@alleycat03 ... I started to suspect you might be village-aff because you seemed to be playing pro-v early on. But that could have been deceiving because I did NOT trust anyone early in game. Since I did not have a wincon, it was weird. But ... you played super-well and scored good convo that pointed to woofie players. Great job alley!
OK, so I have a real bone to pick with how we are using the term "pro-village," and I think it's VERY important that we recognize, that just because someone seems helpful, like they are fostering discussion, promoting cooperation, peace on the thread, PMing, being forthcoming, providing original thought, and hell, even with a "perfect" VCA, does NOT mean they are in fact VILLAGE.
The perfect example of someone who very, very, very, very, often seems pro village to very max when they are in fact scum, is embodied by WZ. There are other players that do this as well. Their thread presence can seem village as all heck and they are very difficult to pick out.
I mean, Shorty was called pro-village. Her plan as she outlined it, was to yeet one wolf and then to back off. That is NOT as pro-village as you think.
I know she said she really wasn't scum reading me, but at the same time, her play truly felt to me like she didn't really want to get into it with me. That is one of the subtle changes of being 3P, there is a lot less to be gained by truly confronting players. One need only appear to be. Look at Zenge. He voted wolves but he didn't really lead the charge hard on any of us.
I noticed other 3Ps did this as well.
Frequently you will see 3P not ruffle as many feathers, or only ruffle certain ones. I will say it over and over again, pro-village play is probably better deduced by how someone is using their night actions and their VCA. Night action usage can be much tougher to discern, but probably a better sign, but even then you best be able to doublecheck. Shorty in HZD was a classic example of how "pro village" night actions were not proof of Aff. As wolf redirector this game, I could definitely do some "pro village" night actions, however to try to do that the entire game would be very difficult without overly hampering the wolf cause. It's also pretty difficult to deep wolf and vote out every one of your buddies.
That said, the above is a little more concrete data (night actions, votes) to gauge villagey-ness.
I know I didn't sound very village this game, but believe me, I can sound a helluva lot more village than I did. Sounding village is basically one of my superpowers if I choose to actually do it or have the time. Multiple things can stop me from that, one was that this game with the baseline sketch of my fellow wolf peeps, meant that it was much harder not to end up bussing them, and between that and the multiball, I was trying to make bolder moves and get shyte done and whatnot. I decided to go more for powerwolfing than deep wolfing and game design forced that. We had scum to hunt and a lost wolf to find and we needed to get village to get rid of the necromancer or ignore his minions. But deep wolf Cray is exactly the one to fear because I can imitate my village game very well.
If I ever end up in a wolf pack with some classically village read players, like say WZ, some players with yeet armor, watch the **** out. Because I will easily be able to sus or village read them all game long and totally get away with it. And I will sound just like my village self, and I will do a misyeet after misyeet all while seeming to wolf hunt.
But this game called for something much different. I was actually wolf hunting, I was trying to find my lost wolf. I WAS using 3P hunting to try to test and see who would react in a village, 3P, or wolfy manner. I was NOT faking that nor doing a bad job of it because of how accurate my reads ended up being for both lost wolf AND 3P scum.
As much as I will harp and tell you that scum is scum don't worry about telling the difference, the fact is that sometimes you actually can tell wolf from 3P. The point is more, sometimes you can't tell and you can't tell well, so don't worry about it if it's a distraction. Other times, you can tell, and if you can, good. Because often telling the difference may in fact matter.
Just another reason this game design was much more challenging. Because it absolutely forced me to alter my game. I did not push misyeets the same way because I was worried about it killing our lost wolf.
Anyway, this game made it harder to try to deep wolf, and bussing has limited utility because it won't clear you of being scum anyway.
And I'm trying to change up my play, to follow the advice that "your job as scum is not to imitate your village game."
It didn't exactly work, but we had the added challenge that so many players we killed to make village more friendly to ourselves and our mission just got added to another opposing faction. Zenge was obviously trying to get us out without leading the charge on thread - an excellent way to build up his VCA without being a voice we needed to silence by NK.
But a game with 3P is one where we really need to not use the term pro-village. Because being anti-wolf or anti-scum only might prove you are anti-wolf or anti-scum. It doesn't make you village.
Maybe my annoyance is with how loosely we seem to using this term for all sort of affiliations and for on-thread posting or PMing. Which as I said is an awful way alone to use term.
I see people using the term when really what they're labeling is a tone read. Which, like, tone reads as fine to use and I'm always touting post analysis, but if what you have is a tone read, then just call it that. Don't use "pro-village" so much.
The problem is that you literally are inviting to proven cognitive bias, where saying someone's name and "wolf" or "village" closely together enough, and it tends to get echoed, will cause anchoring.
otherwise, the only way he got skeletons past the first two was by pushing misyeets, which would of course put him more on village radar for getting voted out himself, or by correctly guessing who would be killed every fourth night. He had an extremely difficult wincon, and with the exception of the treadmill (which had a decay rate AND required that the targeted player be village and choose to join the skeleton army), his items were one time use. He did get lucky that the banana phone was used within an existing pm network, and so then caught 3 players instead of two, but it still relied on them dying before him.
