The AoPS Resistance Newbie Guide

Rules of the Game
Obviously, when you play a game like Resistance, you need to follow the rules. In this case, your goal is to either get three missions to succeed or fail, based on your role.

In a newbie game, there are two types of roles: Rebel and Spy. The rebels do not know who each other are, but the spies do. Normally, there are six rebels and three spies. If a rebel gets on a mission, they must support the mission. If a spy gets on a mission, they can either support or sabotage the mission. However, be warned: on most missions, it only takes one sabotage to get the entire mission to fail. The spies want the missions to fail, as they win when three missions are sabotaged. The rebels, on the other hand, want the missions to succeed, so they want to not allow spies on the missions.

The missions are proposed by leaders, who are the players. Both rebels and spies may be leaders during the game. Every mission, the leader makes a proposal, containing the proper number of players (this may range between two and five, or larger). However, the proposal doesn't automatically go through, instead, it's put through a majority vote with all of the players; everyone has a say in whether the mission goes or not.

When the mission goes, all the rebels on the mission submit a support via PM. All of the spies on the mission also make a submission via PM, however, they have to choose whether or not to sabotage. Sometimes it is advantageous for them to sabotage, other times, it is not.

There are also other rules to the game. Most notably, players may not communicate with each other outside of the game thread unless specified by the mod. Moderators often have their own individual rulesets dealing with other violations. In general, out of thread discussion, editing or deleting posts, quoting mod PMs, and personal attacks are illegal.

How to not violate the rules
First off, don't commit any of the major no-nos. That means that you can never quote a mod PM or discuss the game out of the thread. This is grounds for an immediate modkill. If you're a spy and you need to secretly relay information to your fellow spy, you can try bread crumbing (see below).

Instead of editing a post, you can EBWOP (edit by way of post). Don't use colors in general, because you may accidentally use a reserved one. Don't spam the thread up either, this gets mods annoyed at you and thus more prone to giving you warnings.

Lastly, be active, or you will be replaced.

Playing Tips
Here, I've compiled a list of playing tips from experienced players on the Resistance forum, our SEs and ICs.

General Playing Tips
These are agreed upon by most of the Resistance Community. They were made in the Resistance Theory Discussionundefined.
 * Always put yourself on the mission as the leader. As a rebel, it's a guaranteed support, and as a spy, it's a guaranteed sabotage.
 * It's not advantageous to have multiple spies on the mission, as a double/triple-sabotage can give a lot of information to the Resistance in future missions.
 * Do not use math in Resistance. Period. Trying to compute probabilities will not give helpful results as there is a lot of information in the game that is impossible to account for in your computations.
 * Analyze the posts of other players carefully. This can allow you to pick out who the spies and the rebels are.
 * When replacing in to a game, read the entire thread to see what is going on.
 * A player's posts are generally not enough to incriminate them.
 * Read the rules carefully.

WIFOM: What is it?
WIFOM. You hear that term being tossed around a lot, but just what is it? WIFOM stands for Wine In Front of Me. What this means is there are two possible things you can believe, and one of them is completely wrong. It’s similiar to reverse psychology. Let me give you an example:

Let’s say Person A says the following: “I thin Bob is a spy.” Well, some people may say that Person A is a rebel, because he made a typo. Spies would look over their post to make sure they didn’t say anything bad. However, this is WIFOM because a spy can also make a typo if they wanted to.

So WIFOM is basically anything both factions would do. This doesn’t make an argument invalid, it just makes arguments not 100% certain. There are still strong and weak arguments. Let’s go with another example, this time, from an actual game:

In The Resistance Game XV, pandabear10 proposed the following mission for Mission 4, which needed two sabotages: {ZombieNine, Xinyan, checkmatetang, _ComputerNerd12_, e_is_cool}undefined.

The mission was everyone not on Mission 3. As background information, Mission 2 and 3 had the same people in it, but Mission 2 succeeded, and Mission 3 failed with one sabotage. pandabear10 was widely suspected at this point, and the rebels already had two missions. So the rebels did not know if the mission has two spies or not. The rebels can either choose to believe Mission 2 had a failed breadcrumb and that the current mission is safe, or that pandabear10 was the only sabotager of Mission 3 and the current mission is not safe. So the rebels finally made the decision of believing that Mission 2 had a failed breadcrumb, and it turns out that pandabear10 proposed a mission that would succeed.

Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are bits of information hidden in your posts that you use to communicate, usually with other fellow spies. Usually, this involves who will support and who will sabotage a mission with multiple spies on it. Here is an example of a breadcrumb: “If I sabotaged this mission, which I won’t, then you can just propose a mission without me on it. But I know I’m a rebel.”

The breadcrumb is in the part which says “If I sabotaged this mission, which I won’t,” which implies the person saying will not sabotage the mission, which means the other spy on the mission will sabotage.

Now, let’s use a real game example. In Game IX, Royalreter1 said that he was supporting the mission.

“Oops darn I didn't submit again -_-

Ok well since noone has provided any good evidence against doing so I'm supporting ”undefined

In the very next post, he pretends that by support, he meant accept.

“EBWOP: Wait shoot accepting darn so tired T_T”

This breadcrumb meant that he is going to support and the other spy on the mission would sabotage.

There is an art to breadcrumbing. I will not reveal any of my breadcrumbs (yet) because I may have to use them in the future. However, in order to make breadcrumbs, try to be creative. And in order to catch breadcrumbs, look for key words and phrases. Be careful when someone uses the word “support” or “sabotage” in a post.

Analysis
As a rebel, you want to help out and try analysing posts to figure out who may or may not be a spy. Figuring out if someone is a spy takes a lot of experience, especially if it is on a forum, as people can take as long as they want to say something. With this, you mainly just want to go with your gut. People who bandwagon are usually spyish. However, people who stand out may or may not be spyish. And, it is also important to distinguish newbieness or spyiness. It is often better to find spyish posts than it is to find rebelish posts. Here are examples of posts that are spyish and rebelish.

Spyish: “I don’t know if I like this mission, but if everyone else likes it, I’ll accept it.”

Rebelish: “I don’t care if everyone wants me off my own mission, I’m still going to put myself on my mission.”

Spyish: “Why can’t I put myself off the mission?”

You will be attacked.
OK, first off, don't be scared if you come under fire. In fact, when put under fire, you need to be able to put up a good solid defense based off evidence that you've been helping the rebels. One of the worst things you can do is be scared and not really have a real defense. This just makes you look like a spy, because spies don't help the rebels, and if you can't show that you're helping the rebels, then you seem like a spy. This is one of the biggest points that I can make about Resistance.

You may need to attack others.
An attack on a person, formally speaking, is when you look over and analyze all of their posts, to show why they seem like a spy. Don't be scared of offending them, you're flat-out accusing them. In doing so, you are helping the rebels, which gets you on missions.

Don't sit back and let others do all the work.
This makes you look like a spy, because spies don't want to help rebels, and not pulling your weight doesn't help the rebels. 'Neff said.

Keep trying.
Even if accused, a rebel will never give up. If you're giving up, you're doing something wrong. You should never stop trying to contribute to your faction, namely, the rebels. If you're a spy and you're caught out, act like a rebel and keep contributing. Even when you're accused and not able to get on any missions, you can still help out.

Be active.
Inactive rebels can't contribute. No contribution means that you can't find the spies. Not being able to find the spies means that they'll sabotage missions and win easily. It also allows the spies to blend in. Put up a fight, be active. Plus, if you're inactive, you might be replaced.

Read past games.
I can't stress this enough. Reading a past game is huge. It allows you to get a feel for the game, and possibly learn about how other players in your game tend to play.

Don't get replaced.
Just don't. You lose all the work you've put into the game, and you'll have to go through the whole queue again. It wastes time when you get replaced.

Keep playing, and have fun!
My first game was a disaster. I basically got caught as a spy... while being a rebel. It was only near the end of the game where people started realizing I was a rebel, and by then, it was too late. I was tempted to quit, but I stuck it out. Why? Because the game is fun. I signed up for another game shortly afterwards, and saw a huge improvement in my play. Sticking it out is worth it, and it sets you apart from the people who quit.

Lastly, have fun! If you're not having fun, then why even bother playing? It says it in the rules, and I'm saying it here.

Tips from checkmatetang
Basically, breadcrumbs can change the whole landscape of a game. As a spy, BCs can be a risky business, but a good spy should always know how to breadcrumb. Breadcrumbs can send important messages, often about actions on missions. As a spy, try to find creative way to encrypt a message, but not so obscure that no other spy will pick up on it. On missions with more than 1 spy, both rebels and spies should be aware for breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbing is an art involving lots of creativity and the ability to know your spy partners. For example, people who have been spies together before will breadcrumb and send messages better. Sometimes, people can even breadcrumb just through their personality (see one of earliest games with iPro and chao), so always be aware for hidden messages.

Examine previous games to see ways to breadcrumb, but do not use the exact ideas if you are a spy. Overused breadcrumbs are things usually involving using the words "support" and "approve" interchangeably, so do not use such terms blatantly if you want a successful BC.

Finally, don't be over paranoid. Breadcrumbs, yes, do occur, but don't call everything a breadcrumb. Do a sanity check. Would this really be a BC?

Tips from RTG
Remain active. (I'm totally one to talk about that XD)