Public Pregame Chat in Game Thread

[yessiree]

idk why the practice of leaving a game thread open during pregame isn't more common
imo it doesn't really give one side any advantage
it gives people something to do while waiting for the confirmations to roll in, etc...
it's a great way to scratch people's itch to fluffpost/shitpost without being held accountable for it, because it's pregame
it's fair game for both sides - anyone can choose to/not to participate, how/when to participate in the pregame chat
additionally it can help provide a warm start when the game officially begins

so, mods, why don't you allow pregame chat?

[yessiree]

I've allowed players to post in pregame in pretty much every game I've hosted. One complaint I've gotten from players is that what ends up happening is that players go through RVS twice since while I count votes during pregame, I don't allow lynches to occur. Also, from my experience, starting with thread unlocked tends to lead to a slower game. One possible solution to this is to allow players to be lynched in pregame, but I feel that's unfair to the players that have not confirmed yet.

i dont think allowing votes to count in pregame is a good idea tho
im also confused as to why players feel like they are going through RVS twice when the purpose of pregame chat is to get it out of their system in order to prevent RVS from happening at all when the game starts

Since people have their role PM's, pregame chat is just starting the game before it's supposed to be started. There's no way to prevent people playing for real in pregame, nor can it even really be said that anything in pregame isn't playing for real.

So you're just starting the game early. Well, that means that by definition you're starting before enough people are ready, which is going to cause a disorganized staggered start that's going to decrease the amount of interaction in the (very important) early pages, and the lack of voting means that by the time RVS is possible it may not be RVS, completely short-circuiting that phase. It makes the game start slow and uneventful, rather than exciting and something to be looked forward to.

All for what? So the players can chat? We have GD for that.

we already get staggered start all the time tho?
not everyone is going to be present the moment a game starts. the first couple pages usually include interactions from a very small subset of the whole playerlist anyway. that's just the nature of a forum-based mafia

and why is it such a big deal that the game starts in pregame and people play for real? sure, people that haven't confirmed yet won't be participate but what difference does it make compared to starting normally? imo there's little to no difference

[yessiree]

I remember being very annoyed when the game thread would have like 6 pages by the time I had the opportunity to even check my role PM... and it would just be 2-3 people endlessly maneuvering around each other in a way that was useless for anybody else to really do anything with

so essentially I'd be starting the game at a disadvantage because inevitably the game is going to start off from there

and that's assuming something comes of it; a lot of the time it's just pointless noise that makes going through the thread later on less palatable

i assume this is a normal game start
the thing is, if this was in pregame, you have the option to just brush it off as non-content, nope dont even have to read'em. now, can other players use this to get a read on you, maybe. but what you decide to do with it is ultimately up to you

and secondly the "content" that gets generated early game to a large extent is going to depend on the playerlist, and this is true for both a pregame start and the normal start