Fake seer strategy discussion

I'm obviously a werewolf addict now so I played a fast mashup variant on (another poker forum).

I was a little lost to be honest; they have their own lingo there and this variant added a D&D element to the game, which results in HIGH carnage (game ended early D3).

Anyway, I stumbled across an interesting strategy used there, which happens to address a serious problem the village had this game: fake seer lookups (they call them "peeks")

In the game I played, mod allowed the seer a night 0 lookup.

On D1, the players declare that they peeked another player. ALL Players. Meaning that everyone but the real seer is giving a fake lookup. Generally speaking, of course, you'll want to declare you found a villager. "I peeked OngBonga, he's a villager." Fake declaring that you found a wolf is problematic, but could be interesting.

This accomplishes a few things:
1. It provides cover for the seer.
2. It means that the real seer won't have to risk his life by leaving a crumb for wolves to spot.
3. Most importantly, there won't be any misinterpretation when the seer dies, like the one that caused a huge problem for the village in Gold Rush.
4. It forces everyone to post. Not giving fake lookups will be seen as ExTREMELY anti-village.
5. This obviously means the wolves will have to do it, too. This creates an interesting dynamic in the game, and all kinds of chances for leveling. Will the wolves, with perfect info, lie or tell the truth, or a mixture of both?

Let's say, for example, in our most recent game, Gabe declared that he looked up Baudib on D2 and BID on D3. On D4, he names Scourrge as his lookup. Let's say Gabe gets lynched as a wolf on D4. What do we make of his fake lookups? Well, Baudib died a villager on D2 and BID and Scourrge look very villagery. But knowing that heat would be put on him for his wolfy vote to cinch keybored, he slips in Scourrge as his last fake lookup.

Downside: If someone actually is wrong about a fake lookup(i.e. says "Keith is a villager") the wolves can eliminate him from the seer pool.

Discuss?

If seer peeks wolf and says so, he'll need villagers in the habit of peeking wolves. If villagers peek wolves incorrectly, they remove themselves from the seer pool. If villagers peek wolves correctly, but then go about wolf hunting without staying true to that bit of info, they also remove themselves from the pool.

Though, vilagers who correctly peek wolves basically turn themselves into free seers, which sounds awesome. "I peeked gabe and he's a wolf." Ignore gabe for the day hunting for another wolf. Die that night. Helllooooo wolf gabe.

I think it would be a good idea for the village to help the seer by acting like one.

I also like it assuming people actually do it because we need something day 1 to get people to start generating info.

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

If seer peeks wolf and says so, he'll need villagers in the habit of peeking wolves. If villagers peek wolves incorrectly, they remove themselves from the seer pool. If villagers peek wolves correctly, but then go about wolf hunting without staying true to that bit of info, they also remove themselves from the pool.

Though, vilagers who correctly peek wolves basically turn themselves into free seers, which sounds awesome. "I peeked gabe and he's a wolf." Ignore gabe for the day hunting for another wolf. Die that night. Helllooooo wolf gabe.

I think it would be a good idea for the village to help the seer by acting like one.

I think the interesting thing is what happens when a seer actually peeks a wolf. If the seer is a high-profile player who gets nommed often (say, Gabe) it's probably worth him outing as soon as he finds one, and get angel protection for another lookup (assuming standard rules).

If it's someone who isn't likely to get nommed Day 1/2 he could keep it to himself, say nothing, make a fake claim himself (the actual seer making fake claims may be very dangerous) and just try to lead a lynch on that wolf. Even if the lynch fails that day and the seer is nommed, the real seer pushing for a wagon will get a lot of credibility.

For sure, vanilla villagers need to be making themselves specials hunting bait.

don't like it as it looks like it imbalances it towards the village to much. wolves should get rewarded for skill in spotting seer from seer tells. that just makes it a lottery for the wolves and makes playing the seer piss easy. Seer never have to balance when to reveal his info, vigs don't care about hitting seer as his lookups won't be lost.

Pros and cons. I've just pointed out in a pm to baudib that it narrows the seer pool down for the wolves. It's probably +ev overall, but it does kind of give too much power to the seer. But then again I'd have loved it last game if other people were dropping what could have been interpreted as a crumb from the wolves' pov.

bad for the village, makes seer-hunting far easier for the wolves.

vanillagers who get night nommed by special-hunting wolves are obviously good for the village though, but that's different...

Originally Posted by daven

bad for the village, makes seer-hunting far easier for the wolves.

If everyone says that they peeked so-and-so as villager, except for the seer who may have binked a wolf, the village essentially trades a wolf for the seer. How is this not +EV for the village?

the wolves have been doing very well over the last year or so, I don't see why we should be concerned about this being too much power to the seer.

Originally Posted by BankItDrew

the wolves have been doing very well over the last year or so, I don't see why we should be concerned about this being too much power to the seer.

oh come on , give us some credit as wolves ,i've been wolf twice recently and both times we hit the seer in the first two nights. when the wolves don't hit the seer early its very rare that the wolves win and this means that its going to be extremely hard for wolves to find the seer early. All it means is that the village will just end up winning most games unless the wolves get lucky early and that means that people will be less likely to play.

A much better variation would be to do the anonymous werewolf so that everyone is vanilla to everyone else , no reputations to consider etc.

Keith we get that you like wolf better. But most if the time you're gonna be vanilla her and when you are you should do whatever it takes to maximize the seer's efficiency.

Dumb autocorrects there

the wolves have been doing very well over the last year or so, I don't see why we should be concerned about this being too much power to the seer.

I just think it's lame when the village wins thanks purely to the seer. Anything that makes the seer role stronger is bad for overall enjoyment. I like the idea of seer having limited lookups, such as the recent game.

I like the limited seer option. Tons of ways to balance things

Originally Posted by Keith

oh come on , give us some credit as wolves ,i've been wolf twice recently and both times we hit the seer in the first two nights. when the wolves don't hit the seer early its very rare that the wolves win and this means that its going to be extremely hard for wolves to find the seer early. All it means is that the village will just end up winning most games unless the wolves get lucky early and that means that people will be less likely to play.

A much better variation would be to do the anonymous werewolf so that everyone is vanilla to everyone else , no reputations to consider etc.

Give you wolves credit? I did. In the very first sentence that you quoted.

This seer strat is not "giving more power to the seer", it's maximizing the current power of the seer.

I'm not at all concerned with players not playing because "omg the seer is so powerful that it's unfair". I say we shouldn't add or subtract current powers for current roles, but just experiment with different tactics, that's all this is.

This is like when the first bluffer in poker tried bluffing and his opponents were all "woah woah woah..."

Because most of us are just now pondering this tactic (I'm assuming most of us), it implies that there are probably so many other new things yet to consider about this game.

The worst thing we can do is not experiment.

Anyway, I stumbled across an interesting strategy used there, which happens to address a serious problem the village had this game: fake seer lookups (they call them "peeks")

or how about the seer is careful about what he writes so that the wolves can't misrepresent what he said.

Originally Posted by OngBonga

Pros and cons. I've just pointed out in a pm to baudib that it narrows the seer pool down for the wolves. It's probably +ev overall, but it does kind of give too much power to the seer. But then again I'd have loved it last game if other people were dropping what could have been interpreted as a crumb from the wolves' pov.

or even this , "i looked up x and he's a villager " reduces the game down to the intellect that 5year olds could play well. Otherwise , spotting the seer is unlikely and most games seer will out with 3 or 4 confirmed villagers every game. Wolves will only win by getting lucky not by playing well. The incentive should be that if wolves play well they have a good chance of winning, not that wolves have to get lucky to have a good chance of winning, and neither should it be that it doesn't matter how shit the village play , they'll still win regardless if the seer survives the first few days.

Yeah that's why I like the seer being limited to odd nights. Last game I'd have been forced to claim d4 with just 2 lookups, had I lived that long. That would've been a gator clear and either gabe or keith wolf. It would've given us hope but it wouldn't have locked the game for us, far from it. I couldn't win it on my own last game, but I could help a great deal. That's a good seer balance. Even if villagers were helping me to stay hidden by dropping fake peeks, it wouldn't have fucked the wolves up. Had it been an every night seer, different story.

Wolves did get very lucky n1, I have to say. My lookup pool was basically gator keith gabe. Scourge was never considered, and gabe got lucky simply because he gets nommed early so often, so I ruled him out of a n1 lookup for that reason alone. But keith, the only reason you dodged me n1 was because gator was looking wolfier. That's credit to you of course for not looking wolfy, but you also relied heavily on a dangerous player looking wolfy enough to distract me.

It would be nice though if village won a game despite losing the seer early.

I just played a 9-man turbo. Took less than an hour and a half to complete. Almost 400 game posts in that time. Pretty intense stuff.

I was a villager and helped the village pull it out when things were looking really dire at F5 -- we had to go perfect perfect.

We lost the seer to mislynch D1, but his leaving a peek before getting lynched forced the wolves' hand in the night kill, and helped us win.

As a wolf, I played a game in which we left a basically confirmed villager to the end. Players can be declared "cleared' when the wolves kill someone who made a correct peek. But it has a time limit....and thus is a strategy that can be exploited by the wolves as well.

If there are 3 wolves, then when the first round of "peeks" are announced... and all non-seers announce X is village...

Then 3 of them are wrong. The wolves know this and therefore know the 3 of them are NOT the seer.

If the seer lies, then 4 of them are wrong, and the wolves know that the seer is 1 of the 4.


It's not so single-sided for the village, I think.


EDIT: It could be that the 'peek rotation' has the wolves peeking wolves, in which case, the number of non-seers revealed would be less than 3.

leaving fake peeks of wolves is pretty dangerous,although a few people do it. it can be worded in a way that is ambiguous whether or not it is your peek or a read.

for example, after MMM makes a villagery post, I could say:

MadMojoMonkey - v

now if i'm correct, the wolves may kill me. This protects the seer for a day, and also basically confirms MMM as a villager (for a certain length of time, maybe 2 days)

Here's a thought for a vanilla game.

- Even night vig
- every night seer
- every night angel
- If angel makes a successful save he loses his power
- (if seer looks up a wolf he loses his power?)

I've been really enjoying the games I play where there are no specials other than seer. The breakdowns are 9 players 2 wolves, 13/3 or 17/4. Seer gets a night 0 lookup as well.

Having specials gives village huge advantage in F7/F5 scenarios, where claiming is huge. of course, counter claiming is also fun but it's hard to pull off.

My favourite format has to be the first game I played where everyone was a vig.

If you fired and hit a villager you died
If you hit a wolf you survived

i enjoy games the most when there's no confirmation of the setup

x amount of wolves, x amount of specials, x amount of vanillagers

get hunting

Originally Posted by baudib

I've been really enjoying the games I play where there are no specials other than seer. The breakdowns are 9 players 2 wolves, 13/3 or 17/4. Seer gets a night 0 lookup as well.

Having specials gives village huge advantage in F7/F5 scenarios, where claiming is huge. of course, counter claiming is also fun but it's hard to pull off.

Sounds cool, but I never want to play a game with <3 wolves. The wolf team should always be more than just a shitty buddy cop drama, and powers can be manipulated just fine to keep imba away

Our funnest games have always had 4 wolves

Originally Posted by wufwugy

Sounds cool, but I never want to play a game with <3 wolves. The wolf team should always be more than just a shitty buddy cop drama, and powers can be manipulated just fine to keep imba away

Well yeah but the point of turbos is to be...turbo. game days are 25 mins and the games wrap up in an hour and a half or so.