Douglas explained that for the villagers it is always best to lynch someone because otherwise the next day you'll just be in the exact same position with one less villagers' vote against the same number of werewolves' votes. This seems definitely true, but oddly counter-intuitive given that you're more likely to lynch a villager by mistake, the more of them you have.
That reasoning sounds like a bias against inactivity to me. The comparison is between being down 1 villager for sure, or being down {2 villagers, 1 villager 1 werewolf}. That has to be justified on the grounds that killing a werewolf gets you more than killing a villager costs you. Consider your first game, and assume that the players have no information the first round (i.e. you have a day before a night). Lynching someone at random gives them a 1/6th chance of winning, and a 5/6th chance of being at 3 villagers and 1 werewolf day 2; not lynching someone at random puts them at 4 villagers and 1 werewolf day 2. Whether or not that's a good idea depends on the relative chances of villagers winning with 4 villagers and 3 villagers against 1 werewolf. (If villagers have p(win)=.5 with 4, and anything more than p(win)=.4 with 3, then they should go for the random kill. The worse the villager's chances, the more they should be winning to kill randoms- assuming there's only one werewolf.)
If the village never lynches, the game is closed on werewolf victory.
There's also a social dynamic at play. Particularly in larger games, the village tends to split into factions. The wolf wants to encourage this, but doesn't want one faction to defeat the other too quickly. So the wolf wants to plausibly switch sides frequently. When there's no lynch, switching sides has less consequence. The more decisions with consequence that must be made, the more lies the werewolf must tell and more inconsistencies the wolf must reveal.
There is already a post related to this meetup but it concerns a discussion which took place after I had left so I will write about the games of Werewolf. Please post your thoughts too and correct any inaccuracies.
Thoughts:
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Games:
1 GM: {Douglas}, Villagers: {Ramana, Jon, Jonathan, Alexey, Ai}, Werewolf: {Thomas}
Jon mauled. No-one lynched. Jonathan mauled. Thomas lynched. Villagers win.
2 (Seer added) GM: {Douglas}, Villagers: {James, Jonathan, Alexey}, Werewolves: {Thomas, Ai}, Seer {Ramana}
Ramana mauled. Jonathan made Sheriff. No-one lynched. Alexey mauled. Ai lynched. Jonathan mauled. James lynched. Werewolves win.
3 (Sheriff's deputy and wills added) GM: {Douglas}, Villagers: {James, Jonathan, Ai}, Werewolves: {Ramana, Alexey}, Seer: {Thomas}
Jonathan mauled. James made Sheriff. Ramana lynched. Thomas mauled. Alexey lynched. Villagers win.
4 GM: {Thomas}, Villagers: {Douglas, Jonathan, Alexey}, Werewolves {James, Ai}; Seer {Ramana}.
Ramana mauled. Alexey made Sheriff. Douglas lynched. Alexey mauled. Sheriff passed to Ai. Jonathan lynched. Werewolves win.
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This post was partly motivated by this comment in the google group: