Have you ever wondered, “I want to kick ass and force wolves into submission as I make them question their very reality?”
No, you probably haven’t. But here’s this guide since I notice so many players don’t really know how to gambit correctly.
@Kirefitten
@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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
They usually just get you lynched though, so unless you’re a Jester this is bad either way.
Well one outs PRs, one is just plain scummy and the other is just plain dumb whether you’re town or scum doing it
A gambit needs to accomplish something to be called a gambit. All three accomplish nothing but mess up the village.
Note things such as fake red checks and excessive reaction testing of a mechanical manner may be seen as scummy if you do many in a particular game, and may harm your ability to hard claim should the time come, additionally town might spend some resources into investigating you in some way.
There’s a variety of scum gambits available in setups with PRs that involve fake outing as one when you close to being lynched, although this will usually only buy you a cycle at most
Beginning with the purpose in mind is also a very good starting point for any gambit, as town think what scum/town may do differently in response. As scum just project as much confidence as you can whilst doing it.
I would sort scum gambits into two categories: reactive and proactive.
Reactive is stuff like claiming a clearing role like Priestess or Solic claiming healers who could save someone from a bleed. This bought them valuable time they needed in order to win.
Proactive is anything you can use to push wolf agenda.
In my book town gambits are almost always the most effective as they play with more uncertainty and can be used to gain valuable reactions for later solving.
I am inevitable.
Can you explain this. Because if they do vote isnt that pretty scummy, but if they don’t it seems like NAI to me.
no really though if you need a guide on it you’re not in a position to do it well so just don’t
