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Hello! With new people joining werewolf every game for the last several, and Werewolf 23 going on now, I thought it would be fun to have a question and answer thread going at the same time to help people who are feeling lost, overwhelmed, or confused. This way, if someone has the same question and doesn't want to ask it, they can find the answer!

There are no stupid questions!

Some ground rules first:
1. No intimate details of the game should be discussed publicly. If you have a specific question, shoot me a PM! I'll post an anonymous, edited version of it in here after giving you the answer you seek if at all possible.
2. There is no judgement here. If you think something is obvious, don't be a jerk about it!
3. Use common sense. This goes back to number one, if you think it could spoil the game or be upsetting to another play, just PM me.

All rules are subject to updating as I have proven terrible time and time again at predicting what grey areas people wander into.

With that out of the way, feel free to ask questions! My mailbox is open!

Known first time werewolf players

Just letting you guys in particular know this thread exists now! If I missed anyone, feel free to tag them!
@newvitalania
@The Greenlandic North
@turtle

Earlybird incentive to prove this isn't scary: First 3 people to ask questions will receive 1 Krone each.

Message has been moved to PMs. A version will be available for public consumption shortly.

I just wanted to say that I think this is a great idea! I'm sure it'll be a relief for our new players, now and in the future.

Some questions PM'd to me earlier.

What are some terms that players are going to hear and need to know?

The most common ones I run into when playing are:
Scum/Scummy Used to refer to someone you think is on the wolf team
RVS (Random Vote Stage) Generally the first day of the game where people are throwing around votes to see what sticks.
OMGUS (Oh my god you suck) Used to refer to someone voting another player because they didn't like how they voted, or because that player voted for them.
EoD (End of Day) Pretty self explanatory, you'll see hosts use it a lot in countdowns
CWOC (Contributing without contributing) This is when someone makes a lot of posts about nothing too consequential to the game to look present, but do not make any posts that help town accomplish anything. This terms is frequently applied to players others think are scummy.
EBWOP (Edit by way of post) As edits are very frowned upon and often banned, people will make a double post with this preface to say they are ammending the previous post.
NAI/AI (Not Alignment Indicative/ Alignment Indicative) Used to refer to a piece of information about a player that either does or does not tell you something about their alignment.
MyLo/LyLo (Myslynch and lose/Lynch or lose) Typically discussed at last few day stages, this is the precarious position where the wolves could win or will win if the town eliminates the wrong person. LyLo is even more precarious, where the town must eliminate a wolf that day to not lose.

This is just terms I see frequently, for more information check out the guide!

What playstyles work best to help you avoid dying?

Everyone has to find their own playstyles. What's most important in this game is that you keep it consistent between wolf and villager. A lot of players will have a scum "tell" in their playstyle.

The other thing to be aware of is that no one knows what their playstyle is starting out. It's okay to try different things! I tend to be very off the walls, for lack of a better term, when I play, and I also intentionally will draw sus as a townie as it helps me not get killed off by the wolves. This is a risky tactic however, and I cannot tell you the number of times I've almost been voted off because of this.

Another way to not die is to run around screaming "I'M INNOCENT". This may sound like stupid advice, but a lot of players, especially new wolves, will freeze up upon being the leading wagon. I'm guilty of this as well. You'd be surprised how much good being active and constantly saying you're not the one they're looking for can do.

And when in doubt: Just ask questions. Start with "Why are you voting me?" And follow it up with "okay, but why do you think..." And just keep going until you get in their head. Sometimes this doesn't work, usually on more experienced players, but 7/10 times you can make them second guess themselves.

Also remember that your win condition as Town is not to survive, but to make sure scum dies.

That being said, being obvious Town is a damn good way to get defended in the night phases.

You also make it much easier on Town to win if you are actually Town and they can clearly see it, because then they won't waste time questioning you and your motives, and spend more time analysing actual Wolves.

If you're a Wolf, another thing you can consider doing in order to last is powerwolfing. There's a very nice guide to that here by the legendary @Thingyman.

Oh, and as a follow-up: to seem obviously town, you need to 1) look like you're actively trying to figure out which alignment the players around you belong to (essentially, whether their reasoning, actions and voting patterns seem to benefit the Wolves or the Town), and 2) be active, because many people get very suspicious of lurkers when Town keeps dying and no Wolves are in sight.

Basically don't be me 

New question! Yay!

What's a read list and how do I do one?

A reads list is how you feel about various players in the game. Much like Laurentus's template that can be found here, it uses different tiers to both organize your thoughts and tell others how you feel about them. However, I don't think there should be one set template for reads. You can make yours however you want.

I find using colour particularly helpful when I make mine. I start out by copying the player tag lists from the start of the day, so that I make sure to read every alive player. Then I go through and colour code them: I use Dark green for hard town, light green for slight town, yellow for neutral (tip: goldenrod is a much nicer to read yellow than the default), orange for slight scum, and red for hard scum. I leave players I can't remember anything about in black, indicating a hard null read, meaning I have no thoughts on them due to lack of info. I've used both blue and purple for third party before, meaning I think there is a player who has an outside win condition besides kill the town or kill the wolves in the game.

It's rare that I will bother sorting people by groups in this setup, as the colours do a nice job. I'll then go back and try to add, at minimum, a sentence of thoughts. Even if I hit a null player, I'll usually use that space to ask them a question or throw them a mention, just to see if I can get them coloured in. These thoughts can be as simple as "Gut reading Z because of early posts, open to alternate interpretations." It's simply to help get my thoughts on everyone in order.

Make sure you're updating your reads lists at least once a phase! You don't have to do a full repost, but if something notable happens, make a note of it! That way if people start asking you for reads on someone, you have an accurate list you can throw up at last minute.

Bonus question: What if I'm a wolf?
Still make a reads list! Just make sure you don't throw your teammates all in the red! A good rule of wolfing is to never group your teammates together in your reads. So if there are 4 of you like in this game, put one in your town leans, one in scum somewhere, and one in the middle. If you're having trouble coming up with fake reasons as to why townsfolk might be scum, make something up. Latch onto every insignificant detail possible and start pulling on it, see what comes apart. And remember: not liking someone's post is a valid reason to scumread them. I've seen so many reads lists that go "Haven't liked their content, seems a bit lurky", and no one questions it unless it's completely out of left field.

Hope this helps!

I had a question from someone:

What is a mason?

This one might not be as clear as you would initially think. If you search for the term, you will see it technically means two townies who can enter a PM and discuss things privately, which is a damn powerful advantage for Town. For this reason, most games don't feature this anymore.

When people use it in practice, though, it can also simply mean that one townie trusts another as a fellow townie, and would like to get advice on a current event, quite publicly.

The twist is that, when used practically like this, the player approaching someone else could well be a Wolf, who would like to pick a townie's brain or even use it as a technique to gain trust from that townie. There is also nothing preventing the person being approached from being a Wolf. It could even be two Wolves who want to seem townie by communicating out in the open like this. It is therefore always a risky thing to do, or to have faith in if you're observing it.

With Werewolf 23 now officially being at an end, now's a good time to mention the prevailing theory for solving the game as Town: Look for Town, not scum, and lynch whoever is the least Townie. It works well when you don't have any idea what people's play styles are, but it is not fool-proof

So, since it came up, I feel the need to clarify the difference between a powerwolf and a deepwolf.

A powerwolf is one that actively controls the narrative of the thread, and only rarely lynches one of their own when it probably can't be avoided.

A deepwolf is one that throws their scumbuds under the bus for Town points, as a gambit to remain undiscovered.

The two are not mutually exclusive, and you will often find scum teams and players that combine the two, but I just thought I'd point out the distinction here.

if you die and your team wins, will I be able to get the badge for winning or no?

Yes, you would

if you die and your team wins, will I be able to get the badge for winning or no?

You've been awarded 1 krone for being the second person to ask a question in-thread. One more is still on the table!

Interesting question that Minish's most recent post in WW24 raised;
Is there ever a reason that you, as a regular, vanilla townie not in a Seer Army or anything else would/should allow yourself to get lynched?
I feel like there should be - just as a flipside argument from my assertions about why a D1 lynch is Always Good even if it's 95% of the time going to be a mislynch - but can't I seem to articulate why.