The Art of the Jester (5 Ways to Win)

[Glip]

The Art of the Jester
A Qualitative Analysis of Five Strategies for Obtaining a Jester Win

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There are many ways to go about obtaining a Jester win, but every single one of them revolves around one central idea:

Draw attention to yourself.

This is the central component to any Jester victory, and without this, you will not win as a Jester. The finesse of a Jester comes in how to balance the right kinds of attention that you draw to yourself. There are two main categories of attention:

Day Attention: The Lynch Vote (desirable)
Night Attention: The Kill Shot (usually undesirable)

The multiple strategies in playing towards a Jester victory involve drawing different combinations of these two attentions, with different difficulties and chances of success.

Note: The "Strategy Rating" is an arbitrary rating by myself that indicates my personal preference for each strategy. It is based upon a combination of ease of execution, enjoyability of execution, success rate, viability, and personal preference. It does not necessarily indicate which strategy has the highest success rate.

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Strategy One: The "Obvious Jester"

You know this jester. You see him in almost every game. In fact, in most pub games, you'll see him even when there isn't even an actual jester in the game. This is the guy that spams random junk all day, claims to be the Godfather, and begs to be lynched. He'll wildly defend and vote innocent on all the mafia members, and guilty on everyone else. He'll NEVER shut up. While this does draw the attention of the town, it's so widely recognized as a pure Jester ploy that they'll tend to be reluctant to lynch the Obvious Jester and instead direct the vigilante/jailor/sk/maf to kill him at night.

Pros:

• Very high attention draw
• Very easy to execute

Cons:

• Tends to draw night attention more than day attention
• Is easily recognized as a jester strategy, resulting in a reluctancy to lynch

Given the high propensity of this strategy to draw the kill shot instead of the lynch vote, it is inadvisable to try this strategy. However, you may get lucky and find that one town that doesn't care and just wants to shut you up as quickly as possible, and lynches you anyway. It should be noted that this strategy may have a higher success rate if you claim your mafia accomplices as well, in addition to yourself being mafia. It seems people are more willing nowadays to accuse someone of game-throwing, and the game-throwing rage is more likely to illicit a lynch than a night shot.

Strategy Rating: ☼

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Strategy Two: The "AFK Jester"

The easiest of all the strategies to execute, this jester does exactly what the name implies. He AFK's. The entire game. Never talks, never votes, never visits anyone. While it may seem that this would not tend to draw attention to you, the inverse is in fact true, depending on the activity of the rest of the players. The more active everyone else is in the game, the more attention the AFK Jester draws to himself. The act of lurking implies scumminess to town members, and will likely draw them to vote you to the stand. AFK'ing on the stand is almost a guaranteed lynch, amongst the cries of "No role? Guilty!" and the sarcastic "best defense ever."

Pros:

• Once voted to the stand, almost always results in a lynch
• More likely to imply that you are real scum instead of Jester
• The EASIEST of all strategies to execute

Cons:

• If the rest of the town is afk and lurking too, which happens often, you are liable to not be noticed, and not be voted.
• Vigilantes tend to shoot for those who don't talk much, as lurking is a common scum ploy.
• What fun is there to be had in doing nothing?
• Cannot be used in FM's, as you will just be modkilled.

This strategy has a higher success rate than the Obvious Jester, and is even easier to execute, but it's simply no fun to do as you just sit there and do nothing. It'll also get you modkilled in FM's. I can never suggest this strategy to anyone, as I believe the fun of the game comes from the day chat, and so everyone should always be encouraged. However, the ease of execution and success rate do merit it a second star.

Strategy Rating: ☼☼

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Strategy Three: The "Executioner"

Next to the Obvious Jester, this is the Jester that you see most often. You know the type. He claims a town power role with a suspicious result on a random towny, forces a mislynch, and then hopes to get lynched the next day. He may even slip in the key phrase "If I'm wrong, lynch me tomorrow." This is the first of all the strategies that can utilize any sort of finessing at all. There is some skill in determining which PR to claim, which suspicious result to have, and which towny to accuse. Get a mafia lynched, and the town just might end up believing you're town for the rest of the game. Worse yet, the mafia may believe that you're actually a PR too, and choose to pick you off at night.

Pros:

• More likely to draw day attention than night attention
• Actually some sort of skill involved to execute correctly (I list this as a pro as it makes the strategy more enjoyable to execute)
• Likely to draw the attention of both a framer and an investigative role, resulting in an easy self-lynch.
• Can be more associated with an Executioner ploy than a Jester ploy, making it easier to get a self-lynch after the mislynch.

Cons:

• Can extremely backfire with a wrong execution, resulting in an almost guaranteed loss.
• Random chance is a factor in successful execution.
• Still recognized widely as a Jester ploy, making town reluctant to lynch you.

Overall I'm not a big fan of this strategy either. It's too easy to screw up and either make town think you're jester or that you're town. It does however get credit for being a strategy that there is some skill in executing. I'd give it a 2.5, but I can't do half a star, so it'll round up to 3.

Strategy Rating: ☼☼☼

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Strategy Four: The Misclaimer

This Jester tries to act like a bad mafia player, and can manifest itself in a number of different ways. This Jester will play the game rather inobtrusively until backed into a corner and forced to make a role claim. The most common is probably the "Citizen" claim, when Citizens are excluded, acting like a newbie Godfather. Other times, he may claim some PR with unsubstantiated/unprovable/disprovable night actions. While harder to pull off successfully, this strategy probably has one of the higher success rates. It's not recognized as a Jester ploy, so town will be quite happy to denounce you as scum and lynch you.

Pros:

• Higher success rate when correctly executed
• Less reliance on random chance
• Not widely recognized as a Jester ploy
• First WIFOM-based strategy

Cons:

• Harder to execute successfully
• Bad executions can draw night attention

This is one of my more likeable strategies simply because there is a modest amount of skill required to pull it off successfully, and when you do, there is a higher success rate. This one receives a solid 3-star rating from me.

Strategy Rating: ☼☼☼

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Strategy Five: The WIFOM Shroud

This is my personal favorite, and the hardest of all strategies listed here to pull off successfully. This strategy revolves around the construction of a complex WIFOM shroud. This result is in essence the combination of three basic mafia strategies:

Citizen WIFOMing Town PR: Fairly basic Citizen ploy. You want to get shot instead of the real Town PR's.
Mafia WIFOMing Citizen: Also a fairly basic ploy. You want to look pro-town while not having night actions to explain away and while hiding within the most common role in the game.
Jester WIFOMing Mafia: Duh. Most basic ploy of all.

In the end, you've created the four-tiered WIFOM shroud of a Jester WIFOMing Mafia WIFOMing Citizen WIFOMing Town PR.

This risky ploy involves playing very pro-town. You try your best to look like you have the town's best interest at heart and contribute actively in scum-hunting, while not ever actually contributing any useful night action information or claiming an exact role until you absolutely have to, and then claiming the role that Mafia would most commonly claim under the circumstances (usually Citizen). The hardest part of this WIFOM shroud is to have the Mafia come to the end conclusion of you being a Citizen WIFOMing Town PR and thus not worth shooting, while the town, in its paranoia, delves one level deeper, thinking that you are truly a Mafia WIFOMing Citizen, without ever penetrating that last level of the WIFOM shroud and realizing you for the Jester you truly are. Performing classic Citizen slips (making it obvious that you are trying to WIFOM Town PR and get shot) can aid in this endeavour.

Pros:

• Not at all recognized as a Jester ploy
• Exciting and enjoyable to execute
• Involves high game participation

Cons:

• Extremely difficult to pull off
• Relies on accurate judging of opponents' ability to unravel WIFOM shrouds.
• Hard to implement in short time frames

This strategy is overall unlikely to succeed in SC2 Mafia. Not only will you not have the time to think through and type out the necessary stratagems to construct your WIFOM shroud, but your average opponent won't arrive at the desired WIFOM-piercing solution, resulting in Mafia shooting you at night and/or the town believing that you are truly town. I've only seen this strategy implemented once, by myself, in FM XIV, so I can't speak for its true success rate. However, given that this strategy intices the highest level of gamer participation, that the difficulty presents a real, exciting, and enjoyable challenge, and that it can then be adapted for higher levels of intellectual pursuit in applying it to Forum Mafia games, I believe this role merits a higher star rating. Not a perfect 5, but still a 4 nonetheless.

Strategy Rating: ☼☼☼☼

[RLVG]

Questions :



1. What about name?
A name may give more or less attention, depending what's made.

2. What about WIFOM Cult?
Cultists are hated by town, Mafia will usualy aim for the Town.

3. What about a troll setup with multiple neutral benign?
If there's too many jesters / executioners, it would be more difficult.

[Glip]

Questions :



1. What about name?
A name may give more or less attention, depending what's made.

2. What about WIFOM Cult?
Cultists are hated by town, Mafia will usualy aim for the Town.

3. What about a troll setup with multiple neutral benign?
If there's too many jesters / executioners, it would be more difficult.

The name selection is a difficult thing to analyze. Originally, any name with any sort of custom color at all was almost guaranteed to get you killed on night one. This, choosing a flamboyant name was obviously unwise for a jester then. However, more recently about the time I last played, people were starting to realize that some people with colored names could actually prefer roles. This resulted in a shift from night attention to day attention, as scum became afraid of people preferring Veteran, and town became wary of people preferring scum. I haven't played very many games recently, so I'm not sure what the situation is with the current public. As for non-colored but otherwise attention-drawing names (e.g. "Adolf Hitler," "Justin Bieber," "<insert random cuss words or racial slurs here>"), in my experience, those have always tended to draw more night shots than day lynches. As it stands, I would not advise choosing any sort of outrageous or flamboyant name, but I will need to test the waters in some new pub games to see how they're affecting it nowadays before I can make a legitimate addition to the guide about name-selection.

WIFOMing Cult is a very difficult thing to do without just becoming a variant of the "Obvious Jester." Especially if cults aren't guaranteed in the setup and none have yet shown up in the graveyard. Not many setups tend to have Cult, either. Last I saw, Cult was not one of the roles that people generally wanted in the game (after getting the Cult-based achievements). It would also be very situational in ease and effectiveness of execution along with what the actual execution would be. It is not recommended for beginner players, but advanced players looking for something new to try may as well go ahead and try it. If anyone feels like making a qualitative strategy analysis for WIFOMing Cult, go ahead, and I may choose to add it to the guide.

This guide is not intended to be applicable for troll setups. There are so many different variations of troll setups that are so drastically different in nature that any true guide would have to be tailor-made for each individual scenario. This guide was intended to be a generic application that could be used in most relatively normal/average setups.

[pat_power]

Strategy Three: The "Executioner" is the best one imo. But I have a twist to it; instead of being very vocal about someone, I say someone might be an evil role, like serial killer, then claim invest/det, etc. This works best after some days; you mess up your LW, and it's a very certain lynch.

[Anguss]

I like to randomly claim mayor on day 1 and ask people to PM roles without revealing...

[ika]

i love to claim spy on trial or claim impossible role

[maccabbe]

I prefer strat 4. Asking for help on how to play attracts day attention while mafia are less likely too kill someone they think they can fool. When asked for role tell then you are an evil neutral and both town and mafia will lynch you.

[Admiral]

I had a lot of difficulty getting lynched with a balls to wall (anti-town) pro-town persona. I would say the most dumb-as-shit reasons why X or Y were mafia and I would get people to follow me and lynch their other allies. I could usually go for 2 or 3 lynches before they finally start deciding not to blindly follow me.

It's also funny to fake being BM'd by vote-spamming and then fuck up the blackmail message on purpose like "i am blackmailed." or "I am blackmailed". Best if you're a Doctor or Jailor.

[cxx]

You visit at night (unless there are 2 or more confirmed vets), pick targets that seem very talky at day 1 or that have models that indicate a large number of points (everything above soldier is especially fine). At the beginning of day 2, you claim Survivor, then argue a lot. At best, your night 1 target will tell he was annoyed and that the neutral benign/any random spot is jester so a surv is impossible. If he does, insist on you roleclaim and call him a liar. Easy win, usually works every time (unless town decides to get you killed by a jailor, and stupid jailors will indeed waste executions on survivors).

I'd rank that higher than every of the common strategies explained above. You simply abuse pub's mysterious hate for Survivors, and it is damn effective. And in most cases you also have a random person that was annoyed and counterclaims your roleclaim.

Of course you shouldn't do it if there is no Neutral benign/Any random in the setup. And be careful if there is a fixed jailor.