Since I've only played like 2 WW games with you I can't ask the thread's default question about my game, but which game was your favorite and why, and where can I read it?

I hope this is not a problem for your upcoming trip to Scotland.

I think it's inevitable that it will be a problem, but it won't prevent me from going. I don't think I've ever been stopped from going by this, it just makes for some unpleasantness beforehand. Also, with tickets secured that's the toughest piece out of the way.

Followup to that: in '07 I worked a couple dozen weekends away from home. My willingness to accept such assignments was related to sever factors that were specific to the individual offices requesting me, but one of the most important was whether they would arrange my flights and hotel.

(In case anyone sees a problem still: yes, this still meant a panic attack every weekend when I had to pack.)

I'm getting myself temp-banned for the day - more questions are fine, but I'll be answering a bit late.

why did you ex-whatever choose to have K ?

Examples of things that you find get mistaken for either wolf or villa tells when in reality they should be null tells (or perhaps just the opposite) from newbies and experienced players, respectively?

If you peek a wolf n0, what do you do? Do you keep doing whatever it is you're doing if you peek yet another wolf n1?

If you peek villas the first two nights and a wolf on the third night, how do you proceed?

I could come up with a lot of specific seer questions here, but in general I'd just like a discussion on seering and whether you should always make all your peeks clear and how and when you should come out etc.

Seeing as you often get NK'ed early on, perhaps you should also answer these as what you would suggest ME to do.

What do you think of SHROOP?

She had always wanted to have a child. She's older than I by a few years, and was heading toward the problematic years for that purpose. She also doesn't meet people easily and had spent long stretches of her life single. She believed, reasonably imo, that though the situation was not ideal it was best to keep him. I don't know whether she ever considered anything else.

First, that it should be called by what I believe was its original name, ROOP.

Second, that ninety percent of the people who use the term have no idea what it denotes, and are willing to apply it to any typo, odd phrasing, or correction.

Third, that even most otherwise-qualifying edits don't matter -- it should be applied only to sentences that seem to have been reworked to change the way they sound.

Fourth, that there are some people from whom it probably is wolf sign, but you have to know your customers. If someone is more likely to think carefully through how his posts look when he's a wolf than when he's a villager, then ROOP is a wolf tell for that player. This would apply mostly to fairly new players, but not to brand new players who seem to understand that being wolfy is bad regardless their role. Experienced players often don't exhibit this, and it's sometimes reversed (aao in effect argued this about me a couple games back; in fact it's a null tell for me, as whether I'm working on how my posts sound depends on how rushed I am, which is role-independent), but it's probably wolf sign no more often than not.

The biggest thing I look for in deciding how hard to defend a new player is language. Even people whose English is terrific -- as a second language -- are not going to sound the same as native speakers. And some players, typically those with a medium amount of experience, think that the resulting subtle oddities are wolf sign. They're not. It can be instructive to see who jumps on these things, too -- if a very experienced player does, imo that's a wolf tell for him (the experienced player). Otoh if a normally-aggressive moderate player seems to be ignoring some really strange phrasing (not subtly strange) from a new player, that looks like w/w/ to me.

(This can be overread, and for some reason I seem to be the only person who routinely asks what a new player's native language is.)

Asking for a sub is not a village tell. In almost all cases the need for a sub is dependent entirely on real-life events.

Low activity level really is a wolf tell for some people -- but there is a crucial exception. If a player who is known to be very active in either role is low-activity, then I think that's actually a weak village sign. Consider me, for example: when I'm around and into it, I'll make 50+ posts per day, most substantive, in either role. If I get pretty busy such that I can't put hours per day into the game, there's not much I can contribute as a villager, so I'll go low volume, but as a wolf I don't have to read the entire thread religiously to know what I want, so I can get away with being slightly more active as a wolf.

An increase in activity level after the seer dies is probably a wolf tell for players who expect to get peeked a lot. I used to be in this category, but am probably not any more as seers have worked out that peeking me early is bad.

Apparent seerhunting itt -- hard questioning of a single unsupported read -- is wolf sign from most people, but is just part of a few player's normal repertoire. (Luckay is an example of this.) This doesn't apply to new players at all.

Nervousness when pressured is absolutely wolf sign, except that it's seer sign too. I am far from perfect at telling the difference. From a pretty experienced player it's more seerish than wolfy.

The self-voting tantrum is, unfortunately, a mild village tell from a newish player. From an experienced player it's too weird to be read.

The best wolf sign is still the argument to lynch someone, using evidence that leads to a difefrent conclusuoion or none at all. Bad arguments for villageriness are sort of wolfy, but not as much so (and tend to be much more seerish).

how bad is entering a ww game knowing you aren't going to post much? does your answer change if you're always the silent type vs if it's just for one game (in which case you'd probably mention it in the signup)? scale from 1-10, 1 is voting atkd like that and 10 is the wolf tantrum where he names the rest of the wolf team.

It's fashionable these days to say that it's no problem at all, as long as you try to contribute. I will disagree, mildly. There are people who can contribute with one post per day, but they are few. For most people, some explanations fo reads or required or they might as well not even be gobven, because no one will ever listen otherwise; these people are essentially not playing when they never bother to explain what they're thinking.

How bad is that? Kind of. Maybe a 3. There certainly are worse sins. When no one posts much the game pretty much sucks for everyone, but if there's a mix it works out OK so that tempers it.

I will say there is a very big difference between knowing one won't post a lot and knowing one won't bothering reading the whole game. The latter is in excusable — a 7 or so. Real life happens and all, but going into it with that attitude is tantamount to telling your teammates, who ever they turn out to be, that they will definitely have to do the work for you. Anyone who routinely does this shouldn't be allowed in games. (And no, I don't buy the argument I've seen people make, that they get their reads contemporaneously, and can't really do so until late in the game; that approach is almost as much of a "**** you" to teammates, except that it applies only to the first part of the game.)

My post above about ROOP should conclude by saying (after all the disclaimers) that it is wolf sign more often than not.

u need to check pogball atak, 2 turnovers already in like 3 plays!

makes sense

They've been linked in the thread, I think, but we'll do it again, with additions:

Best vanilla game ever, and the game that made me vow to learn to play well: Playboy Party Cruise.

Most fun early (for me) mishmash, and the game in which I learned to wolf: Jurassic Park.

My best wolf game: Toon Evolution.

My best seer game: The Lounge WW game.

(I don't have a best vanilla game that stands out.)

The game I had the most fun with in terms of writing: Classic Werewolf.

The game the moderation of which made me feel like I was really n important part of POG: The Ootown Delegation. (Note the OPs: these are attributed to various people, but they first appeared here.)

The game in which I decided I was a good moderator, even if it didn't look like it at the time: Lost Wolves.


The best of those is Playboy. It wasn't my favorite at the time, though, because i was still lost part of the time — that was my fourth non-turbo game.

Wasting time is fine in moderation. In fact, I suppose it's fine in excess, too, if the person can afford it and it doesn't hurt anyone.

I waste tons of time. Particularly when I'm down, I can spend hours doing silly things, or nothing at all. I get obsessive about video games sometimes, and they're certainly a waste of time in a technical sense. But if a person enjoys them, and the criteria above are met, so what?

(Other big time wasters for me: surfing POG, driving [not now, but at times in my life], pinball and pool [ditto], TV [long ago — I essentially never watch now], walking.)

Is werewolf a waste of time? I could make arguments about exercises in psychology and team play and the like, but... yeah. Of course it is. But if it's wasting time, so is essentially everything that doesn't produe an identifiable product or service. We like it. We like what it does to our relationships. So it's fine — the value judgment inherent in "waste" is inappropriate.

Rollerblading? I'll just go with its being healthy recreation, so maybe not as "bad" as the others. I love roller hockey, but haven't played in ages. I did break my wrist once playing.


Extreme sports: The linked video doesn't look extreme to me — I would have guessed it was easier and less dangerous than skateboarding (and it doesn look more fun, yes). Truly extreme stuff, I think people tend to do not for themselves but for how others view them, and there I think its tarts to get problematic. When you are doing something to impress someone with your bravery, you're essentially risking their psyches along with your life (if it's a genuinely dangerous sort, which I think is one of the criteria.)

I've skydived (tandem, and also indoors — very fun) and bungee jumped, done rock climbing (only up to about 5.9) and kayaking (see thread), scuba dived in the open ocean down to 44 meters and free dived to about 20 meters, body surfed at the Wedge in Newport Beach, windsurfed on San Francisco Bay, snowmobiled, done double-diamond cornice jumping and backcountry skiing, and run hot through the Carousel at Sears Point (in my convertible Mustang) and the corkscrew at Laguna Seca (in a formula Ford, and then a slicks-and-wings car). I don't consider any of these sports "extreme", because in none of them is danger the point. But adrenaline is, and that often does come with some danger... which I think is fine as long as everyone understands the risks.

Caveat to the above: I think I have a responsibility, now that I'm a parent, to eschew the more dangerous things I might otherwise want to do. My responsibilities now include a duty to attempt to stay alive; once upon a time, imo there was no such duty.

Maybe you already answered this one, but I can't find it. So if you didn't, what are your thoughts on Barack Obama thus far?

+1

atak on seer play, chapter one...


First, you're correct that advice for me and advice for you may be different. The first thing a seer needs to assess is how likely he is to die or be in trouble early. There are three cases:

Seer tends to be wagoned, even lynched, early.

This seer needs to do something different, but that's risky so he needs to account for that too. He can peek anyone he wants starting n0; whether he pushes any wolves he peeks depends on whether he's in trouble. This seer has an advantage, though: if he can avoid being wagoned he will not have to leave hints at all for a while, or at least can be very subtle, because rational wolf teams rarely NK people who are chronic mislynch targets unless they have good reason (so don't give them good reason).

If this seer gets heat but is not in imminent danger of lynching, he can get away with pushing to get his wolf peeks lynched, and to save his village peeks.

This seer can also leave somewhat more overt peeks than the others, because it will tend to look like faking.

Seer tends to get NKed early.

Sucks to be seer here, but I think I have worked out how to do it. The seer has to live — unless the villagers are very sharp, they won't win the game if the seer dies prematurely, particularly if this also means killing off a strong villager. So what to do? First, never push a wolf peek in a a seerish way. Second, don't be obvious with any hint (meaning don't do it as avanilalger either, though there are subtle gradations available here). But third, and perhaps controversially: make yourself a less valuable night kill. be wrong about most or all your non-seer reads. Get confused (subtly, please). Maybe get busy irl, if you're comfortably lying (I am not). Or go nuts, claiming seer and daring the wolves to kill you. there are a lot of approaches, but the worst thing to do is play the normal village game tagt gets you NKed.

This seer needs to be very careful with hints. Absolutely no backwards hints. No overt correct ones either. Hints, if left at all, need to be very well hidden (see below). Alternatively, one can leave no hints at all, wish Dustin advocated earlier, but he himself has seen that that doesn't work well when the wolves can't find the seer and thus go ahead and kill the strong player anyway, and he dies without leaving anything...


Seer tends to live a while

Great start — now don't **** it up. Your first peeks need to be people whom you won't often be forced either to defend, or to watch lynched, if they are wagons early — so they shouldn't be that sort of player. If you peek a wolf, you can vote him if it's convenient, but don't start the wagon — you're the sort of player the wolves will be considering most for seer.

Hints should be there (usually), but subtle. You have the ability to live long enough to lock the game, so work toward that.


Note the difference in whom one peeks, too. The seer who is in no danger goes for long term value: players who will be alive a long time. The seer who believes he may have to claim soon, or who won't be surprised if he turns up dead tomorrow morning, can peek targets of imminent controversy (i.e., players who may be lynched soon).

I have been thinking about this much more, and I think my saying I'd push the button is the depression talking. It would make so many people miserable that even if it would a long term good, I just couldn't do it — there would have to be another way.

I continue to believe that if there were a way magically to limit the population to a much smaller number, that would be good, but that's a very different question.

I voted for him, unsurprisingly. And, I suspect unsurprisingly, I am disappointed (though not at all surprised).

The symbolic meaning of a non-white being elected is terrific. But the timing was so atrocious that almost no matter what he did he was doomed to go down in history as an ineffective president. He took office saddled with two unwinnable wars, a debt of eight or nine trillion dollars, and an economy that was doomed to spend the first couple years in the tank.

So that was the bad news... except it wasn't. The bad news started when he selected Hillary as his Secretary of State, notwithstanding that the single biggest reason he'd given people to go for him over her was that her position on foreign affairs, particularly Iraq, had been incompatible with his. Even before he took office, he was selling out the supposed principles on which he'd gotten elected — and that was post-election, so it's not as if he had to do it to cement his base.

A lot of what came next was Congress's doing, but I think he bears a hell of a lot of blame too. Bailing out banks instead of homeowners (I'd like to have done neither, because I think people should bear the risk of their own risk-taking, but as a practical matter it's likely one was necessary). Bailing out one of the worst-run companies in American history based on a a distorted too-big-to-fail doctrine, and then following it with a slew of more of the same... and doing nothing to limit executive pay in those companies. (it was argued that they were under contract already so it couldn't be helped, but that argument is stupid — it would take me about five minutes to write a perfectly valid, constitutional law ensuring that no executive for a bailed-out company made more than 100K post-tax.)

The stimulus payment that wasn't (because it was really just moving refunds forward, to a time when people don't want them) — that was great too. I'll see that come up a lot this tax season, as people don't understand where the refund check they were counting on went. It's irrational, but most taxpayers are.

Oh, perhaps the worst thing he's done: Imprisonment without trial. Every principled liberal thinks that holding people without trial, indefinitely, is abhorrent, and anathema to what we pretend to believe we stand for. And so Obama said, when he was in the Senate. But look at what he's done now... we're closing Guantanamo, but taking steps to ensure that if a prisoner might get acquitted if tried, he never gets tried. We're starting equivalent prisons in Afghanistan (and probably elsewhere). We're saying we don't torture any more, but not looking into who did and who ordered what. We are back to business as usual - perhaps not quite as blatant as during the Cheney administration, but even more dangerous because it's more subtle.

And then there's health care. Yes, I understand that special interest and Congress and yada yada... but in my view a president with a soul should have been willing to stake his presidency on getting a meaningful, comprehensive health care bill passed. And whether Republicans like iot or not, in a Democratic administration with a Democratic Congress that should have meant universal single payer coverage for all basic health care. End of discussion about coverage. How to pay for it? That's for a politics thread but trust me that it can be done; the numbers work. Or, I should say it can be done if you don't mind taking tons of monopoly profits away from drug companies, for-profit hospitals, medical equipment and testing companies, and doctors. A good president who said he wanted universal health care coverage would have been willing to do that, even if it ensured that he wouldn't be reelected (which it probably would). Obama wasn't. QED.

Four years from now there will still be many uninsured Americans, income disparity will be as high as ever, the national debt will be ten trillion dollars, we will still be in Afghanistan and Iraq, we will still be torturing people who are the wrong shade of brown... and Obama will, as a result of it all, probably win reelection. Long live American politics.

All I was saying with my "+1" post was that I agreed with the theory behind the button, wouldn't be able to do it because of how it would make the remaining 15% of people feel, and that if there was a way to get 85% of the people out of here without anyone knowing they ever existed I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I got that; I was also using it as a springboard to say that, though I said otherwise earlier, I believe suing the actual killing button would be wrong.