Totally not a setup but I need a place to scribble : )

[Helz]

Player Improvement
Identifying what works for you
-Scale usefullness of hunting techniques (no bullshit quantify?)

Forcing different playstyle limitations
Fewest posts possible
Fewest words possible
Eliminating the scum hunting method you depend on
Using only a scum hunting method you want to improve on
Power wolf, Lead town, Lurk, Roleplay ect

Understanding your perspective bias
Too scummy to be scum fallacy in line with projecting your level of skill onto others / overestimate others skill as fos
Counter feeling of 'caught but caught for bullshit reason' -If they caught you you triggerd something in their mind

Analize what has worked and has not worked for you (Stop ate if it gets you lynched) (Stop using meta if it fucks you ect.)

This is something I was working on to provide a path for player improvement and a bit of a work in progress but this is how I see it:

Beginner-
Basic understanding of voting, game mechanics, and roles

Novice-
Basic understanding of WIFOM, seeding, tells, traps, and simple mechanical hunting
Can use and understands the commonly used mafia slang/abbreviations
Grasps basic strategy's like RvS, and follow the cop

Intermediate-
Some ability to scum hunt past depending on Meta, Gut reads, and simple mechanical hunting
Ability to avoid being scum read by default as town
Understands the majority of mafia slang/abbreviations
Comfortable enough to play as scum and work within a wolf team without going for a lurk win or screwing your team mates
Some ability to lead a town and guide their focus
Grasps general strategies
Understands how to set up traps and gambits as well as how to pull information from their use without getting themselves lynched
Can comfortably play many game types (Vanilla, PR heavy, Multiball, Mashups, Turbo, Real life, Skype, ect..)

Advanced-
Can evaluate setups to understand what tells to focus on and what strategies to use
Can sometimes spot other players seeding and picks up on small details
Ability to form reads through multiple methods and communicate those reads to other players effectively and persuasively
Ability to manipulate how they are read by others as needed
Effective at leading a town and guiding their focus
Some ability to Power wolf, push misslynches, track town bias, and lead a scum team
Ability to gambit effectively and set traps, has some understanding of more subtle maneuvers
Can comfortably play on multiple sites

Expert-
Mastery of using Mechanical hunting, Wagonomics, and Theory crafting in tandem
Strong understanding most scum hunting methods and when one should be favored over another
Understands the majority of strategies and when they should be used
Ability to peg scum players on D1 with some confidence
Comfortable power wolfing, always tracks town bias and can push misslynches effectively
Understanding of game tempo / timing to reveal information, use gambits, and push for days end lynch
Ability to shade a player for lynch days in advance
Strong understanding of how to track town Bias to manipulate a mislynch
Ability to communicate subtly in day chat
Can use Game Theory to identify optimal play or leverage sub-optimal play to submarine the town
Has some understanding of the overall Mafia/werewolf community to include the sites and players of note

Master-
Can push a misslynch so effectively they are not even scum read for doing so post flip, sometimes gets town read by players for scum reading them because their reasoning is so good
Innovates and creates effective strategies
Ability to manipulate how others are read by others through various methods
Ability to manipulate overall game moral as necessary
Ability to recognize how days will play out before the day starts through experience
Mastery of evading lynches
Ability to recognize and read players in context to how they understand the game
Comfortable pulling FPS gambits
Regularly picks up on subtle communication between other players and seeding
Wins fucking championships

I don't think skill can be strictly quantified but I do feel that a list like this could be made and players could be roughly categorized in a general way. My goal in building this is to allow players to go through the list themselves and help them cut through the 'cherry picking' nature we all have to point to our good plays and say we are good.


Technique to improve- Break your posts into deductive logic outlining what another poster said as well as your argument

Devlemont Strategy
-Restrict posts
-Play to weaknesses
-Read before posting
-Slow down and post with intent
-Break down arguments identifying their appeals, claim and warrant



Town Play///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Add tips section?

Town Power Role
Town Block
Evaluating Gamestate for hunting

Seeding peeks/actions
As a Town Power Role it can be very useful to 'seed' or hint at a night action you took. Doing so gives you a strong defense if you end up counter claimed by a scum in a 1v1 as well as allows the town to recognize what action you took after you died. This is particularly critical for a Sheriff or Alignment Cop. Its common practice for a sheriff to reveal their peek as their first read in a read wall or sneak in a hint that will be understood in hindsight (like "I town read this guy so hard I would town read his slot even if it got subbed out") It is a fine line to walk of seeding in such a way that you are not identified by the scum but its still obvious enough for people to notice after your dead. As a sheriff you can equally seed a scum read in a read wall easy enough.

N0 Sheriff Peek Shelter
In some setups a Sheriff or Alignment Cop will start D1 knowing 1 player is Town. If this is the case all town players should (preferably in their first post) claim an N0 town peek on a random player. This way when the sheriff dies everyone can look back at his first post and know who is a confirmed town without requiring the Sheriff to take his peek to his grave or risk revealing himself to voice who he checked. This is considered basic play and a general expected norm in pretty much every site I have played Mafia/Werewolf.

Random Vote Stage (RVS)
To play day chat there has to be reasoning to analyze. The objective of RVS is to create that reasoning from nothing (given a game starts with 0 posts to talk about). This is done by casting a vote on another player with as strong of reasoning as possible. As the pattern continues and votes are cast the reasoning gets stronger and less 'random' allowing to 'break RVS' which is where the game really starts. It is critical as town to push to break RVS as rapidly as possible because the day is limited and its where you get to hunt. Scum will want RVS to last as long as possible as their goal is to not be caught and get back to the night phase so they can kill. Just remember to do this you should always give a reason. A random vote does absolutely nothing to break RVS.

Spoiler : Example :

Sally votes John giving the reasoning that 'he smells funny'

Camila votes John agreeing with Sally

Santiago votes Camila pointing out he vote is opportunistic and she is just jumping on a train (At this point a small reason for a vote has been created out of nothing)

It can also be of value to Gambit yourself as Lynch bait to break RVS (See Gambits)

Alternative to RVS
Instead of building information off vote reasoning you can generate reasoning by analyzing the setup and strategizing about how town should react to potential situations. This is particularly viable in setups that are Power role or Game mechanic heavy. One advantage of this is that it can help town identify situations that would help or hurt them while allowing players to get familiar with the setup. I have often seen debates over how a situation should be delt with break RVS faster than the random votes would have and the setup speculation can be a nice excuse to fake a 'scum slip' to gambit yourself as lynch bait in a way thats not damning.

Share Information
As town I believe its generally better to reveal pertinent information you notice unless you have a reason not to. This is because it only takes 1 member of the Mafia team to notice something in order for them all to be aware while each individual town member has to notice that information to be aware. By doing so you reduce the information advantage a well oiled scum team shares.
Reasons to hide information could include potential Town Power Role indicators, not alerting a potential scum you are onto them so they can keep slipping, or noticing a potential gambit in play that would be ruined if you revealed the it.

Never express you will not lynch while you vote
I can not stress this enough. The power of your vote is a threat to lynch, the moment you vote but express you are not willing to lynch your vote means nothing. Your vote is one of the few tools at your disposal to add pressure and weight to your voice and you should never give that up as Town. I generally always voice my votes intention Change to express reasoning with vote/add more scenarios for voting

Mutt and Jeff Technique
(More commonly known as good cop bad cop interrogation technique.) It builds trust with a suspect leveraging their primal desire for protection from a threat making them more cooperative and fostering a desire for the suspect to please the 'Good cop.' I have found this to be extremely useful and can be used when a target player is under heavy pressure from others by you acting as the 'good cop'. A particular way I commonly use it is on a player that is at substantial risk of being lynched. By pointing out they will likely be lynched and after the fact with their alignment confirmed via flip, anything they say now holds great value you leverage a towns motivation to secure their win even after death while a scum player would actively want to avoid giving information and instead just focus on survival. In this way you get a win/win if they participate, a town indicator if they work hard to dump their minds for the town after they flip, and a scum indicator if they instead choose to go quiet or hardline focus on their survival.

Gambits Subsection? Add Notes/Tips?
-Lynch bait
This is essentially a trap play by allowing yourself to appear as an easy lynch target and see who jumps on you. The belief is that because scum have to make up reads they often go for low hanging fruit that will make an easy pressure target and that by making yourself appear as an easy lynch / obvious scum for a moment you can draw them out. This is a decent strategy but it has potential to backfire if the player attempting it is unable to dig himself out of the hole he created. Some plays will be viewed as ‘scum slips’ with the claim that it was a lynchbait play being viewed as scum trying to distance themselves from this slip. I have seen scum capitalize on a players lynchbait play to push through a mislynch and walk out blameless on the other side. When using this play its good to leave some kind of crumb you can reference back to in order to show that it was a planned ‘slip’ if you are going to use a damning item to draw attention.

-Fake Cop
This is exactly what it sounds like. A player claims to be a Cop with a damning night peek on another player to gauge their reaction as well as the reactions of other players in the game. This can be an effective although somewhat disruptive play that usually derails any other town train in progress.



Triangulating (Communication to use different part of brain) Find reference again


When trying to figure out the game take the time to question yourself when people post opinions that disagree from a position you support. There is something in Engineering control theory has something called a feedback loop. Basically if you remove negative feedback the loop always goes divergent and chaotic. A balance is necessary because it keeps you (or the town as a whole) from drifting to an extreme. Many great players struggle to move past their hubris resulting in occasional blunders they look back on and say “Man I should have known better”

Weighing the value of a lynch
This is strictly a town play but can be used by scum to manipulate a lynch. The basic idea is that you can break down potential lynches into a raw evaluation of cost / benefit in order to identify the best lynch. At face value this sounds as simple as ‘Lynch the most likely scum’ but it is actually much more complicated. What if there are multiple scum teams? What if there are multiple trains on players you read as scum? How do you objectively weigh which player is most likely scum? These are some very basic concepts to keep in mind that may assist you in making these tough calls.

-Identifying a good D1 lynch target
For your D1 lynch you should evaluate 3 areas on the target-
‘How certain are you that this slot is scum,’
This is obvious and unfortunately the only thing most people think about when picking a lynch target.
‘What information will you gain from the players flip,’
Think about association reads, how players pushed on the player, what
‘How valuable will this player be to helping you solve the game if he is town’
By breaking this down you will be able to peg a good D1 lynch target. You need to force players to give reasoning on the train in order to create material you can work with the following day; this way if he flips town you can look at players reasoning behind their votes. A ‘policy lynch’ on a lurker or non-participating player is always a terrible idea D1 as that if it flips town you just killed a townie and gained absolutely nothing from that train.

-Sorting a damning PR result on a player you Town Read
In general use Occam's to sort a scum peek on your town read. If your evaluating night actions and in the players defense he points out some scenario where he could be town but it requires 2 other PR’s doing some exact action in a 20 player game just evaluate that probability and compare it to your certainty that the player is town. If you are not die hard certain that he is town you should grudgingly lynch the slot. (This is assuming it is early game and there is no reason for scum to gambit a peek, In a Lynch or Loose situation treat it as a 1v1 and cut back to analysis. Never go IIoA in these situations)

-Choosing between 2 scum
Something to consider while weighing a lynch in this situation is the value of each target to the town. For example eliminating the Serial Killer early in a game will usually drop the KPN and provide a massive advantage to the town. If for whatever reason you think one player is mafia (With multiple mafia alive) and the other is an SK the SK obviously has more value to eliminate.

Objective:
Clear yourself as town
Pressure others for reasoning behind their reads (to build reads)
Have accurate reads
Explain the reasoning behind your reads / Persuade others to follow your reads

Only a few town players in any given game will have accurate scum reads. The only way the town can win is if those players speak up and persuade other town players to believe their read enough to lynch the scum. Identifying scum and eliminating scum are 2 separate skills and one without other other is totally useless. If you play every game with perfect reads but nobody ever listens to you then you did not play a good game. You completely failed in a very important way.

often people do have correct reads but end up getting lynched, and then complain about how no one listened to them and feel like they played a great game. but they are wrong. because they aren't looking at the big picture. if you fail to convey your ideas in a way that sways villagers minds, then your ideas are useless. and if you get mislynched, that is a failure on your part.

Night Feedback Analysis
This is using raw feedback information to break down the game into logical reasoning that gives pieces to solve the puzzle.

So in this hypothetical game we can make a few solid assumptions using just these 2 charts. From the starting point we know that there is a role blocking PR in the game but we do not know if it is a Mafia or Town PR.
1- The night kill on D3 was targeting Bob but redirected to Sally. This means that Bob cannot be the mafia.
2- On Day 2 there was no factional kill and Joe was role blocked. This suggests 3 things.
A- Joe could have been attempting to perform the factional kill and was role blocked preventing it
B- A lynch on Joe ‘could’ verify the alignment of the escort/consort. If Joe flips mafia the escort is potentially town.
C- The doctor healed the target that was attacked
3- On Day 1 there was only 1 bussed feedback claim. This suggests one of 3 situations
A- The Bus Driver swapped himself with John
B- The bus driver swapped John with Travis (Who was factional killed, This would suggest John was targeted for the kill N1 and could not be mafia.
C- The other person that was bussed withheld the feedback
By breaking down these night actions and their implications conclusions can be drawn that provide greater insight into the game state.

XXXX
Correlation does not equal causation but correlation can still be used to predict. If more people have colds and ice cream sales are low they may not cause etch other but the lurking variable of season temperature may alter both factors allowing them to still predict etch other to some degree through correlation

Follow the Cop
This is pretty much cutting back into IIoA. Its when the players in a game shift into reliance on investigative results instead of analyzing the day chat to hunt for scum. This is a highly sub-optimal strategy that is often toxic to games and usually when adopted by a town that town ends up failing if the cop dies because the town has not generated information to work off of for an analysis based lynch. This is also something hosts strive to prevent from happening.

Scum Play//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
-Votes to lynch do not matter. The difference between your teams vote count and the lynch count is what matters. Get the lynch and get off the train
Agenda Power Wolf plays
Divide and Conquer
Track town bias
Seeding distrust/ setting up lynches in advance
Night action selection - RNG, Killing empty slot
Bussing
Kill/pocket/lynch priority
-Catering bussing to how most influential town members play (or one you wont kill), measure town pockets
Gambits
PR claim
Countering Wagonomics
As scum call out your own slips and weaknesses
Optimal use of night chats
Split positions as scum when bussing

Objectives:
Clear yourself as town
Identify and target who will be your enemies
Pressure others to discredit them and hinder their ability to convince others to follow their reads

Scum Gambits
-No-kill
If the setup is right scum can choose to no-kill allowing town to assume that their jailor or escort stopped the kill from happening.
-Cute Fuzzy Kitten Defense
Basically it’s a bid for sympathy with a scum claiming some insane role and (hopefully) with town assuming that there is no way any scum in their right mind would claim something so absurd.
-Critical PR Defense
The idea is that when the scum is about to be lynched they claim a critical town power role. The idea is that they will either force the real TPR to counter claim or the town will not lynch them because they are such a critical role.
-Deep Wolf play
This is also a strictly scum play and arguably one of the most deadly. The idea is to work out in your night chat to lynch one of your own team mates and have another one champion the lynch. Without a TPR stopping you if you hardcore championed the lynch of another mafia you will almost always win so long as you get hardcore credit for the lynch. I have never seem town win when this type of play is effectively used simply because you championing that lynch on a team mate who was not under pressure will hard clear you from any suspicion. The risk is that you may break that threshold of having your level of certainty match your level of reasoning. To really do this correctly it should be set up a day in advance with some subtle posts by the player attempting to get lynched that are blatant enough for the other player to point to but not so blatant that other town will pick up on them and push the lynch.

No mens-reya (too dumb to crime) defense legal strategy

Estimate the strength of your reads
Make a good first impression
Same perspective = same alignment?
Too scummy to be scum
Lynch All liers
Scum avoid giving hard reads
Ask for towns perspectives to identify what they see

MM Doublethink- I've had this thought and decided to share it here, both for the sake of sharing something interesting and to know if it made sense.
Given that scum can be caught by perspective "slips", or more exactly perspective dissonances, and given that those dissonances are quite common, the concept of doublethink is interesting for successful scumplay. The possibility of convincing yourself that you are town and do not know the scum, even though you have read your rolecard, could prevent perspective dissonances. Therefore, "fooling yourself" while remaining in control (to push mislynches instead of teammate lynches, for instance) could be the key to the most natural and effective form of scumplay ever. You'd basically have to be O'Brien for the duration of the game. That seems... interesting.

Divide and conquer
This is exclusively a scum play and arguably something scum should always try for in day chat. The idea is to identify players bias and try to divide the town into two or more groups playing their bias and grudges against etch other while ‘pocketing’ players to increase your influence over day chat.

-Identifying Confirmation Bias and splitting the town
So what you want to look out for here is players grudges and their reads on other players. Keep track of who thinks what about who and play that to your advantage. Also watch for how players are reading other slots. If you notice Player A scum reads player X and puts a lot of value in connecting contradictions to scummy behavior then include some contradiction in your read of player X. This will help pull player A onto this train or if you are not starting a train it could push him over the edge to really gunning for that player. Generally speaking you just need to split the town into two or more groups and then you can start to kill the town off one by one maintaining a balance of power between them and keeping you in control of the situation.

from a wolf perspective, you realize that you have to pick your targets carefully. you can't be on good terms with everyone; as you said, you have to lynch villagers. and often the people you lynch will be among the first to figure you out and suspect you. so you have to balance your targets carefully, because its dangerous to make enemies as a wolf. you pick someone to lynch so that when they turn against you, you know you will be able to overpower them and get them lynched over them getting you lynched

-Pocketing players
This is the other half of the play. You need to get a few players to pretty much read you as cleared town and follow your reasoning. For every player you pocket you greatly increase your ability to control the day lynch. Even if you are not able to fracture the town if you can simply pocket 2 players you will immediately have massive influence over the town and put yourself in an excellent position. The simplest way of doing this is to watch for when a player gives away soft tells that they scum read a slot and then follow up behind them with much more solid reasoning along the same lines. This will get them to think that you are thinking from the same perspective and objectively make them trust you more. It also helps if you see them in 1v1 situation to pressure the other player (as opposed to defending them.) Players get cautious when someone else is defending them but they get along well when there is a ‘common enemy’ between you two.

Another large advantage to playing in this way is that it gives you purpose in day chat so instead of just hanging around trying to not get lynched you have focused goals that provide a reason to create content as well as have passion in your posts. Its possible to get caught for having this kind of intention in your plays but in my experience it is pretty rare.


Useful Bits Shit name?
Game tempo- Setting a days lynch
Note taking
-Writing to use different part of brain
LYLO and MYLO
Kingmaker play- setting yourself up to control end result. Always go for or go meta
WIFOM
Getting Read as (gut read indicators)
The Explanatory Gap
Proper use of Codes
This is the all too familiar situation of posting a code to solve on the next day in order to confirm that you are still you. In multiple games I have seen someone post a weak code that the disguiser then solves falsely confirming themselves as ‘not disguised’. In a word a bad code can do more harm to the town than not making a code at all. Keep in mind that the scum player does not have to actually solve your code at all, he only needs to convince the town that he has solved it. Here are some examples of Bad Codes:
_ __ _ _____ = I am a robot; This could very easily be faked with any phrase that matches this letter count.
26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 = a section of pi in math; Kinda clever but simply google searching breaks it along with any other string of numbers. Even if its not what you meant someone could just lie and say it was.
Pretty much anything math related
Anything using a cypher program; These are very easily broken with some programs made specifically to do so
Data can be taken from a players games and analyzed to identify meta trends.
These trends can then be compared to data taken from a current game to identify specific factors of a player such as alignment


No clue where to put the shit
Focus on having fun- Avoid pushing to draw emotional reactions
(Liers Delight) factor of enjoying Mafia
Potential shit for theory giggles
-Sociometrics- Weighted social networks system
Cam mafia/ Real life shit
Unethical- Macro meta crunching, Sociometrics, Not looking at your role, Not revealing tells on players with meta,

Reason to see both sides:
Engeneering control theory has something called a feedback loop
If you remove negitive feedback the loop almost always goes divergant and chaotic
Balance is imoportant because it keeps you from drifting to an extreme. If you only listen a postion you support that position will only be amplified until its screaming its position as opposed to presenting logic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJZv3z7FOt0
Detective interview (This is a non listed interview and I would appreciate not poking the interview in youtube comments or distributing the address)

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Don't you vandalize this beautiful section with stuff such as "logic" or "reasonings"! Only brainless sheeping allowed here :P.
(Moved to FM Discussion)

[Helz]

Lol!

So I am gona be fumbling about dumping notes here then working on stuffs. I normally do this portion in Excel but I wanted to see if its easier while I can see how the formatting goes before trying to tackle the part where everything gest combined, formatted, referenced and probably rewritten.. Feel free to contribute or ask about anything you guys want

-edit
For those interested this was the broad concept I drew up in 2016 https://ibb.co/L5tC0VN

[Helz]

I swear. Every time I start doing this again I step back, look at it and my noodle melts because there is just so fucking much shit I have no idea where to start >.<

Now I get to think to myself, Once this piece is done I am probably at the 60% mark

[aamirus]

“Identifying what works for you”

Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb

[Marshmallow Marshall]

“Identifying what works for you”

Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb

Well then, be your own worst critic and listen to constructive criticism from others. If you're not ready to do that, you're probably not ready to read a long guide either, so this is a non-issue.

[Helz]

Well then, be your own worst critic and listen to constructive criticism from others. If you're not ready to do that, you're probably not ready to read a long guide either, so this is a non-issue.

My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo

[OzyWho]

My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo

Sounds too black and white for FM tbh. The intent that is.

[theoneceko]

I swear. Every time I start doing this again I step back, look at it and my noodle melts because there is just so fucking much shit I have no idea where to start >.<

Now I get to think to myself, Once this piece is done I am probably at the 60% mark

[COLOR="#FFFFFF"]>.<[/
COLOR]!!!!

is heWOwOElz having a mewental breakdown?!?

[theoneceko]

My hope is when its all done it will be more of a tool than a guide. Like people use a dictionary or something where it could be used to understand things while providing some understanding of whats out there. The size of this thing when its done will be moderately ridiculous for an article imo

I just read a few sentences below “Master,” UWOWU!!! I don’t use guides, I’m just like fuck this FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I WILL WIN, uWoWu HEWWO!!!

[Helz]

“Identifying what works for you”

Only thing 90% of people read and then just use confirmation bias because someone you thought u were scum reading for a good reason flipped scum even tho ur reason was dumb

Yeah. Thats a good part of why I wanted to come up with some formal process with methods and goals to improve. I feel like the question of 'how do I get better' is a subject nothing has answered so people end up doing whatever is comfortable..

Sounds too black and white for FM tbh. The intent that is.

Yeah, you probably have a point. There is also the issue that a huge portion of this is just 'how I see things' which is itself biased and subjective. I am almost certainly very wrong about at least something in a scope this large..

[COLOR="#FFFFFF"]>.<[/
COLOR]!!!!

is heWOwOElz having a mewental breakdown?!?

Lol.
Its just my creative process. Whats here is bits from some 30 or so text files. There is still another 60 or so but many of them are redundant. Also a a good bit of this is stuff I wrote in 2015 or 2016 and my views have changed.

All I end up doing is jumping around and hitting at little bits at a time but when I just look at the project as a whole its just kinda daunting. Sometimes just starting to move takes effort (for me at least) but once I get moving its good.