this will be my last post explaining my position about the watcher, then i'll move onto something else, seeing that everyone isn't willing to the challenge the accepted orthodoxy.
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In post 1140, Klick wrote:I really don't care; from a game theory perspective, you don't lynch the strong PR D1 because there's little to gain if they're scum, but there's plenty to lose if they're town.
We lynch someone that looks scummy, and even if Prana is scum and fakes a guilty like under Hoopla's theory, we basically are choosing who looks scummier between Prana and his guilty.
we've already lost most of the utility of the role by it claiming. the only value the role has if its town is that it can sometimes soak up the nightkill. a watcher isn't like a cop where its investigation is so powerful, scum are forced to kill there. the watcher only has a ~10% chance of getting a guilty if scum kill an off-the-radar player - and that isn't even factoring in if scum have a blocking/ninja type role. what information do you think prana can possibly get if he's town?
i'm less concerned about the branch of the possibility tree where prana claims a guilty - and more concerned about the branches where he claims a no result/nobody visited X outcome. what then? this is the most likely outcome if prana is alive D2. do we then waste D2 guessing on that slot? do we give him a pass and let him live to D3 on the guise that we can work it out from a setup spec perspective?
personally, i think the value of scum occasionally killing a town-prana in one branch of the tree + a slither of a chance of a guilty from town-prana in another branch is offset by the possibility of scum-prana living to D3 with a no-result claim, or scum framing a town-prana with a ninja/block/left-field kill, and us mislynching D2 (a day we should be lynching based off flips, rather than trying to outguess wifom).
in klick's
watcher game he so kindly linked, scum had a 1-shot JK - waking up on D2 in the most -EV situations for the town (prana alive with a no-result claim) is the most frequent outcome imo.
people assume all the risk is in lynching the PR, but there is just as much risk the other way in letting a scummy slot live, allowing wifom to fester on later days. there are risks to both. and in my eyes, a watcher claim in this specific instance seems more likely to come from scum imo. and i'd rather lynch scum than put my faith in a blind speedwagon with 36 hours to go.
