Tbh I was gonna write some long in-depth thing but it really just obfuscates the four main things that I always do. So here's the 4 main things and the rationality behind why regardless of your style, every single town player should
DO
these 4 things every time. After that I'm going to outline the qualities A, B and C that good town players usually
HAVE
, and why consistently doing these four things will automatically encourage you to have those qualities and to constantly improve. It doesn't matter if you go by logic, gut, tone or whatever else, if you aren't doing all four of these things you're being a burden to the rest of the town.
In essence, it's like a guide to consistently
doing
4 things that will ensure you
have the qualities to be a good player.
It doesn't mean you'll always be good. Depending how fast you learn these types of things or just how much effort you put into it, you may never be good. Maybe it's not your thing. Who knows, but I know that you'll get good faster by doing these things than by not regardless of whatever else you do to be good.
Town should:
1. figure out who is scum for themselves, push their scum targets
2. do and say things that help town figure out who is scum
3. if they have a strong scum read, play to persuade the town that they're scum
4. be cooperative, don't push your town-reads
1 is self-explanatory. Town are supposed to find scum. Pushing on scum is about continued pressure and consistency. Town should always, always, ALWAYS focus on their TOP scumread at any given time. You have ONE vote, don't diffuse the impact of it with shitty 'FoS' or by being unsure about it. You have to feel the remorseless murder in your veins and genuinely hope the person you're voting is gonna get lynched. None of this 'info lynch' shit or 'voting for information' - gtfo with that. I don't care if your personality is cripplingly indecisive (like me) because this game doesn't reward indecision.
This inherently means that you don't make scum association tells either - you focus on your BEST scumread at any given time, even if you're often wrong. It's irrelevant, you need to build pressure on your top scumread so that you can sort that slot either by running it up to a claim or simply by lynching it. This also has the caveat that your top scumread can change and that's fine, but you should always be focused on whatever your current top scumread is.
2 is something town rarely do. Asking questions that apply pressure to scum is hard tbh. A lot of people make a big song and dance about how people 'avoid' questions, but the fact is that most people ask really shitty questions like, "why did u vote this person????" - like who cares numbnuts, I'd never answer that question either - it's dumb. They voted the person because they thought they were scum obviously, so don't ask useless questions that fill the thread with pointless non-AI shit. Instead ask: "why is that person your top scumread?" - this is better. You're interpreting a vote for what it's meant to represent, which is intent by a player to lynch someone. Any other vote is dumb. If you're one of those people who vote for other reasons, stop being dumb.
To ask good questions and understand the game properly, you need to think about whether or not the question you're about to ask is going to result in something alignment-indicative. Not everything is AI either, about 85% of a game is white noise that means nothing from a town perspective imo, and you just ignore it and stop worrying. Lots of people will disagree with me I bet, and lots of those people will be bad at town play too (for numerous reasons). When I go into the qualities that good town players have, this will become more understandable as to why.
3 is just a basic thing. You know I don't really care if you have a history of shit reads. If you come across the event where you really think someone is scum, do something about it. This game is a game about interpreting human psychology more than anything - we're all innately geared for it. Some better than others, but we all have the ability to parse communication and determine intent. Don't be a doormat and sheep people for no reason. Explained further in qualities also.
4 is probably the most infuriating thing for scum players to deal with, and something town players don't do enough (if at all). Co-operating with a townread doesn't mean you're going to do everything they say, it's about fostering an environment where you work together and where you discuss and consider things from alternate perspectives, to ensure you're not missing out on important information. A lot of shit people say is noise, but if you have a townread that's really strong - just make a townblock. It doesn't matter if you're wrong, you can always backtrack and realise why they're scum and explain it later. Putting them in a position to cooperate with you is also extremely uncomfortable for scum to do - they have to make a big song and dance about why they don't want to do what you do, or about why they're quietly letting you lead mislynches - it's honestly fine to put scum in your townblock. Keep your friends close, and your enemies CLOSER :^)
Also this isn't related to 4 but one really, really important thing: never, EVER argue with a strong scumread. Just don't. If they're scum, they aren't going to just paste their Role PM and go, "welp, u got me
((((" are they? No, they're going to be a huge nerd and annoy the fuck out of you and possibly make you look even worse than they look in the process. If they're town after all, you're just going to piss both of you off too or demotivate them. If you think they're scum, state why, try convince other people and then VOTE them. Your vote and your arguments do the talking, don't have a shitfight. You're making everyone bored and not helping convince people to vote them either. You should be able to convince your reason for scumreading someone to 3 or 4 decent reasons. You don't need more. Past a certain point the length of your post is really just extra length for the sake of length. Brevity is the soul of wit, and people love witty people (if only superficially) which means you'll be more convincing by being funneh and k00l than you ever will by being like DiamondSentinel who's fucking terrible to play with because his post-length-to-content-ratio is almost negative.
Qualities of a good town player:
a. accurate
b. cooperative
c. towntells
Being accurate means you need to know how to find scum. You can't get better at finding scum if you don't try to find them. So you do 1 and 2 consistently and over time you'll find you start to have quality A (accuracy). You trust your own reads even if it seems to suck - because you need to learn from your mistakes and learn how to avoid those same mistakes. You don't get brownie points for being 'less wrong'. Learn how to be right more often, not how to avoid being wrong. It's just stunting your progress.
Being cooperative is really basic. If you townread someone, cooperate. Share reads, share ideas, share your mutual <3 for giving the murdercock to scum. Don't call people dumb for having different reads. Also it's important to work on your accuracy because it teaches you WHO to cooperate with.
Also one PROTIP that I play by: I always investigate people whose alignment I need to be sure of, as opposed to just trying to find scum. If you can't read someone, you should probably Cop them. Same goes for any slot that lots of people, "can't read" for whatever reason. Don't let those people be a mislynch while you arrogantly try to investigate your really strong scumread so you look all smart and stuff. If you have a strong scumread you should have at least some faith in your own ability that you don't need to waste a cop/investigate shot on them.
Towntelling should be really easy if you are doing at least 2/4 (ideally 3/4) of these things every game. If you're getting lynched despite doing these you're beyond my help.
~
what a shit guide
Ever.