Hints, Tips and Tricks to FM

[Yayap]

I've decided to post a few hints and tricks that I have learnt that seem to be giving me a huge edge over some of you.

*Please note that the very existence of this guide will Screw up the Wifom for future games, nothing in this guide about Wifom can be used accurately from here on out.*


Staying anonymous

In recent games, we have introduced the anonymous factor. What does this do to the game?

• Well known players are likely to be targeted by every role early game.
• Experienced players can act dumb and get away with it.
• Inexperienced players can look just as dumb as the pros.

Why Experienced Players Should Stay Anonymous

After playing a few games of mafia on the forums, you will be branded into some category.
These categories can be anything from Lurkers, Terrible liars, Great Liars, Mr. Random, Analyzers, Captain Obvious, or even Troll.

Lets say, you are known to be a great liar and are able to lie through your teeth without being caught. In Future games, people will be less likely to trust you even if you are telling the truth.
Or even if you are an analyzer. Analyzers usually piece part of the puzzle together before anyone else does and are usually a great help for the town. If an analyzer isn't helping town, then that analyzer is most likely holding something back or is scum.
Staying anonymous, no one knows who you are and you can get away with lying and holding back info.
Staying anonymous also protects you from grudges from previous games / Priority player targets.

Why New Players Should Stay Anonymous

Being new to forum mafia, you might not know some of the key players from past forum mafia games and your skill in mafia might be overlooked.
This can be a big problem if you are a town role, others will be less likely to listen to your reasoning simply because you are new.
If you are evil, your team may disregard any ideas you have.
If you reveal your identity, we also know that you can't be someone else and some people that want to remain hidden will hunt you down. Hint hint.

So how do you stay Anonymous?
Here are some key things to remember when hiding.

Things that reveal you are online
When you wish to be online with your FM account and do not wish anyone to know that you are online:
Turn OFF ALL outside connections to your name. This includes but is not limited to:
Do not post with your main account.
Do not log into instant messengers like Skype, xfire, Windows messenger etc. Hiding online status isn't good enough.
Do not update anything like FaceBook that keeps a time stamp of that update.
Do not send off e-mails to other players.
Do not upload any new videos to youtube or another site of the sorts.


Typos and Grammar.
If you aren't native to North American English, your grammar and typos might give you away. A good example of this can be found in FM3 when a SK death note revealed that the SK was German.
Although that didn't help everyone, any global moderator can look up IP addresses to find out where you live.

The tone of your post.
Don't give off a certain tone that identifies you. For Example: I deleted many posts instead of posting them because they sounded too logical. Being an analyzer, this could have been used to pin me.

How do you correct this problem?
Read and reread everything you want to post. And use a spell check. Google Chromes spell check has been useful to me in this regard.

If you are known to post in a certain manner that is different from the norm, then you have to make sure that this trait does not slip out.


Your profile.
In your profile. In account settings, you will find a white box that says: "Show others my online status"
TURN THAT OPTION OFF!
If someone starts keeping records of when you are online, he can determine your availability schedule. And might even match it up with your Main account.

*Please note that turning this option off does not guaranty that someone can't track you. If you look at your profile, you will find a place that says: "Last Active"
This never lies. If you log in, this will be updated. So someone can find out when you are online anyways.*

So why turn the option off in the first place if someone can still find you?
Searching 35+ accounts to find out who are the hidden members online is very time consuming. It was taking so much more time to track the hidden members that I couldn't keep up. After 4 hours of doing so, I gave up.

Online times.
If you are known to post at certain hours, do your best to avoid this constraint. For Example, people posting at 4am EDT (my time), are usually players from EU.


The forums online box.
At the bottom, you will also see "Users active in past 15 minutes"
Here is something you need to know about forum mechanics:
If you click on: "Log out" then your name disappears off that list immediately. Versus if you just close the browser, you name will stay on the list for 15 minutes.
How did this help me?
If I saw a Main account that clicked "log off" and saw a FM account "log in". I could assume that the 2 accounts were the same person.

How to counter this:
1- Using 2 different browser allows people to log in both profiles at the same time.
2- After pressing "log out", WAIT a good amount of time before log in back in as the FM account. Waiting over an hour is recommended.
3- Don't switch accounts when few people are online. The bigger the list of online people, the less chance of being narrowed down.

Maximum security:
If you really want to go invisible once the game has started, do all the above at random +:
Never log into your main account again until the game is over.
Use a proxy to hide your IP address so Dark Rev can't see who you are. Make him search everyone else before finding you. (I won't go into details how to do this due to security reasons.)

Staying anonymous vs faking someone else.

Trying to disguise your posts as someone else's is extremely hard and should not be attempted unless you know that person very well. Also, you need to make sure that the real person doesn't give himself away ruining your disguise. Killing him is a good way to shut him up.

Here are somethings to keep in mind when trying to impersonate someone:

• How many FM games has this person played before this game.
• How solid is this persons reputation.
• What time does he usually post.
• What typos and grammar mistakes are usually found in his posts.
• What tone does he usually have.
• How much information should this kind of person be able to deduce at any given time.
• How much does this person lurk.
• Does this person usually pay attention to the game or is usually clueless to what is going on.
• How much trickery and wifom does this person use to deceive people.
• Is this person easy to manipulate or not.
• Does this person manipulate others well or not.

My honest opinion is that impersonating someone will usually fail at some point for any given reason and reveal your disguise.
Which is why I should do it since I just told you not to. Oh wait, now that you saw this, you'll know that I'll try it and therefore I shouldn't. But then you would reach that conclusion and therefore I should. 4 layers of Wifom to confuse you. Now you shouldn't know how many layers of Wifom I'll go before deciding what to do.


Surviving Night 1
*Please note that everything that follows will be obsolete due to the very existence of this guide.*

Day 1:
Day 1 is mostly used so that everyone can set their settings like avatars and introduce themselves. Spam is the common theme to day 1.

So how do you prevent a random death night 1? Well, the key is not to stand out. You don't want to be the blabber mouth of the group, nor do you want to lay so low that you look like you are hiding.

I recommend between 4-10 posts on day 1. Don't make yourself look smart and don't leak out any info about your role. And of course, don't make yourself look too dumb or you might get targeted for being annoying.

Depending on your alignment, you also might want to factor in the following.

• Do you want investigative roles to check you?
• Do you want to be framed?
• Do you want masons you check you?
• Do you want to be Role blocked, Bussed, Witched, Healed etc?

Every post you make will add to the WIFOM for the people behind the powers of those roles.
Try putting yourself in every role and read your own post before posting it. Try to think what that role would think when reading it.

Examples:
-Crying for a doc heal usually WILL NOT get you healed. While a mafia WILL usually target you.
-Posting something cryptic or suspicious will attract the attention of investigations AND framers.
-Hinting that you are not a citizen might attract Witches, Role Blockers or Cult.
-Suggesting that you are scum might attract the attention of the Vigilantes, Jailors or Escorts.


The thing to do day 1 is not to analyze all the posts, they'll mostly just be spam and misleading. But to analyze the game and role settings. What information will be shared and not shared at night.



Game on!

Once you get past night 1, then the game really starts. Everyone has pieces to a big puzzle, some have more pieces than others. Guess what those pieces are and you'll be on your way to solving the puzzle before anyone else.

Role claim or not?

Everyday, you should weigh in the option of role claiming. Claim to early and the people that can help you might not believe you. Claim to late and you might find yourself having to counter claim someone else or not have any protection to help you survive the following night.

Of course, you should always weigh in the effects of your claim. Like will you be able to prove your claim or is their room for doubt. Will your claim get you lynched or will they leave you alone. Will this make you a priority target for scum or will they leave you for later.

Keep in mind, that every role claim helps the scum narrow down their targets.

Counter Claiming

As town: Did someone claim your role before you? Depending on what your role is, you should consider the cost of counter claiming him.
If he is scum, chances are he is expendable in his team. And revealing your role gives them a confirmed power role to kill the next night where as town still has a 50% chance of guessing who the real one is. Sometimes keeping quiet is the better option.
If he does end up being the same role as you, then you just revealed a second one. And town will doubt both your claims.

As Scum: Counter Claiming a town power is risky since you'll most likely be discovered within the next 1-3 days. However, if you see a strong town target who seems almost invulnerable, sometimes counterclaiming his role before he can prove it so you can kill him can be more beneficial in the long run, even if you end up dying.

Reveal night affects or not?
So, someone paid a visit to you at night. You were Role blocked, Witched, Bussed, attacked and healed, what ever.
Now the question is should you share that information with the rest of the group?

If you decide to reveal to everyone the info you have, then everyone can know what you know, including the mafia.
You'll be helping everyone fill in the blanks to a role list if some roles are "random". Sometimes, this helps the mafia more than anyone since they know it wasn't them.

Depending on what info you have, consider the following:
Who else knows about the PM you got last night?

For example, an entire mafia team would know if they attacked you, blocked you, framed you or what ever other power they have.
A Doctor would also know if he healed you if he gets feedback on his target.
A bus driver would know who he swapped.
The other person swapped would also know of the existence of the bus driver.

If you can find out who else knows of your condition(s) you might be able to piece them into a roll without revealing any information you don't want the enemy to know.

You can also end up having cryptic conversations with the person who targeted you if you conceal the info. Gabriele/Hannelore conversation in FM4 day 2 is a good example.

In my opinion, hiding information should always be the preferred option unless it would hurt the town not to reveal it.

For example, in FM-V someone else claims to be blocked and an escort claims to be the one who blocked him. If you were also Role Blocked, you help the stripper present his case that she is not the consort. On the other hand, you also reveal that there is another role blocker in the game to both mafias.

The only thing that you should always reveal is if you were attacked and healed. You don't want the doc to expose himself. And doing this lets power roles such as escorts and bus drivers know that the missing kill was not of their doing.
Why would you do this if you were scum? Because you'll look scummy if you expose the doc.


Lying!
There is a saying: Lynch all Liars!
I find this funny because even Townies should lie every now and then.

Lying is a great way to expose people who know the truth. You can even piss off a few people if they know you are lying but can't tell anyone since they are scum.

A good example of lying for information can be found in FM-3 day 2 when Claw lied about not getting items. He exposed the armor smith when that person called him out for it.

Does this mean that all liars are scum? Not really, a town might set a trap for a mafia to call him a liar just to pin instead.

Lying in Night Chats
Just because you are all on one team doesn't mean you always should tell them everything. Especially if Cult are in the game. You never know what information might get leaked to another team later on in the game. Sometimes, it's best to just shut up. You might even catch someone who isn't on your team thinking that you did a certain action that you didn't.
Although usually, it doesn't help if your entire team hides everything they know. So consider the importance of the information you found out.

Town Leaders

If someone seems to be driving the conversation, a question you should always ask is what role he is. If he still hasn't role claimed or given any evidence of his findings, then always question the motive of controlling the conversation. He might end up being a scum or neutral himself and is looking to divert any conversation away from himself.

Please note that there are some town sided people who like the spot light, not everyone that takes the lead without claiming is bad. Usually, results of a lynch might give you some insight on these peoples intentions.

Codes and Secret Messages

Ah, something we all hate if we can't understand it ourselves but usually love if we do.
Keeping an eye out for weird posts and typos might reveal scum talking to each other during the day or someone revealing a night action/role claim to someone.

If you can guess what info is being swapped around, you can usually figure out what roles or alignments are talking to each other.

Consigs seem to be the most guilty of this. Mafia teams seem to be really impatient to get their info. Culted consigs are even worse.

When deciding on talking in code, always remember that if your coded message is spotted, a single mafia will inform an entire team vs a townie won't be able to help anyone but himself.

There is always a risk of being discovered when sending secret info to someone during the day.


Analyzing Posts

This is much more complex than you might think depending on how much you want to look into it.
When reading a post, if you want the full analysis, read it over and over from different viewpoints.

Read it as a citizen who knows only what has been revealed publicly.
Read it as a mafia member and knew the other mafia names and their actions.
Repeat from the other mafias viewpoint if there are more than 1 mafia team.
Read it as each power role.
Read it as if that person was lying.
Read it considering information only you know or a select few.

Find out who / how many agree with the thought presented.
How does this affect the current topic at hand? Is it a defense, diversion, attack or neutral support/rejection.

Find out the purpose of that post and motive and you might find yourself catching hidden lies in other posts or even understanding a secret conversation that wasn't intended for you to know about.


Lists and Notes

When someone posts his notes or a list with roles on it. Analyse the list and notes and compare it to your own notes. Usually the accuracy of the notes is a tell to that persons alignment.
Take note of everything that he has noted down that you didn't notice.
Take note of things that he has wrong.
Take note of the people he is giving wrong info about.
Take note of the tone of the post, is it an attack, diversion or neutral.
Take note of information that he has that isn't public knowledge yet.


WIFOM

There are multiple ways to understand WIFOM and many ways to manipulate people with it.
Anything and everything posted will change the WIFOM. Keeping track of it can be very hard to do if someone else understands it to.

For example: A known pro-town player asking docs to heal him might have various effects on the other players.

-A simple minded Doc might just do what he says without thinking much more of it.
-A WIFOM understanding Doc might take a risk and not heal him thinking the mafia will not attack someone that should be healed.
-A Double layered WIFOM understanding Doc would heal because he would think that the mafia will think that he would take that risk.
-Etc.

So keeping the above in mind, during the day, when you see people say stupid stuff or give dumb ideas, don't jump to conclusions. The person doing the suggesting might just be protecting that person by adding a layer of WIFOM to him.

Understanding who you are up against can help you decide how many layers of WIFOM you should go into when deciding on a night action. Thus bringing us back to staying Anonymous.


Different styles of play

The Town Leaders

Town leaders usually dominate the conversation and thoughts of the group in general. Usually get to decide who gets lynched at the end of the day.
Of course, Investigators, Sheriffs, Mayors and Masons usually have an easier chance to take command of the town when needed, but you don't need a special role to be the leader, sometimes it just requires good speaking skills. If you wish to be the town leader, your logic must be sound when making your move against someone or so confusing that no one wants to try to understand you to argue with you.

There can be more than one Town Leader at the same time, but usually one will be more dominant.

Pros: You'll decide who you want to lynch and usually are safe from being lynched yourself as long as you have that role.

Cons: If you make a false move and get an innocent lynched, you'll be the first person to be questioned. Note that this does not mean auto-lynch, but getting back to town leader status will be hard unless you have a role that can be trusted as pro-town.

The Manipulators

These are the ones you have to look out for. If you don't, they'll make you think what they want you to think and do what they want you to do.

Pros: You have all the advantages of the Town Leader without the spot light.

Cons: High difficulty level. Speak too little and other Town Leaders will change the topic on you. Talk too much and you become a Town Leader.

The Town supporters

Don't usually dominate the conversation but still keep up with it. Usually hands some supporting evidence to the Town Leaders claims.
This is the most common style you'll see.

Pros: You'll blend in if you don't slip up.

Cons: Scum have a hard time not slipping information about their team.

The Town Voters (aka Sheep!)

You know, those guys that just vote with the current idea but offer no explanation why. Usually don't follow the full discussion.

Pros: You can't slip what you don't say.

Cons: Can be trapped by experienced players who try to do something stupid to expose your lack of thought.

The Lurkers

The ones that never say anything useful or so little that no one takes note of them.

Pros: The easiest way to avoid slipping information

Cons: People will start noticing later on. Breaking free from that lurking state with important information can also be hard.

The Trolls

The ones that look so retarded that people overlook them.

Pros: Unpredictable, might get overlooked by many and underestimated early on. Can give away critical information for people to find later. Usually aren't considered as a threat to killing roles.

Cons: Late game, no one will trust a word you say. Will be extremely difficult to avoid being lynched if a town leader points a finger at you.

The Monkey Wrench!

Just when you thought you had the puzzle solved, these guys offer something you never expected. And now adds doubt to everything you thought you knew.

Pros: Can have a huge impact on WIFOM and might delay the inevitable. You end up being the wild card in the puzzle.

Cons: Extremely hard and usually doesn't last more than a day or two before people understand the new piece to the puzzle.


More to come later... can't reveal all my tricks when I'm still playing this.