despite my status as a non-player, may I interject something here? From a purely teaching point of view.
Assuming permission is granted, I'm going to start here, but spoiler it. I can remove it if you ask me to.
The first portion of the first day has two names: The Random Question Segment and the Random Voting Phase. RQS and RVP; these two names mean the same thing, and are used interchangeably. During this portion of the game, players will ask each other questions in order to get any one or more players to slip up and do something scummy. They will also vote at random, hence the second name for it. A vote during RVS/RVP/RQS/RQP typically carries less weight than a vote later in the game.
Reactionary votes during RVS are typically what is known as "OMGUS", purely emotional votes with no supporting evidence. They also carry very little weight, but some players consider them to be a "classic scumtell". What can also be assumed about them is that because of their longstanding status as a scumtell, there is little or no chance that a scum will actually engage in OMGUS any more. Which leads into another concept known as "WIFOM", standing for "the Wine In Front Of Me", which as the opening post says, is based off of the scene from the Princess Bride. What it actually means is that there is no way of knowing if this is a scum-tell or not. As I have no standing in the game, I'm not going to guess whether it means anything or not. I'm also not going to say whether I believe any OMGUS has taken place or not, but it's something to keep in mind. I would avoid voting for anyone voting for you unless you have a really good reason.
Also, we have the matter of wagons. Wagons, as they are typically known, are a large number of people voting for a single person at once, typically while there are very few votes cast at other players. Typically scum want to encourage wagons taking place, but guessing whether or not scum will actually vote with the wagon is again, WIFOM. Scum will USUALLY not be the first to cast a vote in a wagon, though exceptions are known. It is a popular theory that the third person to cast a vote on a wagon will be scum, although I prefer to be the fourth person when wagoning as scum, and let the third person be town. Again, these theories lead to WIFOM. It is, however, part of the local Bay12 meta that wagons are not a common part of the game. In other forums I have seen wagons are typically formed every day, in every game. In Bay12 mafia, I usually only see wagons in Beginner's mafia games, rarely when there is nothing else to go on, or when there is overwhelming decisive evidence. More often then not, though, there is more than one leading suspect and if there is any wagon at all, it is a very small one. I would advice against voting with the crowd, however.
While I was typing this advice, however, 4maskwolf addressed some of these same points.
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Topic: Beginner's Mafia LV: Masked Trouble - Scum Victory (Read 49086 times)