Hand was scum faction. I thought I told you this in your group PM, sorry. Third-party factions are almost always just 1 player, although some have the ability to convert, so their faction grows, like Astolfo in Carlia's mafia. Racquel was also third-party in Carlia's mafia. Scum and third-party are equally anti-town, though. The only difference is that third-party generally wins by outlasting town and passively eliminating them, while scum wins by actively eliminating them. Whether one or the other is more threatening is something town has to decide on a game-by-game basis. Scum are generally more interested in killing third-party than town are, though, because third-party almost always have the ability to kill.Aira wrote:I'm still confused if Hands were the "darkfriends" or the third faction.
Town: Seanchan
Scum: HoL
3rd Party 1: Racquel
3rd Party 2: Auriona
Third-party play is generally to blend in with the town and scumhunt along with them to strengthen their pro-town alibi. Good town play has to be careful not to be too caught up in scumhunting that they forget about third-party until third-party suddenly wins. This is what basically happened in this game. Town tunneled scum and in the process lost their ability to root out Auriona as a Darkfriend (none of the town had the ability to check allegiance). They also completely forgot about Racquel once scum were all dead. Good town play involves being very active with lynches, and there was only 1 lynch in the whole game, which is why town lost. D4 (and earlier also) should've seen Racquel lynched, but only Carlia voted, and not for Racquel but for Torgor - before they requested to be modkilled.
In the two wotmafia games I've played, I've noticed a strong player aversion to lynching until someone has been outed by alignment investigation - and even then, people are still hesitant to lynch. Rather than arguing during the Day phase about whose behavior is suspicious, which deaths can be accounted for by what actions, and other strategy related things, people have mostly just waited to see what happens after another round of Night actions. This makes it much easier for scum and third-party to win, and more importantly makes it boring to play vanilla townie.
Rig and Adirne both quoted to help their analysis of the game, which is really really good practice. Aldwyn made a reply at some point in a group PM analyzing different people's behaviors and guessing at their allegiance and motivation. I awarded him 5 bagillion boss points for the effort, but he didn't do any more of that. He should've done it publicly, though. That's the kind of discussion that belongs in the Day phase. Carlia's doppleganger would've made a good talking point, for instance.
