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.
If the village never lynches, the game is closed on werewolf victory.
Sure. I expect it's a solid strategy for the villagers to lynch if there's any evidence to single someone out, and possibly even in the absence of such evidence (I can't model tells and suspicion well enough to do the relevant math). But that needs to be grounded in "we're better off lynching than not," not "we have to do something!" There are probably scenarios where inactivity is a better option.
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: