing FT in the first 2 turns).

[nmego]

you can't compare mafia and wolves.
Best Strategy on one game cannot be applied to the second.

Ah but in fact, you should be able to, you can't just dismantle any argument by saying "You can't". You should able to provide a valid logical argument.

I'll repeat my argument again:

Why can you compare them?
Because the differences between the two are quite minimal that they CAN be ignored in the grand scheme of things.

If you want to dismantle this argument, please provide a counterexample that proves that they can't be compared.

Random voting on first turn ruins many games.

Right, so here's my theory on this, based on the ~20 games I've played here on BGA, there's like about 2 or so max per game that are experienced with mafia. AT THE MOST.

and there are even less that are experienced with mafiascum and randomvoting. so even if everyone suddenly agrees on randomvoting. It simply won't work, because they aren't experienced with it.

the game IRL is very different to the digital game also.

Yep that's also the same thing with mafia.

And yes, game is unbalanced : with exp players, villagers have much more chance to win (unless luck like killing FT in the first 2 turns).

Indeed, I mean in mafia, the ratio between villager power role and mafia (ww) power roles is much lower. and it is balanced.

[Yorgad]

Instead of random voting in first round, don't forget debate is still allowed, therefore inquiries/bluff/defense may provide some info and orientate a vote not so random anymore. Anyway I still don't get why going full absention round 1 is so popular, thus I think OP is making a valid point here.

Cheers,
Y.

[jbano2]

totally agree with this post, hope we get more thinking like this soon

[ClimateChangeIsReal]

I disagree with the idea of random lynching day 1.

In a 12-player game (assuming no LG and witch does not save) there are 9 non-werewolves. If players abstain day 1, there is a 2/9 chance that the Fortune Teller will be attacked before day 2. If they lynch randomly day 1, there is a 3/9 chance of the same effect.

Not to mention, there are several other valuable roles (more than 3, the number of wolves) that you would not want to accidentally lynch (especially the Hunter!). Taking a 1.5x risk for something quite unlikely (lynching a WW) seems bad.

Now, if the players discuss and try to deduce some werewolves on day 1, that would be different.

[nmego]

I disagree with the idea of random lynching day 1.

In a 12-player game (assuming no LG and witch does not save) there are 9 non-werewolves. If players abstain day 1, there is a 2/9 chance that the Fortune Teller will be attacked before day 2. If they lynch randomly day 1, there is a 3/9 chance of the same effect.

Not to mention, there are several other valuable roles (more than 3, the number of wolves) that you would not want to accidentally lynch (especially the Hunter!). Taking a 1.5x risk for something quite unlikely (lynching a WW) seems bad.

Now, if the players discuss and try to deduce some werewolves on day 1, that would be different.

The logic behind that is, on day 1, the villagers all decide on who to lynch (the day starts with people shouting out who they want to lynch - Which is random at first. Hence random voting - then at the end they all decide on what to do). If the lynch target is a power role. They can just claim. So there is absolutely NO RISK AT ALL of lynching a power role day 1. In fact, if after the power role claims and someone lynches them, then it is obvious ww. Because there's another rule (to not lynch a power claim, most of the time unless it is actually favorable to do so, but lynching a power role on day 1 is very rare).

ww claiming a power role on day 1 is generally unfavorable to them, that it is not seen often at mafia from my experience. They can just be counterclaimed then.

So, since you have zero chance of lynching a power role (when the vilagers know what to do). then the likelihood of lynching a ww becomes much higher. AND the discussion will help LATER ON to determine who is werewolf, the day 1 lynch CAN BE QUITE VALUABLE in terms of information.

But that's all beside the point, I didn't want to put any numbers or statistics or any arguments for random voting and the like. Because that could take some time to argue and I'm a little lazy to dig up the game theory pages of discussion. My whole argument is entirely different. And is easier to argue.

My argument is:
1. Werewolf is similar to mafia that the differences could be ignored.
2. Therefore good strategies at mafia are good at werewolf.
3. If thousands of people worked for years playing mafia and developing game theory that they are known as the largest mafia community. It is very hard to argue that their conventions are wrong or aren't the best etc... One person can make a mistake, but thousands collaborating together make the margin of mistake VERY LOW. Those people say that "random voting" and discussion" are good in mafia
4. Therefore random voting, activity and etc... are good strategies in werewolf.

Points 2, 3 and 4 are strong logical points that I think are very hard to argue against.
Point 1 is what my whole argument rests upon, and it is why my whole argument could fall apart. I'm convinced that it is true, but I can see that it could be wrong.

But even if point 1 falls apart, we could still argue that some select strategies are good at mafia. Like discussion, is always good. random-voting could be argued for, etc...

[Janabis]

Je n'ai joué qu'une seule fois à mafia, mais je joue aux Loups-garous depuis plus de quinze ans & on ne peut nier le lien entre les deux jeux, surtout sur la base.
Alors quand je vois qu'on peut s'abstenir de voter & que c'est même devenu une "obligation" au risque de se faire éliminer &/ou insulter/menacer, j'en reste stupéfait.
Pour les quelques parties que j'ai joué, l'intérêt était inexistant. S'abstenir pendant quatre tours en attendant que la voyante déballe ses informations n'a aucun intérêt.
Après plus de quinze ans passé à jouer à ce jeu, sans avoir fait de calculs, par expérience, il est évident que débattre & voter dès le premier jour, même si c'est un vote random, est bien plus intéressant que de ne pas voter & attendre que tout le monde donne son rôle & ses actions pour commencer à voter sans même débattre (ce qui est pour l'heure, la seule façon de jouer que j'ai pu voir -à regret- ici).
Du coup, je comprends mieux pourquoi de nombreuses personnes sont déconcertées & ravies après avoir joué quand je leur propose un loup-garou alors qu'ils trouvent ce jeu nul si c'est de cette manière qu'ils l'avaient découvert.

[ClimateChangeIsReal]

The whole argument seems to break down after looking at MafiaScum and seeing that they use a good voting system and, more importantly, they play over many weeks. That means players have more time to do actual analysis and beginners can at least learn some basic behaviors before they become dangerous.

I disagree with the idea of random lynching day 1.

In a 12-player game (assuming no LG and witch does not save) there are 9 non-werewolves. If players abstain day 1, there is a 2/9 chance that the Fortune Teller will be attacked before day 2. If they lynch randomly day 1, there is a 3/9 chance of the same effect.

Not to mention, there are several other valuable roles (more than 3, the number of wolves) that you would not want to accidentally lynch (especially the Hunter!). Taking a 1.5x risk for something quite unlikely (lynching a WW) seems bad.

Now, if the players discuss and try to deduce some werewolves on day 1, that would be different.

The logic behind that is, on day 1, the villagers all decide on who to lynch (the day starts with people shouting out who they want to lynch - Which is random at first. Hence random voting - then at the end they all decide on what to do). If the lynch target is a power role. They can just claim. So there is absolutely NO RISK AT ALL of lynching a power role day 1. In fact, if after the power role claims and someone lynches them, then it is obvious ww. Because there's another rule (to not lynch a power claim, most of the time unless it is actually favorable to do so, but lynching a power role on day 1 is very rare).

Good luck getting that to happen on 3-minute days and trigger-happy voters who vote within 5 seconds of being allowed. If we actually had time to do stuff like that, I would agree.

ww claiming a power role on day 1 is generally unfavorable to them, that it is not seen often at mafia from my experience. They can just be counterclaimed then.

So, since you have zero chance of lynching a power role (when the vilagers know what to do). then the likelihood of lynching a ww becomes much higher. AND the discussion will help LATER ON to determine who is werewolf, the day 1 lynch CAN BE QUITE VALUABLE in terms of information.

Again, with all the inexperienced and quiet players and the short timeline, this seems too risky for me to support. BGA is a real-time service, and MafiaScum games appear to be played over many days. Taking two minutes to scroll and analyze previous discussion is fine if you have several hours before lynch, but here, it takes too long.

But that's all beside the point, I didn't want to put any numbers or statistics or any arguments for random voting and the like. Because that could take some time to argue and I'm a little lazy to dig up the game theory pages of discussion. My whole argument is entirely different. And is easier to argue.

My argument is:
1. Werewolf is similar to mafia that the differences could be ignored.

Werewolf is similar to mafia; fast-paced werewolf with a horrible voting system is quite different from multi-day mafia with a decent voting system. It is like testing a drug rigorously on only adults and then automatically assuming it would also work equally well on children.

2. Therefore good strategies at mafia are good at werewolf.
3. If thousands of people worked for years playing mafia and developing game theory that they are known as the largest mafia community. It is very hard to argue that their conventions are wrong or aren't the best etc... One person can make a mistake, but thousands collaborating together make the margin of mistake VERY LOW. Those people say that "random voting" and discussion" are good in mafia.
4. Therefore random voting, activity and etc... are good strategies in werewolf.

Points 2, 3 and 4 are strong logical points that I think are very hard to argue against.
Point 1 is what my whole argument rests upon, and it is why my whole argument could fall apart. I'm convinced that it is true, but I can see that it could be wrong.

But even if point 1 falls apart, we could still argue that some select strategies are good at mafia. Like discussion, is always good. random-voting could be argued for, etc...

I am sure that if we played games on BGA with all experienced, vocal, and vigilant players, and increased the time limit, then random voting could perhaps work. Until that pie is taken down from the sky, I have no intent to start pushing for random voting.