How to Play the Seer in Werewolf (Mafia name: Sheriff)
If you’re the Seer, you should make your peace with the idea that you’re not going to live to see the end of the game. Your task is to give the village enough solid information to go on that they can go on to claim victory after the wolves kill you. The early game is a gamble for how long you remain hidden, when you choose to reveal yourself (and your intel) depends on how much protection there may be and what percentage of the village you can clear or condemn with your checks.
Checks, Views, Peeks
Depending on the language your game uses, the player you target with your night time role ability might be referred to as your "check", "view" or "peek" - for the purpose of this article, we will use the word "check" to mean the player you targeted.
Check the Players you think will be Alive when you Reveal
It's tempting to check the strong or the vocal players in the game, but these players often make likely night kill targets for the Mafia. Depending on what the meta game for your group looks like, you want to choose a check that is very unlikely to die.
If you're playing on werewolv.es, on the first night the wolves have two basic categories they may choose from. Their choice may be divided between someone that has spoken on Day 1, or someone that hasn't. Further to that avatar bias may factor into their decision (the main character, evil character or an overly cute character can draw more attention from early night checks). The wolves may avoid attacking the main character, thinking that they may attract protection early on. At the time of writing this article, that seems to be the way most wolves lean towards, but meta evolves and no stringent analysis has been done on the data set either.
If you're playing live in your local group that you've been to a few times, you probably have a good idea of who dies early. Do. Not. Check. These. People.
Villager Checks on Living Players are Almost as Good as Finding Wolves
Enough verified, uncontested “cleared” village members becomes a win for the village through sheer weight of numbers alone. Consider the simple scenario where you are the Seer and five players including you are left alive. You have two village checks. In this case, as long as you can convince the village that you are indeed the real Seer, you have won the game. If both are wolves, you have found them through a process of elimination, and killing one today gets you to the final three. If it’s one wolf amongst the two unchecked players, it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake, because you have two chances anyway.