Delegator Strategy — Placing Your Vote
The Delegator's rules (no self-delegation, chaining, and abstaining when your trustee abstains) are collected in the role dictionary: Delegator. This column is about where that vote goes.
The Delegator leans on others — beginner-friendly, mostly
The Delegator carries a light reasoning load: your one vote can be left to someone else's judgment. Note that delegating only entrusts your one vote — the village's total number of votes does not change.
And it cuts both ways
A Delegator's reads drift from "hunt the wolves" toward "find the whitest villager to trust" — and that changes the whole table. Werewolf tables have always caught impostors partly because the anti-village never really hunts — a seated Delegator gives "not hunting" a legitimate cover story, and that trick gets harder. Entrust a seat with confirmed information — an uncontested Seer, say — and that player's vote now lands with double weight.
∴ The axis is not "who do I trust" — it is "who knows more than I do?"
Trust a confirmed role, or a village-looking seat
| Trustee | How it plays |
|---|---|
| A confirmed role (an uncontested Seer claimant, say) | Information gains weight. Strongest while the read is right |
| A village-looking seat with reasons and volume | Judgment quality rises — but if they're a wolf, you handed a wolf two votes |
| A quiet seat | ⚠️ If they abstain, your vote vanishes with theirs |
The last row is the one to avoid at all costs. For a Delegator, your trustee not voting is you not voting. "This player will definitely vote" outranks "this player looks village".
Announcing the delegation — the wolves hear it too
Say it, and the village can plan around "that seat carries two votes". But the wolves hear the same thing — your trustee becomes a likelier bite.
Early game, announcing tends to pay (the village's math works out loud). Endgame, on days one vote decides, staying quiet keeps the count unreadable.
Kill the vanishing patterns in advance
As the role dictionary tables it: cycles (delegating to each other) and a trustee's death or absence also turn into abstentions. With several Delegators seated, or your trustee drifting toward execution, re-placing the vote is part of the job.
⚠️ In a runoff vote, every valid trustee can disappear (the tied players can't be chosen). Then your vote automatically becomes a normal one — it doesn't vanish — but you're suddenly voting directly when you'd planned not to. Walk into every runoff with your own target already chosen.
Common mistakes
- Trusting a quiet seat — one abstention upstream and your vote is gone. The Delegator's worst accident.
- Believing "delegating = the safe choice" — a wolf trustee is a wolf holding two votes.
- Keeping the endgame trustee from the early game — the night your trustee gets bitten, your vote has nowhere to land.
A scene
The 7-Player Beginner Deck (Twins 2, Delegator 1, Knight 1, Seer 1, Werewolf 2). You were the Delegator.
Day one: the Seer claimed. You delegated to the Seer — and said so. The village debated knowing the Seer's vote counted double.
Night one: the wolves bit you, not the Seer — removing the Delegator collapses the Seer's two votes back to one. The Knight had guarded the Seer, so the bite landed on you.
…That is not a failure. One bite went somewhere other than the Seer — a village profit. But had you kept quiet, the wolves would never have found the move; they'd likely have bitten the Seer straight into the guard.
Which outcome is better depends on the board. Remember the announcement as a trade: the village's easier math for the wolves' easier target.
Related
- The role dictionary: Delegator — chains, abstentions, and cycles
- Seer Strategy — the Credibility Fight — the strongest seat to entrust
- The 7-Player Beginner Deck — Roles and Rules — the one standard deck with a Delegator
- Glossary — Delegating, Executions left, Parity