[FM] Ritual Mafia 3 - Heretics win!

[Geyde]

Gambit Guide by Alice

@Alice

Still WIP, though.

For the purposes of this guide I will be using three of my recent gambits as an example. They were my Hunter fakeclaim in Forum of Lies 20 ,and my Rolecop bluff alongside my fake red check in M-1 Grand Prix .

Four Questions to Ask Before Doing It.

1. Am I in good standing?

In short, are you being scumread or townread by the other players? Do you have any mechanic getaway that can be used in case your gambit backfires?

If your gambit ends up not working or even worse, backfiring hard then the other players in the match are either going to be more suspicious towards you and the thread’s focus of attention will be on you. If you are being scumread by a lot of people then you should avoid gambitting as this may end up sealing up your fate and causing you to be mislynched.

If you can easily mechanically confirm yourself then this is a good opportunity to gambit as you will remove your odds of being ML’d in a gambit gone bad. However, this will in turn cause you to become the wolves’ number one nightkill target if there are no protectives available, so take caution.

My gambits in M-1 Grand Prix were only possible as I was strongly townread alongside the Doanld and Wayward Son for quickly being on 112’s wagon, meanwhile in the event that I could not bleed people in FoL 20 I would have used Cold Steel as a method to resolve myself.

2. Does the game-state support your gambit?

Would the gambit be both believable, makes sense towards the setup, and would people not object to it?

In short, do you plan on claiming a red check on a player in a setup without cops or where the cop is clearly not you? Or have you previously claimed doctor in the thread? Is there a risk in the actual cop CC’ing you in the process? In either of these cases then the gambit would not work as it is not believable and may even backfire by outing the cop.

A gambit involving mechanics such as fake red checks and whatnot needs for you to either not have claimed previously or claimed a role that aligns with your previous claim, otherwise then the reaction test will always fail as your target knows that you are bullshitting them.

Additionally, if you are fakeclaiming another person’s role then would they immediately CC you? In most times they will not, however if you are being scumread by them then this will only cause them to out themselves, and then CC and mislynch you.

For my example, in FoL20 I basically noticed the sheer amount of Killer claims alongside the fact that I was a Knight, meant that a Hunter being in the game was very unlikely, and then decided to claim Hunter as a method to get people off me and, unsuccessfully, avoid being the night kill. In M-1 Grand Prix I softed Role Cop/JOAT without giving too much information otherwise the real RC/JOAT would have CC’d me, and I also did it before claiming N3 Alignment Cop. The fake red check worked very well as I had claimed cop before, so a red check coming from a cop claim was extremely believable.

3. What are you trying to accomplish?

In short, have your goal in mind when crafting your reaction tests and gambits. I see a lot of people here doing it for no reason at all, and with the gambit risks involved it usually ends up in a net negative for town.

Yes, you will gain reactions, but whaht exactly are you going to do with them?

4. How can your test backfire?

Bad and Common Reaction Tests that You Should Avoid Using.

1. Claiming a player is at L-1.

In short, while using this on players that have been inactive or not reading the thread can work, the results this gambit produces is downright terrible. The reaction garnered from this is almost always NAI and it ends up causing PRs to out themselves too often.

2. Claiming a neutral role.

I’ve done this once to great effect in SFoL28, but at the same time I did follow my four rules on what makes a strong gambit strong rather than claiming neutral for no reason. When claiming a neutral role it’s important to make sure that the role fits in with your behavior during the match to make it believable while also having a clear goal in mind. Claiming neutral just to avoid nightkills is a bad tactic in FoL as it makes you more likely to get killed by a Knight or Hunter or lynched during the day because of the backdraft.

3. Counter claiming PRs.

@Ami
@James

[Ami]

May i have a list from Towniest (top) to Scummiest (bottom) players that have posted?

[Ami]

@Geyde

[Geyde]

I’m not really decided on where to put people yet, but sure.

Likely Town:

Kai
James
Magnus

They exist:

Htm
Baz
Lady

[BlueStorm]

Hoo boy, you should have seen Overwatch FM where Icibalus and Eevee both claimed Lost Wolf in an attempt to get the other to out themselves as scum

Getting themselves both mislynched

[Geyde]

I forgot.
Fireslol is town.

Easily read Town are making me seeth with slight disappointment

[LadyThamasa]

From an early d1 perspective.

Villagers

---

Geyde - Only player actually trying to solve the game here. Restraint to wagon players that can be potential LHF also point to him as likely villager.
Magnus - Tone in generally fits with the thread. Relatively natural posting.
Kai_5 - Overdramatics often point to villagers.

Null

---

HTM - Not much interaction in this case.
Fireslol - Nullest of the null, nothing memorable and everything is off-topic from him.
James - Only reason he’s not in the wolves section is that claiming Wolf here seems to be normal.

Wolves

---

BazingaBoy - Wanted a lynch on Geyde for NAI reasons rather than wolfhunt and then his second wolfread was purely an OMGUS.

[BlueStorm]

I’m pretty certain Kai is town, as it happens - or at least not group scum.

I think they slipped not knowing about Shaman as a heretic class.

[Geyde]

Eevee was shot at night that game.
I dayvigged Ici

[LadyThamasa]

How is Fires V? I see no attempt to gamesolve from him.

[BlueStorm]

Eh, same principle really. A miskill is a miskill.

[Geyde]

If they post, they’re Town.
It’s another case of unfortunate meta.

[LadyThamasa]

How is his posting village-indicative?

[Ami]

Im conviced Baz is the wolf in Geyde/Lady/Baz

/vote Baz

[BlueStorm]

I’d like to leave stuff like that until D2. It’s very easy to just ramble early game in order to give the impression of contribution.

[Geyde]

Comparatively, they’ve only made posts relevant to thread as Town, and haven’t posted very much at all if scum.

I can go over examples if you’d like, but it’s kind of a thing where they are incredibly obvious if scum

[Geyde]

Of course.
That’s the smart play, but I’m not smart.

[LadyThamasa]

How often do you guys rely on meta?

[Geyde]

For low level players it’s one of the only ways to read them.

[BlueStorm]

I’m eternally afraid of scumreading Baz because he just gives off an air of scum in whichever game he plays.

Usually he’s pretty good at reading but doesn’t convey his reads in a very towny manner, if that makes sense.