How do you track?

[PackerFanatic]

I have been thinking about a way of wording this question for a while and I figured I would just get it out there. A lot of you have been playing WW for quite a while and I know everyone has their own ways of tracking the game; be it spreadsheets or word docs or whatever, everyone has their own way of keeping tabs on votes and actions. Without getting into too much "personal" detail (I don't want to cramp anyone's style here), how do you do it? I have been trying to determine the best spreadsheet format to do a better job of tracking myself but it either looks way too messy or is far too complicated to understand and do in a timely manner, so I was thinking if there was anyone out there that had anything or knew of anything that they could share, it would be helpful to the community as a whole.

[Autumn]

I don't think I do anything too special. I usually do a spreadsheet, copy the player list from the thread. I generally do columns for each day and night. I'll list the person's vote, and then whether they are killed or lynched. I also keep a spot for guesses as to role, notes, etc.

I usually then use different pages on the spreadsheet, one for each day's vote. I'll keep the running tally there, and the final vote. Lately I've started just doing that part in a text file, because I find it's hard to copy and paste from the spreadsheet into the forum.

I haven't found a way to integrate all the things you'd want to track into one thing, so I basically just have a bunch of running lists.

[Lathum]

Safe to say I really have no system.

[The Jackal]

It's all in my head

[JAG]

In my head. If I'm trying to do more in-depth analysis, I'll organize my thoughts in Notepad, but I don't keep a running tab of notes.

[Autumn]

I wouldn't even remember who was in the game if I didn't keep track. Actually even with a spreadsheet I usually can't remember who's in the game.

I haven't been doing as much tracking when I'm playing lately though, other than just straight up vote history if I'm around.

[CrimsonFox]

I just use notepad to sort out the votes and that's it really. If I do any serious post analysis I just quote it and type from there, again maybe using notepad to help. Now running the game I needed supermegaspreadsheet and a folder full of pictures.

[Lathum]

I pretty much decide on day 2 who I am going to hound that game and continue to do so until one of us is dead.

[PackerFanatic]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I pretty much decide on day 2 who I am going to hound that game and continue to do so until one of us is dead.

Typically you first, I imagine

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Typically you first, I imagine

Not always. I am always a little surprised when I am night killed.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I pretty much decide on day 2 who I am going to hound that game and continue to do so until one of us is dead.

Makes notekeeping easy. Let me recreate Lathum's notes from the last few games:

Werewolf Game Notes

Autumn

[CrimsonFox]

LOLOLOLOLOL!

[Thomkal]

LOL Autumn, that's great

[Abe Sargent]

I'm an intuitive NP on the MBTI, so I don;t notice things, I certainly don;t keep track of crap, I get intuitions and play it by ear.

[hoopsguy]

When playing, I'll use Notepad for vote counts, and sometimes post #s for stuff I want to recall later. I'll normally break out Excel for games I moderate, due to the extra stuff I usually have to track for the roles in those games.

[Lathum]

I always used an excel spreadsheet as a mod

[Alan T]

I always just did the opposite of whatever Hoopsguy did.

[EagleFan]

For a little while I started to keep a spreadsheet, then switched to a word doc. Then I realized that I was playing poorly and reading way too much into voting patterns. I dumped that knowing that others would post that information at some point.

When running a game it's usually a couple word docs (the number depends on the complexity), or as in the case of the amazing race game I break out a spreadsheet to assist.

Though that does hurt a little as I have forgotten who is in a game sometimes (like last game I kept forgetting Jackal was in it, unless the Flyers were playing that night).

[Danny]

I don't keep any out of thread materials. I either work through stuff in my head or in thread for all to see.

[Danny]

Or through PM's if I happen to be a wolf.

[Narcizo]

Aye - it would probably help a little bit if I wrote down notes on each player but I can't see it being worth it. If I want to target one person in particular I usually just look at "last post made" and pick through that. Get's ruined by people who have an active presence outside of werewolf though.

[Thomkal]

I've tried keeping seperate pages of notes on each person playing, and it helped keeping me focused, and when I reread them to make connections I wouldn't have seen without the notes, but in the end it just became too time consuming.