Russians vs. Americans: A Werewolf Game for October 2015

[baudib]

On mod decisions and mistakes:

There were a lot of new wrinkles in this game and I didn't think through some of them properly. I wanted to have the self-lynch lead to auto maj because clearing yourself that way is super angle-shooty, plus I wanted to keep ONE FTR tradition. But it would be problematic in late game if a wolf could end the day before the healer could act and self-maj for an auto-win (with 2 villagers poisoned).

I gave the wolves a n0 to strategize in wolf chat because this format is very complex and nuanced. Rilla asked that the wolf den not be made public and I decided it was a reasonable request and sharing private chat is more or less a courtesy rather than any kind of sacred tradition.

The RB on Drew for shooting twice might have been harsh but it is the same punishment I got in a recent mash on POG. I think punishing him or his team again for shooting THREE times would have been problematic for game-balancing.

Beck didn't submit a peek for n2. On other forums, night actions not submitted are randomized but I felt, given the fact that we had an extra long night, not giving a random peek was the proper decision.

I've played a similar format twice, once as a wolf and once as a villager. I think they were the best games I've played. There are so many unique mechanical spots that villagers and wolves are prone to make a lot of mistakes, but overall this was a very well played game.

[baudib]

On the wolf strategy:

Overall I was disappointed at the wolf strategy of hard-bussing out of the gate. There just seemed to be no need for it. No one was really pushing Ong or BID that hard, and in fact people started calling BID wolfy for his attacks on Ong.

Ong himself had the perfect meta to exploit here: he's the guy who could probably get away with hard-defending Boog and Rilla for no reason, and those were the wolf PRs who really needed to live an extra day.

The puzzling decision was to make not one but two fake claims that drew out neither the healer nor the seer.

After BID's claim, the CFD on Gizmo led to 8 (!) villagers lynching a villager. For some reason, the wolves never pushed the idea that there just have to be wolves on the Gizmo wagon and that those people should be targeted in ITAs, poison or lynch.

After Rilla was killed, Beck was doing a marvelous job of providing leadership and organization for ITAs, and the sessions were shockingly chaos-free. However, the people Beck wanted shot after Rilla were Wuf and JKDS. Instead of taking or encouraging sanctioned shots on villagers, the wolves decided to just shoot at each other, except for BooG.

The decision not to heal Kami was pretty weird IMO, she was voting Aubrey before and after the BID claim and was spewed clear like half a dozen ways. There were villagers calling for neither to be healed. Once they both flip V, the wolves had another opportunity to push the people who were saying that, but didn't.

After Rilla is dead, BooG needs to be protected at all costs. BATM was well on the way to be lynched and other than Hifi, absolutely no one objected to it, but the wolves decided to save him. Getting an extra lynch there and possibly getting an extra day for both BID and BooG would have been huge, plus the chance to get another villager poisoned.

The wolves didn't do a great job of tracking peeks, of which there were few. Luco was not committed to his seer cover and was questioning Ship hard.

[Beck Novo]

Thanks again for the game baudib. And thank you for encouraging me to play. FTR has a fun little community with a lot great players, both in disposition and in skill. If another game starts here again sometime soon, lemme know.

gg village wp all around, and solid job too wolves

I also just realized that every wolf was from FTR. I'd be curious to see if the game would have gone differently had someone from POG or MU been a wolf.

[baudib]

Other notes:

Gabe -- was terrific. I had a note written down somewhere that early on D1, Gabe had made 4 super thin reads that were 100% correct. Now we know it's the Cheeba.

Gator did a great job as a sub once again.

TTT has run poisoner games as a 17er with a wolf RB instead of role cop and no backups. I thought that, since specials hunting in this format is done primarily through peeks and that we don't have a fake peek culture here, the wolves would get more utility out of the rolecop. But maybe having the role cop made the wolves less inclined to specials hunt.

I did not expect FTR players to leave fake peeks and yet they did. It was actually a mistake for Gabe to leave seer cover as a KP role but it didn't matter. As I explained in my OP in the recent MU game, the healer is more important than the seer and having cover for both was pretty important. Healer is a tough role to play and I think SMF hid himself really well.

If you like ITAs, I encourage you to try some of the big mashes on POG where ITAs run D2-D4.

[JKDS]

@TTT and Beck:

I found you guys had a great villager game. The only issue is that I know people like Baudib, Ong, and some people on Mafiascum that play very similar games (in terms of volume, village helping, leadering) as wolves. Its because of that that I didnt give either of you a free pass until fairly late (post day1). I've been burned trusting those types in the past, and I'm just pretty reluctant to believe them until I have death information that helps their case. I'm thinking the better answer is just to wait on those guys though, even if I got suspicion. Like a "fake" free pass on day 1. Makes sense to me, because if nothing else it keeps active posters alive.

Ima try to emulate your game in the future...if I got the time that is. Good work, good effort.

@ONG. SCREW YOU!!! (jk) I had you, I was pushing you, and I was going "lynch rilla-ong, idk who else" for most of the time I was alive. Then BID started being super wolfy and I assumed it must be a v/w thing. Blegh. I agree with baudib that some of the strategy was a little weird...but the whole team did far better than I (or any of the wolves in the last few games) so who can really talk. Good job.

[JKDS]

:

If you like ITAs, I encourage you to try some of the big mashes on POG where ITAs run D2-D4.

ITS A TRAP, THEYRE LIKE, 50 PAGE THREADS BEFORE A SINGLE IRL DAY PASSES. DONT DO IT (they still seem super fun thooooo)

[baudib]

TTT is a great wolf and fully capable of leading the village astray. No one really knew that or used it to push him. Beck is also a very good wolf. I think the TTT kill was really good for a lot of reasons: he has way more mechanical knowledge (being a longtime mod) than anyone else in the game.

I was surprised Beck wasn't killed earlier since he was being such an obvious villa captain.

[baudib]

Well I had a lot of fun playing here. That ITA session is what really screwed the wolves. Sorry 'bout that.

ITAs in general are very pro-village. I was somewhat concerned about the balance of adding in ITAs, but with few people here having experience with them, I thought it would be a total AIDS fest. There were certainly ways for wolves to exploit it, especially since the hit list had 2 villagers on it.

Rascal got 0 heat for killing a villager, so I'm sure a wolf could have gotten away with that shot as well.

[SuperMonkeyFace]

Even after Kami and ship flipped villa I still smiled

[OngBonga]

That's all fair critisism baudib, but we win this with a better fakeclaim strategy. I'm not gonna beat myself up about not pushing the gizmo cfd or trying to get wuf shot when the critical difference was boog dying when he did. If boog survives that day, we nom smf. We thought luco was the seer and spewed smf. The logic was wrong, but the result would be the same. Because boog died, the healer was no more than a confirmed villager now and fell down the list of priority.

boog's claim is the difference, not the cases we did and didn't push, or the bussing.

[SuperMonkeyFace]

Healer is tough. My first and last thought when making a decision was "gahhh what if I'm healing a wolf"

[BankItDrew]

Fantastic game. I look forward to the next one.

Thanks baudib!

[OngBonga]

I feel like we did exploit the ITA. We took risks, but actually a wolf didn't kill a wolf.

[baudib]

Forgot the rest of the roles:

OngBonga

Spoiler: Show

You are Alexandy Mogilny, a former NHL star from Russia who defected to America in the early 1990s.
You are a vanilla wolf.

Beck

Spoiler: Show

You are Moe Berg, a former MLB player who spoke fluent Latin and Greek and earned degrees at Princeton and Columbia. You served as a spy for the Allies during WWII.

You are the village spymaster (variable seer)

Wufwugy

Spoiler: Show

You are Kim Kardashian, AKA The Greatest Living American! You got famous for making a sex tape, and then did a bunch of other stupid shit and somehow built an empire out of it. There's nothing more American than that!

You are the Village Polonium Poisoner: Each night, you may poison a player of your choice. If not healed, that player will die at the end of the next day.

SuperMonkeyFace

Spoiler: Show

You are Dr. Oz, host of "The Dr. Oz Show." You are famous and cool and you even know Oprah!

You are the village healer.
You are a villager who holds the power of life and death in your hands. On any game day you are alive, you may choose to heal a poisoned player. You may only use this power once per day. Your decision may be made at any time before that game day's deadline.

[baudib]

Luco

Spoiler: Show

You are Barack Obama, President of the United States. Even though this is a pretty important title in this country, your performance as president has been somewhat lackluster and this you're just a vanilla villager.

MadMojoMonkey

Spoiler: Show

Spoiler: Show

You are Tom Brady, 4-time Super Bowl winner and quarterback of the New England Patriots. You are handsome, married to a supermodel and a future Hall of Famer. You did kinda cheat but hey, you got away with it and Americans forgive anything if you're a winner.

You are a vanilla villager.

lilrascal

Spoiler: Show

You are Marilyn Monroe, the greatest sex symbol in American history. You were hot and died young and left a good-looking corpse, but not before sleeping with a bunch of Kennedys and other famous people.

You are a vanilla villager.

GatorJh

Spoiler: Show

Spoiler: Show

You are Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents. You were once portrayed in a movie by Daniel Day Lewis.

You are a vanilla villager.

Hifi

Spoiler: Show

Spoiler: Show

You are Elvis Presley, the King! You liked to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches and publicly romanced an underage girl.

You are a vanilla villager.

[wufwugy]

Rilla asked that the wolf den not be made public and I decided it was a reasonable request and sharing private chat is more or less a courtesy rather than any kind of sacred tradition.

it's not a courtesy. keeping them private based on wishes of individuals hurts the game.

[baudib]

Healer is tough. My first and last thought when making a decision was "gahhh what if I'm healing a wolf"

Healer is a complicated role and I know in your case that it works against your normal villa game of hard seer cover. One thing I did in my game was openly call for the other guy to get healed and try to throw off the wolves with timing tells.

[baudib]

it's not a courtesy. keeping them private based on wishes of individuals hurts the game.

Wrong.

[HiFi]

This was fun. Thanks baudib.

[wufwugy]

Wrong.

you dont get the kind of tight nit community we have here with taht shit

[baudib]

That's all fair critisism baudib, but we win this with a better fakeclaim strategy. I'm not gonna beat myself up about not pushing the gizmo cfd or trying to get wuf shot when the critical difference was boog dying when he did. If boog survives that day, we nom smf. We thought luco was the seer and spewed smf. The logic was wrong, but the result would be the same. Because boog died, the healer was no more than a confirmed villager now and fell down the list of priority.

boog's claim is the difference, not the cases we did and didn't push, or the bussing.

A great man once said, "Werewolf is a game of villagers lunching wolves and wolves lunching villagers."

The bussing was brutal and devastated the team. As a wolf you need to get villagers killed and no one except BooG did anything the first three days to try to accomplish that.

The wolves directed 1 shot toward a villager. The wolves were all pushing and voting wolves.

I'm curious to see how an F5/F3 would have worked out but I also think the AIDS claims point strongly to you calling shots.

[baudib]

I feel like we did exploit the ITA. We took risks, but actually a wolf didn't kill a wolf.

You were a strong "villa" voice at the time and after the ITA session, the wolves are close to drawing dead. No one was actually suggesting Aubrey get shot until you did.

[baudib]

Gator my huge problem is that in order for the final wolf to be anyone but you, it means the wolves had a master plan to send a VANILLA wolf deep. I can't even begin to think about this level of retardedness until you're dead

Literally the only other person it could be is wuf imo

Luco says it well here. Bussing the shit out of the wolf PRs to get a vanilla wolf deep in the game is bad. A bussing strategy that isn't designed around keeping Rilla/BooG alive is just never going to work in this format, especially with the whiffs on village specials.

[TheBrokenATM]

Beck didn't die?

[baudib]

One wolf power that is commonly used in big mashes is the ability to switch roles around for the wolf team. I thought about using it but I actually thought it would lead the village to strongly suspect bussing from the start.

[baudib]

Apologies if the feedback seems overly harsh, I really wanted to see a closer game here. It was still better than most recent wolf games. The village core has gotten really strong here and adding TTT/Beck/PNAW/BATM/Hifi made it even better.

Ong, I give you an A++ for effort and posting, C- for strat, D on specials hunting.

[BankItDrew]

Baudib is the first mod to rip a new asshole of the losing team.

[wufwugy]

baud rips the losers every game. he even rips some of the winners.

[BankItDrew]

Fun chap

[baudib]

BID, your tone on D1 was really good as TTT said.

Wuf wins the Wufwugy award for the 20th game in a row.

[BankItDrew]

BID, your tone on D1 was really good as TTT said.

Wuf wins the Wufwugy award for the 20th game in a row.

You have completely redeemed yourself!

[wufwugy]

BID, your tone on D1 was really good as TTT said.

Wuf wins the Wufwugy award for the 20th game in a row.

til we have a reward for kicking ass and taking names

[wufwugy]

dont mind me, just accepting the wuf award. twenty times and counting!

[Beck Novo]

how the fuck was Tom Brady only a Vanillager

smh baudib

[Luco]

Rascal as you can see my role was prssident, not drago something

[gabe]

great game homies. it couldnt be possible without a great mod. thanks baudib

i really dont like that there is no wolf den thread. part of the fun as a villager is getting to later see what the wolfs were actually planning behind the scenes. i'm borderline mad it hasnt been posted. w t f. i cant even fathom......


like the only reason i would allow it not go go public is if someone committed a real world crime or something. fuck that shit

[gabe]

ong you played well but its probably easy to blend in when your partners are spewing and getting sniffed out so easily. well done village and well done ong. i will be more suspicious of you after that performance

i also dont think the wolves had a chance after aubrey and rilla went down. the BID/Boog claim leveling wars were not a spot you guys would win. the reason i held back my CC was to prevent you guys form gaining any info advantage. my entire focus was to grill boog, even before he claimed vanilla

gator well done trying to put the village on your back. my personal read on you was that you would not try that hard as a vanillager so late in the game. if i got dropped in a game with 2000+ posts as a vanillager, i would not response as well as you did


i hope you new players who arent the baes keep playing with us. and i guess all props go to baudib for getting us some new blood

[gabe]

I want, "I was there when gabe lost his cool," T-shirts made for everyone involved in this game.

man the no wolf den thread has me more steamed than some werewolf newbs coming here and talking shit

also cheeba chew + "kill it with fire!!" had me cracking up. haha

[gabe]

big LOL at beck forgetting to look up someone. havent you played this game before???? dont you know thats important ???

baudib i dont know what this sentence means: "It was actually a mistake for Gabe to leave seer cover as a KP role but it didn't matter"

shouldnt just everyone in the game leave a peek ? that seems the best

[baudib]

You're not missing much. Most of the wolf den is "I'm going to shoot/vote you, hope you don't die."

I'm pretty shook by the whole thing.

[gabe]

also ill reassert how tough all of us play as villagers. one slip up by a wolf is deadly


almost forgot to say how when i first saw email mentioning the word "poisoner", i skimmed and assumed i was a baddie. my first 2 posts in the game were made thinking i was a wolf. i was kinda late to the game so i just hurried and posted without even looking for a wolf den link

[baudib]

big LOL at beck forgetting to look up someone. havent you played this game before???? dont you know thats important ???

baudib i dont know what this sentence means: "It was actually a mistake for Gabe to leave seer cover as a KP role but it didn't matter"

shouldnt just everyone in the game leave a peek ? that seems the best

No not at all. For one thing, this is a format where the seer isn't the most important PR for the village. Since you're potentially the late-game killing power it's more important for you to stay alive than get killed for leaving a correct peek. Also, leaving a peek pretty much rules you out as healer.

I've played a game with poisoners and healer twice now, won both times, and the mistakes villagers make by not understanding the mechanics are huge.

The first time I played this I was a wolf, the village poisoner left seer cover and we killed him for it. Once we found the healer it was gg.

[gabe]

that makes sense. we've never really got in the habit of dropping peeks around here so i guess i hadnt thought of it.


its funny having new players and trying to introduce the ftr regs to them. im glad i got to see how you guys think im odd/ weird toned/ strange yet fearless. new players...get used to it

[gabe]

You're not missing much. Most of the wolf den is "I'm going to shoot/vote you, hope you don't die."

I'm pretty shook by the whole thing.

ok. shook by what exactly? i dont understand at all. why would there not be a wolf thread to see? i think the mod accidentally deleted it is more likely than the story on here. thats how little it makes sense

[a500lbgorilla]

Great game, village. I was buried from the word go. Really strong performance.

i think ftr has an incredible village culture and a sorry wolf culture. we tend to love villing and tend to play wolf very straight forward.

Hence, keep the Den private.

We should also delete old games.

I simply ask for an FTR where wolves aren't unmasked and undressed after every game. Where they can scheme and plot without concern for a future audience. Where the mystery that surrounds their actions endures.

Let the wolves be wolves.

[gabe]

funny that the wolves had such a twisted strategy and yet they didnt try to spell it out much in the den. arent those wolf threads with ong usually 1000 posts long?

[gabe]

Great game, village. I was buried from the word go. Really strong performance.



Hence, keep the Den private.

We should also delete old games.

noooooooo rilla tell me its not you who wants it private!!!!!!

wolves just need to work harder, or the mods need to rig it more for the wolves so its balanced. im fine with either.

also the fact that village has been crushing just makes it more sweet seeing a wolf get one over on the village

next time i see a spectactular performance, im going to begin the WW Hall of Fame thread where we can all post great plays with description

[a500lbgorilla]

The whole design of the game is being tricked by the wolves. Keeping Den threads private may help them without upsetting the balance of actual games.

[baudib]

I think optimally in this setup, 3 vanillagers would leave peeks and hopefully have correct ones. Everyone not leaving a peek is protecting the other specials.

The actual seer didn't leave an explicit peek, but if he died it would have been obvious who his n0 was.

Hifi was repping a V peek on BATM and Beck made it very very clear that Hifi was not to be voted or shot at.

[baudib]

ok. shook by what exactly? i dont understand at all. why would there not be a wolf thread to see? i think the mod accidentally deleted it is more likely than the story on here. thats how little it makes sense

I'm pretty scarred by this game. The possibility of being W/W with Ong or V/V with Wuf makes me not want to play ever again.

[gabe]

The whole design of the game is being tricked by the wolves. Keeping Den threads private may help them without upsetting the balance of actual games.

what exact thing would benefit the future wolves by being kept private? i dont get it

the wolves' tricks are all executed in the thread where we can all see them. the den is just a side thing but it makes postgame more fun

[gabe]

Great game, village. I was buried from the word go. Really strong performance.



Hence, keep the Den private.

We should also delete old games.

I simply ask for an FTR where wolves aren't unmasked and undressed after every game. Where they can scheme and plot without concern for a future audience. Where the mystery that surrounds their actions endures.

Let the wolves be wolves.

first off, no chance we delete old games. i recently discovered how enjoyable it is to re live some of them.

i think you have a wolf mental block or something. you have bought into the fact that you havent been a good wolf, so you are looking for other ways to remedy it. the key is just pretend you are a villager then do evil shit behind the scenes. blocking information isnt going to help you do that. i hope you get wolf next game

[Luco]

Has anyone linked the dead thread yet?

Sucks that there wasn't a single pogger wolf

[a500lbgorilla]

what exact thing would benefit the future wolves by being kept private? i dont get it

the wolves' tricks are all executed in the thread where we can all see them. the den is just a side thing but it makes postgame more fun

Making Den threads public is either null or pro-future village.

And the den thread is part of the game. It doesn't exist for the post game decompression posts.

[a500lbgorilla]

first off, no chance we delete old games. i recently discovered how enjoyable it is to re live some of them.

You think wolves ever chew the cheeba and surf old threads? Old threads are def pro-future village.

[BankItDrew]

Making the decision after the game has been completed, to not share the den or dead threads, is a joke.

Reading them post-game is highly entertaining to many players I assume, because it is for me.

I could understand mentioning pre-game "I'll mod next game but not gonna share side threads during post-game, who wants to play?"

This just feels like a couple of people (one of which who is supposed to be unbias) making the decisions for everyone else.






I'm stating all of this while having access to both.

Thankfully, there is no punishment for talking about WW, outside of WW, after the game has been completed.

[a500lbgorilla]

Has anyone linked the dead thread yet?

Sucks that there wasn't a single pogger wolf

Great game, Luco. You read me off 0 posts.

http://www.quicktopic.com/51/H/amANAEkHa93n

[a500lbgorilla]

Making the decision after the game has been completed, to not share the den or dead threads, is a joke.

Reading them post-game is highly entertaining to many players I assume, because it is for me.

I could understand mentioning pre-game "I'll mod next game but not gonna share side threads during post-game, who wants to play?"

This just feels like a couple of people (one of which who is supposed to be unbias) making the decisions for everyone else.






I'm stating all of this while having access to both.

Thankfully, there is no punishment for talking about WW, outside of WW, after the game has been completed.

I lobbied baud to keep it private before the game started.

[Luco]

Great game, Luco. You read me off 0 posts.

http://www.quicktopic.com/51/H/amANAEkHa93n

My initial vote was a joke based on your head shape. It was your wuf vote that set me off and I was never letting go after that

[BankItDrew]

I lobbied baud to keep it private before the game started.

If baudid stated pre-game that they would not be available - I'm okay with the decision.

[Luco]

Guys it's just a den thread. Don't get all emotional

There's kids getting bombed in syria, go get emotional about that

[a500lbgorilla]

It should be this way for every game. If one wolf wants it to stay private, it should.

[baudib]

Drew, you were in the thread when it was being discussed.

Keeping it private was worth it just for the postgame rustling TBH.

[BankItDrew]

It should be this way for every game. If one wolf wants it to stay private, it should.

If one wolf wishes to share it, they should.

[a500lbgorilla]

If one wolf wishes to share it, they should.

Why?

[BankItDrew]

Guys it's just a den thread. Don't get all emotional

There's kids getting bombed in syria, go get emotional about that

The topic is silly but I don't see emotions rising.

Are your emotions rising?

[BankItDrew]

Why?

Because I enjoy entertaining people. Because I don't want a few games won by the village dictate post-game fun. Because I'm not afraid of anything negative to come of it.

[a500lbgorilla]

Because I enjoy entertaining people. Because I don't want a few games won by the village dictate post-game fun. Because I'm not afraid of anything negative to come of it.

So what purpose do you think the Den thread should serve? To help the wolves play the game or to help everyone enjoy the game afterward?

[baudib]

I want to play more games with poisoners because they've been the best games I've played.

From the game on MU it's really clear that the wolves had no idea how to best utilize the poison.

The wolves here did a better job with that but n1 poison was almost a fail. Kami was 100% the correct target.

[BankItDrew]

So what purpose do you think the Den thread should serve? To help the wolves play the game or to help everyone enjoy the game afterward?

Both.

I'm interested to see where this line of questioning is headed.

If I was a betting man, I'd bet there is no plan.

[a500lbgorilla]

Both.

I'm interested to see where this line of questioning is headed.

If I was a betting man, I'd bet there is no plan.

Literally that's the end. You either want to Den thread to serve in-thread wolves or to serve the enjoyment of the post game. You need to make a value judgement.

[Luco]

The topic is silly but I don't see emotions rising.

Are your emotions rising?

gabe & wuf are mad

[BankItDrew]

Riiiiiiight...

Anyways, I loved the ITA. Great idea. Would do again. Would follow instructions next time lol

[BankItDrew]

The den was hilarious when After I was punished for shooting ong again, I asked baudib if I could shoot someone else instead. Shit hit the fan. Lols were had.

[BankItDrew]

Ong: DREW, DONT FUCKING SHOOT ANYONE ELSE