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The Village

The majority of the players in any game are almost always members of the village. They are the uninformed majority: as a rule, each member of the village begins the game not knowing who to trust. As the game progresses, members of the village must work out who is lying to them and who is genuine. This is different for the enemies of the village: members of other factions know from the start who their allies are. This is the initial disadvantage of the village, and the crucial mechanism on which the whole game is based!

The village has access to many powerful roles, which excel in different aspects of the game. The village has roles that can defend other players, gather information, and/or kill others players. Unless the role list is given at the start of the game, the village does not know which roles are in the game - generally, only a portion of the total amount of village roles is present in the game. The village members, especially those with special abilities, become increasingly effective the more they work together. A village in which the important members know to trust each other and work together effectively is nearly unstoppable by any other faction. It is therefore crucial that the village members work on finding their allies before their enemies can kill them and/or cunningly infiltrate their ranks!

Tips​

  • The village needs to gather information to become victorious. It is not enough to let the intel roles gather information at night and wait for them. The day phase is a crucial moment for the village to make progress: talk to people, assess whom they (dis)trust and why, what (kind of) role they have, what they think is a good strategy for the game in terms of lynching and role reveals, etc.
  • While gaining information is crucial, any public information will always be used the evil factions as well. Every village member has to assess who benefits most from revealing a certain piece of information. This could be revealing something about your own role to the village or pressuring another player to reveal something about their role. The latter may force an enemy of the village to make a (false) claim about their identity, thereby reducing the room they have to make claims later on. In addition, the player's story can be verified to see whether they were lying or not. On the other hand, forcing another player to reveal their role may expose an important village member to the evil factions. The difficulty is, of course, that you're not absolutely beforehand whether it was wise to force another player to reveal (something about) their identity. This dilemma is an important topic in almost every village discussion, especially in closed setups.
  • It would be ideal if all village members would simultaneously be online and state their role right after each other - this would give evil factions no chance to strategize their false claims and adapt conveniently to whatever village members claim about their identities. Unfortunately for the village, though, this is not possible in the online game - enemies of the village may be online but hide in silence, only speaking if it is convenient and when they have a plan. There is not much you can do against this, because players live in different timezones and may be available on different times of the day due to their personal schedules, so they will have a valid reason to be absent at any given time (of course, sudden disappearances by people can be rightfully questioned). This is a reason why a plan which relies on (almost) all players to participate in simultaneously is doomed to fail in most cases. Only when a few players are left alive, such a plan might work...
  • Honesty is an important trait of the village member. Even if you are wrongfully accused, framed, or victimized in some other way, you have at least told the village your rightful account of the game. Once it is discovered that you are in fact a village member and/or that the people framing you are non-village members, whatever you have said can be accepted as truthful from that moment onwards.
  • Some village members do use lies to find enemies. While the reward may be great if the plan is succesful, lying may also backfire! What if you are killed before you could explain what you were doing, for example? If people find out that you're not telling the truth they may also hold that against you, your enemies included. This is why using lies as village members should usually only be done if you have some failsafes installed. For example, Mason members might use lies more easily than other village members, because they can always vouch for each other...