Tim Rudisill
United Kingdom
Guildford
Surrey
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A couple of things. First, if you haven't read my other session report (found http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/753500/19-january-2012-sessi... ), I suggest you read it first. I explain the rules we use which I don't feel like explaining again. Second, I moderated the first couple of games and this is the only one that I remember well enough to transcribe. Sorry about that.
We had very few actual real villagers in this game. Most everyone was a special role which certainly contributed to the beat-down. (I think there might have not been a single villager in the game, actually.) There were 15 players and we had both vampires and werewolves in the game.
I look down at my card: Seer. I'm very ecstatic as I rarely get this role. Now - to utilize it properly. I don't remember who we voted in as the Mayor, unfortunately.
We go to sleep. We wake up to find that no one has died. Hmm... theories abound. Tough Guy? A good Bodyguard guess? The Cursed? Werewolves being mean to the village and just not picking anyone? (Slim chance of that...) Well, my first look was to the person on my right: not a vampire or werewolf.
I begin to hear some chatter to my left. Someone claiming that they were attacked twice last night (by both vampires and werewolves, presumably). Out of 15 players and the werewolves and vampires both picked the same target? Well, it could happen, but the likelihood? Not very high. I'm immediately suspicious. I tell this to him (J) straight up. J happens to be very good friends with M, one of our female players. After a couple of minutes, I'm still skeptical of J's claim of being attacked twice, but I had heard chatter that it was M who protected J. I go up to M, hoping to verify this story. After all, if both are claiming this story ... there might just be some merit to it. M verifies that she did protect J and that her power was activated twice last night, so J was indeed attacked by both teams on team evil. To trust her or not? As the seer, I desperately want the bodyguard's protection. But I don't want to blow my identity too early. I still haven't told the guy beside me that I know he's safe (too much whispering pegs one as the seer), but if this is the bodyguard then I can ask for their protection every round. Okay, I'll take the risk. I tell M that I'm the Seer. Her story will be verified if there's no vampire death after the vote, so I'll learn pretty quickly whether my gamble pays off.
My logic was this: why would they bluff the double-protection? If it's a lie to fish out the seer, they would have told more people (they only told about 5 of us that I could tell). It's also impossible to carry this on for more than one day, since it will be verified as soon as we lynch. I assume the Bodyguard spoke the truth. If the Bodyguard did speak the truth then obviously M is safe: the only role that he could possibly be that is on team evil is the Sorcerer. Otherwise both evil teams would not have attacked him. I decide that both are safe.
Time to vote for a lynch. I know 4 people who are safe (myself, the guy beside me, M and J). We decide on who to lynch. Once again, my memory fails me and I can't remember who we decided to lynch, but I do remember his role: the Prince. The village is distraught but I'm excited as hell. (My logic was that we now had another villager who was 100% confirmed to be safe. You treasure those people.) Sure enough, no one died from the Vampire attack, confirming the Bodyguard's story. I am trying to tell M to protect the Prince (the obvious target) instead of me, but she is literally on the other side of the circle and I can't just scream it out. She gives me a funny look but I'm not able to communicate enough and we go to sleep. She ends up protecting me.
What a lucky break. I was attacked that night, though I don't remember which team did it. I checked the guy to my left, he was safe. The player to the right of the Prince speaks up: the Moderator screwed up last night and didn't initiate trouble but will do it today. She, L, is the Troublemaker. We have 14 players left and I'm already confident we will win. Let's look at this: Prince is confirmed, Bodyguard and the person she protected the first night are confirmed, the Troublemaker is confirmed (well, after the first lynch), and I know the 2 people to my sides are confirmed. This gives us 7 villagers out of 14 people still alive. I'll take those odds any day of the week. Of course, I'm a bit suspicious that one of the 2 I've checked are a Minion or Sorcerer, but hey - the sheer fact that there are so many of us means that they have to go along.
As part of the chat, I learn that we have two people claiming to be diseased: one is J and the other is another player who I can't remember. I'll call him A in the meanwhile. So, we have two players claiming the same role. Obviously, one is lying. But which one? I am immediately suspicious of A. M is obviously safe, so I don't see why he would lie. I'm gauging the opinion of those around me and I literally open my mouth to call out for A's lynching. As soon as I do, A looks at me and says, "I believe M." (HUH?!) "I know we were claiming the same role. I'm still claiming that role, but I know that M is trustworthy. He's safe."
What a weird thing to say. I go over and speak with A about this. He tells me that he (A) is indeed the Diseased, but M is another role where he just doesn't want to have his role exposed. I go speak with M and ask her, "Have you told anyone else that I'm the seer?" She says that she has not. "Okay, then I'll check A tonight to make sure he's safe and we won't lynch him just yet."
We ended up deciding on a random person to vote for and he was the Apprentice Seer. Oops. Well, I'll just make sure I don't die. Not so hard, right? hahaha. We all wish. Anyway, we have to do a second lynching. Excellent! L is now confirmed to be the Troublemaker. We are 7 strong with about 13 left. We end up voting for someone else we were suspicious of and were rewarded with a Werewolf kill.
I was very nervous that night. I would not have the Bodyguard's protection and there were two evil teams out there. I did look at A and he was clean. He was also attacked by werewolves. He revealed his role ... Diseased. So he was telling the truth. Interesting.
I tell the person to my left that I had checked them two nights ago and I knew he was safe. Funnily enough, he had just decided that I was the Seer and had told his Vampire overlord that I was the Seer. Not that I knew that, of course. Well, I decided we had a strong enough hand. Seven confirmed villagers still alive, only about 12 players left. I make an announcement to the group: "I'm the Seer. I checked the two people beside me and A. A's dead, but the two beside me are safe. Also, I am 100% confident that the Prince, L, M and J are safe. That gives us 7 confirmed villagers, assuming you all believe me. Either I'm playing an incredibly risky gambit or you can trust me."
Why did I do this? Well, I knew team evil could still win, but their odds were stacked against them. Also, M would be able to protect me tonight and I just made myself a very juicy target to both teams. The timing seemed to be perfect.
We picked someone who seemed suspicious. We were rewarded with the second (and last) werewolf. Sadly, that means the Diseased's power was all for naught, but I'll still take a dead werewolf any day of the week.
And yes, there was only 1 vampire left and the majority of villagers were confirmed. This game was over. We cruised into the easy victory at this point.
Remember earlier when I said that two people were claiming the Diseased? Well, I found out after the game ended that J was actually the Tanner. Awesome for him, he was attacked by both the Werewolves and Vampires the first night. Unlucky for him, the Bodyguard protected him. He didn't die the whole game. I'm still confused as to why he decided to bluff Diseased instead of something else, but I won't complain too much since we won. 
This game is an example of too many roles. Plus, everything fell into place for the villager team. Since there was two evil teams, they both assumed the other would kill the Prince. Neither did. Both attacking the same person as the Bodyguard protected? Two safe villagers. The Troublemaker announcing when they stir trouble? Safe villager. It was the perfect storm for the Village and resulted in one of the easiest wins I've ever seen.
I want to stress the first sentence of the above paragraph because I feel it is important: This was an example of too many roles. The villagers might be boring but without them the game can too quickly be broken. I think we learned that lesson with this game and I'm grateful for it. No disrespect meant if the moderator is reading this - it was incredibly fun and that's all that really matters. But in terms of being a challenge, having that many roles certainly favors the villagers.
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Yao-ban Chan
Australia
Melbourne
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Re: 26 January 2012
I don't want to take anything away from your reports, which are interesting and good reads - but could I suggest that you retitle them? Calling them things like "26 January 2012" does not exactly scream excitement, or anything else other than "we played a game on this date, you'll have to read it to see if you want to read it", and really undersells what is otherwise a good report.
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Tim Rudisill
United Kingdom
Guildford
Surrey
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You are absolutely correct. I really should put as much effort into the title as I do the writing itself. I'll sit and think for a good hour trying to remember as many details about the game that I can, yet when it came to titling it, I was lazy. Thank you for the input and I've changed both titles. I'll make an effort to come up with something fun and creative for future session reports (as long as people enjoy reading them, I'll continue to post them). Also, thank you for the kind words.
And while I'm typing this up, if anyone from my Werewolf group reads any of my reports and wants me to add anything to them, please either post here or just let me know. My memory is terrible and I'm really not trying to be insulting if I forget who was what role or leave out a key detail. There's already a lot missing simply because one person does not know everything that goes on in a given game.
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Jim Andrew
Indonesia
Bandung
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well 2 werewolves and 1 vampire seem too few for 15 players game, especially when there's so many special role.. i dont know what the other roles are though, but the moderator could have added some events in case of things are going too easy for 1 team
it seems like an interesting session though, with so many coincidences and all.. very well written
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Tim Rudisill
United Kingdom
Guildford
Surrey
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Thinking back on it, I believe we had 2 werewolves and 2 vampires, plus a vampire minion. I'm not 100% sure on this, though. Honestly, everything past that 3rd or so round is just a blur in my memory. Once we got that big lead built up, I pretty much just went on mental cruise control and stopped paying a lot of attention.
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Greg Wilson
United Kingdom
Bristol
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Interesting read. I always like hearing about how different groups play this game, since it varies so much from one group to another.
Yeah, too many special roles can really break a game, especially if the role selection is known or partly-known. All-special games can be done, but they're very hard to balance. On the forums it would usually involve a hidden roleset and/or cover roles, and it's still rare.
Put it this way; say you have a thirteen-player game with three wolves and ten villagers. If each of those villagers is a named role - no special abilities, just names, Baker and Farmer and Barmaid and so on - then with optimal play from the village they literally can't lose. If you then add in all those special abilities, particularly since some of them can effectively prove themselves, yeah, it's tough on the bad guys.
I like about half the players to be plain villagers. Anything less than a third and you're definitely opening yourself up to potential problems.
It sounds like your group's playstyle might also help the village somewhat, with people being allowed to move around and have private conversations, and the moderator apparently giving out more information than I would consider necessary. The voting system helps evil out a bit in turn, though, compared to the slower nomination-and-defence method.
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Scott G
United States
Salt Lake City
Utah
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I would generally discourage no normal villager set-ups. I agree with Greg, 1/3-1/2 or player should be normal villagers. Anything less and you end up with a game that plays you instead of you playing it. When the moderator wakes you up and says, "No one died last night" or "Two people died last night" and the players end up saying, "Well that could have happened any one of seven ways," you aren't really having fun because you can't have any deduction. Yes it may suck to be a "normal" villager, but it's quite necessary to the game.
As well, you don't want too large of chain reactions. "Oh, this person died and because of that, seven more people died.... game over!"
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Posted Sat Jan 28, 2012 5:15 am
