68 points | by helsinkiandrew6 hours ago
Also, I have watched a bunch of series and I have not once noticed anyone click the obvious “hack”: the last person to enter the breakfast room after a kill night is almost always a faithful, because of the TV cliffhanger of viewers hanging on which of two faithful survived. It’s the best truth signal the game gives and I’ve never seen a player mention it. Maybe TV edits the knowledge out.
I suspect most of the players are still trying to identify and eliminate traitors though: they do seem genuinely surprised/disappointed when a faithful is banished. It is quite scary how they latch onto tiny things and become convinced. I suspect that as soon as the faithful feel they are being targeted, they feel pressured and act in ways that reinforce everybody's ideas about them. Defensiveness gets interpreted as guilt very easily.
It's really hard to know whether this transfers to the jury system. It's hard for there to be an open discussions about how decisions get made by juries because people obviously can't talk about their experiences. To me juries feel like the 'least worst' way to make such decisions and you do need to be unanimous or extremely close to unanimous if the judge gives permission for that.
I wondered about the order of entry at breakfast too, but I've read that they film the scene in multiple permutations so they can't just figure it out from that. I don't know if that is accurate that film different permutations, but I find it hard to believe that nobody has cottoned on to the idea that the last couple of people in are faithful.
I served on a criminal trial jury (U.S.) for 3 weeks and when the trial was over, there was no restriction on who I could talk to or what I could say about the experience.
tbf, they're also strongly incentivised to look surprised and disappointed when a faithful is banished.
And for that matter to latch on to someone else's wild suspicions even if they're daft, because if that person's theory turns out to be wrong (or even if it's right!), you're unlikely to be the person targeted for going along with it. Jury service doesn't come with the expectation that you're likely to be voted out by teammates or "murdered" if you come up with a decent counterargument or spot something tangible that nobody else does.
I think most people has a very low capacity for living with uncertainty. They much rather believe something random, e.g. whatever religion (or conspiracy theory) at hand, than admit that they can't know.
Uncertainty is demanding as it requires you to look at things from multiple angles/reasons and evaluate all options. It is much cheaper to just select a default reason. This is especially true for creating social cohesion in a group.
I don’t think it necessarily reflects how a jury etc works. If you acquit, you don’t have to choose someone else to accuse. You’re not going to face accusations yourself. You don’t have to repeat the process every day.
On your second point, I’m sure the UK second season changed the order to eliminate that, but it’s back this season. I’m sure a player mentioning it would be edited out though, so it’s hard to know if anyone assumes it’s still the case.
I think this is the mechanism propaganda takes advantage of. Where there's a gap in people's understanding, they can very easily inject their version of events into people's heads and people will broadly accept it. The knowledge vacuum wants to be filled when pushed for a decision. In fact it doesn't even need to be this highly overt form that we saw in the 20th century dictatorships, even relatively weak forms can still grip hard and then people are reluctant to walk back from them after the fact.
Some would accuse faithfuls of potentially being traitors merely for voting differently to how the group had done previously, on tenuous information, even though they had no idea whether the person they voted for was a traitor or not! Here we see how, when intentionally directed, propaganda can sustain the creation of the scapegoats out of those who dissent.
I agree, some of the theories they come up with are insane and I feel like this (UK) season in particular is characterised by a lot of tribalism and anti-intellectualism.
Against that, we have to remember that the aim of the show is to be as entertaining as possible to as many people as possible. Interpersonal drama is more popular than explorations of game theory, so I suspect casting was based on who would be the most entertaining rather than the best at the game. I also think the editing plays a big role in presenting viewers with a particular narrative. They can probably quite easily cast people as being good or bad, smart or stupid.
Personally I have always thought the game was inherently quite stacked in the traitors' favour. Ultimately information is absolutely crucial to the game, and the traitors have a lot more of it (at the start of the game, they are arguably the only ones who have any at all).
It was called "Werwolf" and I hated it so much that I stopped participating after one game IIRC (I was very fun at parties).
Reading up on it, it drew from the mentioned "Mafia" idea mentioned here.
Would have never known, interesting submission.
For me running it (i.e. Being the "god", the narrrator etc.) is much more fun in such a context, as it's more about storytelling.
The main problem is that the game is quite unfun for the first 2-3 days: it's basically impossible to know who's who, so any sneeze, look or being the first one to speak will instantly make you a target of the crowd. There was a guy who just was a chatty guy and always started the conversation and he almost never made it past day 1. Absolutely unfair and unfun.
Whenever he wasn't killed on day 1 it was always due to someone standing up to the obvious unfairness and getting themselves killed, while he would get to live 1 extra night.
That's why we started adding extra unconventional roles and rules, to make up for this. For example, having a necromancer, who could turn a dead into a ghost who could do an action once. These changes would require to be more than 15 people, as you need to adjust the mafia in response.
The format is fun, the basic rules get boring pretty fast, given how newbies tend to play.
On the other hand, competitive mafia seems more about ninja communication and discussion, also I think they can also skip a voting.
For those who cannot do this, they will experience true pain, broken trust, and leave with friendships fundamentally changed. If this sounds like you, do not play this game!
Well, maybe should give the type of game another try. Tastes change and at the age at which my friends played "Werwolf", I was pretty much hating myself and everything around me so maybe I'd enjoy it today :)
Someone mentioned Blood on the Clocktower <https://bloodontheclocktower.com/> which has many more roles and a more complicated game that can take hours. The upside is that you aren't out of the game when you are eliminated.
In the other direction, there is a One Night Ultimate Werewolf ruleset <https://www.wargamer.com/one-night-ultimate-werewolf/review> that leads to a much faster game because it's not iterated.
This is at its worst in the second Australian season, which is an incredibly frustrating watch.
Does playing smart advertise you as smart on a popular TV show, while minimizing the tedious reality-TV drama that you have to go through? The expected winnings aren't all that much. And most (desirable) employers are would rate "smart" as a more desirable trait than to "gullible" or "underhanded".