On Town Cohesion

Type: Play Townplay Author: Titus

History

Original Publication: April 29th, 2017 by Titus
Uploaded and Edited: March 29th, 2018 by Mathdino

Original Post

Introduction

I am seeing an issue abound in many, many Large Themes and across site. That is that the town lacks a certain amount of cohesion and efficiency. It happens in Opens and Minis too, but is much more prevalent in Large Themes. They forget this isn't exclusively a mystery game. It's a team game. Everyone has a role to play.

Myth 1

There's still Y days left in the deadline. Let's not lynch X.

Answer 1

Does it matter? Is the player scum? Is the wagon town driven? Will this wagon help me solve the game with its flip? The deadline is irrelevant. Games from before my time had no deadline. Having such a setup encourages scum not to play the game until some feeling time before the deadline or unless a scumfuck actually gets wagoned.

Myth 2

I really need this lynch.

Answer 2

Unless you're an investigative with a guilty, you don't. You may need to feel communicated and included in the process. Ok. Great. If you've gone on for 2 back and forth pages and it's just you yelling at your target, no one is reading that crap and thinking wow amazing. People are reading that and thinking, ok when can we get back to playing mafia. If you feel a particular lynch is needed to help you progress in the game, detail that. But if all your townreads disagree, agree to disagree and focus on sorting other players.

Myth 3

If I don't tunnel on this player, they'll get away.

Answer 3

Have a little more faith in your fellow players than that. If you're clear and compassionately working with your townreads, they'll know who you scumread. If and when you die (because as a whole barring a bunch of conftown correct players die first), your death serves as a guidepost. But by tunneling on a player, you actually diminish your own credibility. Players who disagree with you and if you're correct the scum themselves will dismiss you as an obvious town tunneller. If players are not receptive to the message, then you have to work twice as hard to gain an inch with every post you make.

Myth 4

If players don't lynch within my scumpool, they are scum/useless/dumb/whatever.

Answer 4

Unless every player is literally confirmed town, that's inaccurate. Players can and should welcome disagreement (unless it gets into Myths 2 and 3). Scumreading or shouting down players doesn't cause them to listen or suddenly get smarter. I'll admit I'm not a saint on this one here. Players should hash out when their reads disagree until they come to either a consensus or a mutual agree to disagree with each player understanding why. If all the players who have a particular skillset start dying, it probably indicates that skillset is needed. If all the players who read people based on emotional tells are dead and the wall players are engaging in wall fights, it's probably best to take a step back and use those tools. This is especially true if it's not your strength. If all the wallposters detailing the setup are dead, it's probably because there is a setup anomaly.

Myth 5

My vote should always be on my number 1 scumread at all times.

Answer 5

No. Your vote should always be on the vote that helps town win at all times. Sometimes that's voting your number one scumread. Sometimes that's voting to end a day that your townreads really need to end. Sometimes that's policy lynching that person that's annoying everyone in the town (sorry for all the times I may have). There's a reason the role PMs say your vote is your power and policy lynches are a thing. Voting people helps indicate to them that what they are doing is anti-town to you.

Myth 6

I cannot get anyone to work with me. They won't vote my scumreads.

Answer 6

That's not working with you. That's doing what you want. Working with you involves promoting your good skills and limiting the bad skills. Town is a team, just like scum is. Would you tell your scumread to go do what it is that likely gets them lynched because they refused to nightkill the townie you wanted? No. Yet, town all the time tell their townreads to basically go to hell because they won't lynch their scumpool.

Question

Great, so if voting my scumreads isn't working with me, then what is?

Answer

Glad you asked... the short answer is the most annoying one... it depends.

If you're dealing with someone who deals more with hard data, get them hard data to work with.

If you're dealing with someone who is literal, watch the words you pick carefully.

If you're dealing with someone who reads emotions, wear your heart on your sleeve. Try and make yourself as easy to read as possible.

If your townreads need to end the day and you don't townread the wagon they want, get on the wagon.

How to work with someone is as varied as they are as the player.

I'm someone who needs to hold things. I need to understand why you feel the way you do. There are some reads that I'll always be slower to understand, but I go out of my way to learn them.

You likely cannot work with every single town player in the thread. This hearkens back to Firebringer's thread on Charisma in Mafia. If one townread needs more time to sort something while another needs a shorter deadline, occasionally you might have to make a choice. The important thing is to make everyone feel included in the decision. This is doubly true if they compromise off their lynch.

Town is a team and needs to work off the same playbook. Each player has skills that another does not. You cannot very well have one player think football and another player throw the ball at a basket. You reward yourself for sliding a puck along the ice because it landed a scum lynch. Guess what? The next day will still be harder because town isn't talking to each other but focused on being right.

Some practical tips (even if off the wall):

Look and answer why people feel like you don't work well.

• Is it you post too much?

Try things that make you post less, such as posting exclusively in memes. Sure, it's fake and arbitrary but it slows you way down and forces you to think and gets your point across. It's a strategy I used effectively as town in Borderlands and made it much easier for players to read me.

• Is it that you don't co-operate or viewed as a stick in the mud?

Only vote wagons that have another player on them at the time you vote, and if a wagon is a solo wagon for 48 hours, move your vote. If you can't have your vote on a vanity wagon, then you're naturally going to think in terms of which out of the available choices is good to me.

• Is it that you can't see a particular playstyle's worth but it actually is quite effective?

Identify a town player with that playstyle. Lynch within their scumpool (as long as it has as many suspects as possible scum).