Role Reveals and Winning the Game as Villagers

[Barkeep49]

So it seems to me that the werewolf dynamic, generally speaking is this:
Villagers get numbers
Wolves get information and coordination

With-in this dynamic with games where there are many roles, and those roles are public, I don't understand why mass role reveals aren't the norm. Forming a COT is, I think, the way the villagers win the game. The last two games prove this perfectly:
In the Ancient Rome game the wolves were able to disrupt any COT from ever effectively forming and won the game
In this latest game the villagers were able to use a COT to identify potential bad guys and narrow in on Wednesday, after some previously good luck.

Anyhow, it seems to me that the reason we were able to form this COT was because of all the roles we had revealed and the verification we were able to do. Essentially it seems like the mass reveals I advocated was followed even though I received a great deal of scorn for it on Day 1. As was noted in that game I advocate this policy regularly, and am regularly told I'm wrong.

So why is this? Is this just a case of where what is good collectively may be harmful individually and thus make people disinclined to do it? I'm really curious about what people think about this topic.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The danger is always outing the important roles, leading to the wolves picking those off early. That's why a degree of discretion is necessary. I think it's always important to get as much information out there as you can without compromising anything important.

You were wrong in the recent Shadow game IMO, as mass reveals on day 1 would have led to someone important getting picked off that night, instead of KWhit. The reason the revealing worked is that people did a very good job of waiting until the time was right to reveal role-related info — when they had useful information, or someone else could back them up.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

You were wrong in the recent Shadow game IMO, as mass reveals on day 1 would have led to someone important getting picked off that night, instead of KWhit.

But.... But.... I was important. Really.

[SnDvls]

I agree w/ Mr. W on this.
BK your ended up rignt in that the mass role reveal helped us win the shadow game, but if we had done it too early it could have actually cost us. Also much of the last game depended on how the "yet to be converted" played. I could have chosen an easy route to help myself get converted and chosen to make potions that would have helped the shadows, but chose to stay loyal to the cult for as long as I could and made my moves that way and if I was turned so be it, but I was playing for a victory.

[hoopsguy]

If the game metrics make it a good play, I'm all for revealing info early and often. But from a moderator standpoint, I try to put together games where this is not some kind of a trap for the wolves. I guess I feel like a game that favors Day 1 reveals is stifling some of the creativity of play. And I know that it is encouraging a different kind of creative play, but it still doesn't fit my internal vision for what these games are all about.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

If the game metrics make it a good play, I'm all for revealing info early and often. But from a moderator standpoint, I try to put together games where this is not some kind of a trap for the wolves. I guess I feel like a game that favors Day 1 reveals is stifling some of the creativity of play. And I know that it is encouraging a different kind of creative play, but it still doesn't fit my internal vision for what these games are all about.

I agree. Which is why the original setup is so strong, with just a few key roles, a few wolves, and a bunch of villagers. That makes a simple role reveal/COT impossible until you have a few days worth of voting and comments. Those games are usually the most fun.

[Peregrine]

Well when I considered the role reveal strategy in my recent game, I tried to protect the Shadow and Sun players - the Sun players had cover roles, and the Shadow players could just reveal their normal roles. I figured that the cultists might try a role reveal, but it would also reveal some of their critical roles for possible conversion - I figured this would be a counterbalance and they could decide which way they wanted to go.

[Barkeep49]

There's a very small subset of games where a D1 mass reveal should even be discussed and hoops I don't think you've had a game like that yet. To me the only time to even talk about it is in a game where everyone has a unique role (or perhaps there is some minor overlap).

[path12]

I don't see it being viable in the upcoming game, which is more of a team ruleset.

[Narcizo]

In the Rome game the idea (controlled bidding sort of = role reveals) actually gave the wolves a huge advantage in terms of misdirection. Of course had it been stuck with then it would have caused the wolves problems but there's a lot of things to be considered when deciding whether to do it or not. It's certainly something the person running the game has to think about as there are clearly circumstances under which it will give the villagers a huge advantage.

[Barkeep49]

See Narc, I think the Roman game proves my point. The villagers didn't really bother to act in such a way as to undermine the wolves advantages and so we took advantage of it, and even with a mistake or two of our own were easily able to win.

[Alan T]

I think seeing how Peregrine's game ended up, if we had gone with barkeep's plan we would have ended with 1 of 2 scenerios depending on the people involved:

1) We instantly find who the sorceror and Artifactor are, the people with roles able to inhibit them night 1, and we take them out quick.

2) We find out who the sorceror and Artifactor are, and think it can't be that easy, second guess ourselves and go other routes , while letting the bad guys know exactly who to go after and who not to.

I think if #2 happened there, we would have lost the game due to role reveals. If #1 happened, we would probably have won the game a day quicker or two but thats it. I know that things like Swaggs being able to catch them one night wouldn't have happened because they would have known to avoid him. I actually didn't really comment much about Swaggs play there, but if intentional, I thought it was really well done. I went into that night believing he was the Signifier, and wasn't suprised at all that they had targeted him.

I think a more likely scenerio to a mass role reveal game would be if enough people buy in, alot of the good guys would reveal a role, perhaps 1 bad guy would do some fake reveal, and there would be a handful of people who disagreed with the strat while being good that wouldn't reveal. You then spend the next few days hunting through those good people while the bad guys run amok.

The big thing in games like WW is that with 10-25 individual minds, any plan that requires EVERYONE to buy in to it likely will never get off the ground fully, and a plan like this half done won't work.